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My guest today is Patsy Collins - The traveling writer! Patsy and I are hosting a Writers' Workshop Weekend in Hope Cove next March - and there's an early bird offer on this month. Book now to save £20 on the tuition fee. Between now and then, Patsy has a new book out, we are both looking forward to NaNoWriMo, and, today, we're talking about travel and research ...

Today's guest is Kay Kukoyi. You've met Kay before: she was my guest in January 2017 and then again in June 2017. Kay is a huge fan of Scrivener and has used it for several books now: Don’t Hire a Software Developer Until You Read this Book Develop Your Idea! Don’t Buy Software For Your Small Business Until You Read This Book And now Kay Kukoyi has published her fourth book: Entrepreneurial Espresso. I'm most honoured to feature in...

Outlining is best done using the Corkboard in Scrivener Each to their own, but, when I start writing a novel, I like using Scrivener from the outset, for the outlining stage. I know other writers who start on paper and, only when they can see the whole plot, do they start setting up the structure, electronically. And there are other software tools, too. But for me, it's Scrivener from start to finish! One scene...

Anna K Payne My guest today is the author of the newly published Planted Flowers Bible Study Workbook. When did you first start using Scrivener? In 2010, I published the first of my devotional books to CreateSpace using a Word template. It was the worst experience of my life. There had to be an easier way! Then I discovered Scrivener after participating in NaNoWriMo in 2011. Its Compile function promised to make it easy...

Create your world with a Setting Sketch for each location In the same way, as a scriptwriter sets the scene for a film, a novelist needs to invent a world for the cast of characters to inhabit. The choice for each setting within the world of your novel is entirely yours. You could stick close to home using familiar locations. Distant lands could give you the excuse to travel for research purposes. ...

Today's guest is Tad Frizzell, author of Letters to a Perfectionist, released on Kindle this week. Having always been a perfectionist myself, Tad's 22 letters provide much food for thought and - at the time of writing this blogpost - there are 20+ reviewers on Amazon who agree with me: this is a must-read book. When did you start writing, Tad? I have been scribbling out poems all my life, along with some...

Time for casting! One of the fun parts of writing a new novel is casting your characters: giving them names, deciding their hopes and dreams, and identifying their strengths and weaknesses. Everyone needs a secret, and only you will decide what it is and if and when the other characters might discover it. Casting time: Setting up a new character sketch To set up a new character sketch, right click on the Characters folder and select Add /...

Managing the Scrivener workspace boils down to deciding what you want to see while you are working on your manuscript. The Scrivener workspace The basic workspace can be separated into three panes: The Binder on the left The Editing pane in the centre The Inspector on the right What appears within the Editing pane? The choice is Scrivenings (as shown above), or Corkboard, or Outliner. Which one you see is determined by your selection of the...