The Evernote Conversation

Blogland,

A couple things to talk about today.

Friday I worked at a different store than usual. You know, doing the right thing and helping out. Anyway, I went in early to get some writing done, just like I do at my store.

The typical crap happened. I spent an hour and a half or so ignoring my novel. I checked Facebook, wrote half a blog, and researched schools. While all that is happening a lady sits down at the computer bar one chair down from me.

I know her from when I used to pull shifts at that store often, and I know that she’s currently preparing to self-publish a young adult novel.

Anyway, I open up Scrivener and get ready to write, and she immediately starts talking. She turns to me and says, “I tried to use Evernote, I just can’t get into it.”

Now, I’m pretty confused. I’m somewhat computer stupid, and have no idea what Evernote is. I politely correct her and say that I’m actually using Scrivener.

She rolls her eyes a little and says, “Its all the same thing.”

Now I’m intrigued, because Scrivener’s awesome, and if there’s something out there like it, I’d much like to check it out. Through a quick conversation I learn that she doesn’t know anything about Evernote, but that she has it on her phone and doesn’t use it.

So, I start bragging about Scrivener. I tell her all the awesome features and functionalities. She tells me about her “process” and how she has all these separate binders for each story and how organized she is for her rewrites and research.

I promptly tell her that I do all that too. Except all mine’s in Scrivener, and only my edits and final copies make it into hard copy binders.

Now she’s the one intrigued.

I brag some more and open up multiple projects I’m working on. I show her the Kevin Foxx novel because I have a “To Do” list created on that one, and there’s much more content as far as research and character development. I show her the “Cork Board” view and all the fancy color coding. An obsessive compulsive dream.

Then I show her the trilogy I have outlined. There’s some content in there. An old short story, where the entire idea came from, and a twenty page script that I created for my screenwriting class.

Then I show her Vessels. Compared to the others, it’s a bit sad. But that’s because I’ve been too busy writing to bother with the bells and whistles that Scrivener offers.

By the end of my little tour, she’d written down the software name, learned about NaNoWriMo, and I’d given her my contact info to start a writing group.

Productive Friday, and it wasn’t even 3 yet!

But, I also didn’t get any writing done. I’d talked about it enough, but didn’t get a chance to do any.

So, yesterday I started chapter 9, and finished my session at 1,700 words. Pretty good progress and was impressed with the content.

This morning I remembered the Evernote conversation, and looked it up. I still think Scrivener is the best, but Evernote does have a mobile component and is apparently fantastic for organizing outlines and research. The article I read suggested using both softwares in conjunction with each other. But, I’m not much of an outliner, or all that well organized, so I’ll just stick with what I’ve got.

Don’t fix it if it isn’t broken.

But, the real gem I got from the article, was really just a side note from the author. He mentioned that for most publishers the standard is 250 words per page, in a trade paperback.

This is a great number to have! It allows me to check how many (book) pages my manuscript is, instead of just Microsoft Word pages.

Now, I’ve just finished chapter 9. It capped off at 2,284 words, rounding the novel to a nice sounding 21,018. Divide this all up by the magical 250, and I’m at 84 pages! I still have another nine chapters to write, so it’s quite possible that the manuscript will land somewhere around the 200 page mark, which is beyond exciting to me!

That is by far the largest book I’ve written, and I couldn’t be more excited to hurry up and get it done. Also, I’ve already got more ideas for details and more character building to inject into chapters once the book is finished.

Ultimately, I’m feeling ridiculously good about my novel right now!

Keep an eye out, I plan on posting a segment from the novel on here later!

Much Love,

BZ