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QUESTION: Preparing for Round 3

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jennifer.quail View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote jennifer.quail Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 May 2019 at 2:40pm
Originally posted by Random Random wrote:

Originally posted by jennifer.quail jennifer.quail wrote:

• 1 copy of Scrivener for Mac OS X or Windows from Literature and Latte (valued at US $45).  Tailor-made for long writing projects, Scrivener provides everything need to craft your first draft. Used by best-selling novelists, screenwriters, lawyers, students, journalists and more, Scrivener brings together tools familiar to writers everywhere in new and exciting ways.


Oh!  There's a better way (than Word) for this, asks the guy with a copy of FD11 that only gets used during NYCM screenwriting challenges?

For $45 this is worth a try.  Now I have to wonder why I never bothered to look before...probably because I'm a Luddite.  Or old.  Or all of the above.

Eh, I'm totally uninterested in the software prizes, as I guarantee I will never use them (I got a $20 copy of Scrivner and never bothered getting it off  my old laptop.) WAY too much crap to dink around with and it will all have to end up in RTF or DOC at the end of the day anyway. If I did screenplays it might be worth the effort for the easier formatting, though. 


Edited by jennifer.quail - 01 May 2019 at 2:43pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Random Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 May 2019 at 3:38pm
Originally posted by jennifer.quail jennifer.quail wrote:

Eh, I'm totally uninterested in the software prizes, as I guarantee I will never use them (I got a $20 copy of Scrivner and never bothered getting it off  my old laptop.) WAY too much crap to dink around with and it will all have to end up in RTF or DOC at the end of the day anyway. If I did screenplays it might be worth the effort for the easier formatting, though. 


Prizes?  First you have to win something.  I'm expecting my next NYCM writing task to fall sometime in July; last year I had to skip Flash Fiction, this year I'm looking forward to my first attempt.  Okay, I've won a couple prizes from Woodsmith magazine, including the Grand Poobah prize, but neither of those were for writing.

If all I wanted was a way to bang out text I could use vi.  I'm interested for the organization and, oh by the way, it's not Microsoft, which is good for a few points as well.  I'm tired of juggling data on my large project, and getting it all in one place is worth the price of admission.

Apart from which there are a few stories I did for NYCM that might get revisited if time allows, and this seems like a good place to keep everything needed to do that together.  Apparently people  here perform some strange ritual called "publishing", and that has a certain appeal.  Getting paid for something I actually enjoy?  Cool!

Half tempted to use it at work for all the policies and procedures; I could do global searches and find things easier. 

Now if only I could believe the habit of using two spaces between sentences is actually bad.  Compared so some of the other silliness I see in print that seems as harmless as it gets.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 May 2019 at 4:48pm
Originally posted by RichmondRoad RichmondRoad wrote:


Most importantly, though ... I am horrified to think that I may have caused any offence and apologise unreservedly if I have done so.

Oh my!! No worries! I wasn't offended! You raise an interesting issue, and I think it's a point that has merit for discussion. 

I definitely write for the contest in the sense that they assign the promps (especially the genre). It goes without saying I'd never write... I don't know... political satire if the judges weren't asking me to. So I think there's a beauty in this contest that we wind up writing something we'd never write otherwise, and it might indeed be very well written! Smile In some ways, I try to give the judges what they want, but I'd never be able to write or submit something that didn't ring true to my inner world. Interesting topic indeed! 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote awayatpost Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 May 2019 at 5:54pm
Originally posted by RichmondRoad RichmondRoad wrote:

Oh, goodness. I certainly was not trying to ‘accuse’ anyone of anything - and I certainly intended no offence.

Most importantly, though ... I am horrified to think that I may have caused any offence and apologise unreservedly if I have done so.


I wasn't grumpy with you per se. I was surprised (and made grumpy) earlier in this thread to be told I was cheating because I said I think about a potential story frame before the 3rd round, and I read your message as piling on. But you weren't, so all's fine.

Actually, I find people's discussion of process fascinating, and wish they'd say more about prep, however defined. Mine is extremely neurotic. I have a complete terror of the blank page, so I always spend some time before writing anything creating either a frame for the story's shape, with some jottings about themes, or a sort of "scaffold" for the opening -- the backstory, or what happens right before the story. Most of the time, I don't end up using any of the scaffold at all. (And re-reading them later, I'm not surprised -- I rarely have a clue what I meant.) But for me, writing about writing somehow helps me focus and makes the act of finding the story more like easing into the water rather than jumping off the diving board.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Seacore Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 May 2019 at 6:48pm
I'm interested in the software, and I'm considering purchasing it outright or at least playing with something like One Note instead of Word.

My main project is an urban fantasy novel, in which there's a bunch of magical rules, a few different realms, characters, hierarchies and stuff. Tabbed pages and notes would make all of that a lot easier to keep straight.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote jennifer.quail Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 May 2019 at 7:47pm
Originally posted by Random Random wrote:


Prizes?  First you have to win something.  I'm expecting my next NYCM writing task to fall sometime in July; last year I had to skip Flash Fiction, this year I'm looking forward to my first attempt.  Okay, I've won a couple prizes from Woodsmith magazine, including the Grand Poobah prize, but neither of those were for writing.

If all I wanted was a way to bang out text I could use vi.  I'm interested for the organization and, oh by the way, it's not Microsoft, which is good for a few points as well.  I'm tired of juggling data on my large project, and getting it all in one place is worth the price of admission.

Apart from which there are a few stories I did for NYCM that might get revisited if time allows, and this seems like a good place to keep everything needed to do that together.  Apparently people  here perform some strange ritual called "publishing", and that has a certain appeal.  Getting paid for something I actually enjoy?  Cool!

Half tempted to use it at work for all the policies and procedures; I could do global searches and find things easier. 

Now if only I could believe the habit of using two spaces between sentences is actually bad.  Compared so some of the other silliness I see in print that seems as harmless as it gets.

I understand WHY that annoys editors, as they have to go in and change it, but it's such a hard habit to break when you learned on typewriters!

I can save a document with the important parts (Shunn: margins, double-space, TNR font as everyone wants either that or Courier but some don't want Courier, indents not tabs, my info in the corner, no headers as 99% of places don't want them and some actively hate them because they ARE a hassle to strip) and that's...really, what else is there for stories beyond putting in text?  My only eccentricity is I really prefer WordPerfect, but the comment/track changes function in Word is really popular with some editors and not compatible if you open it in another program. I found Scrivner just full of extraneous stuff I have no use for since an editor will do the layout they want, and I don't need 6000 notes or outlines and only handwrite any I do (not many; I don't take notes for shorts, and the more I outline a book-length work the less likely I will ever touch it again.) 

If I had to work the day of Round 3 I'd totally get through. Since I have it off I'll bomb out this round. That's just how it always works. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote chrissie0707 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02 May 2019 at 1:29pm
Okay, party people. I went back through the Official Rules and Participation agreement (instead of doing the work I SHOULD be doing) and found the following:

17. Preparations - The ONLY work that may take place in connection with the Contest prior to the date and time of the genre, Subject and Character announcements in each challenge, is the preparation, execution, and submission of required documents to NYC Midnight Movie Making Madness, LLC.

I do apologize to anyone who may have felt attacked by a prior comment made regarding story prep going into the third round. It wasn't meant to be one. But at the same time, I have a hard time feeling that it's in the spirit of the competition to prepare story outlines specifically for a round before the prompts come out, and it is stated here in the rules that no work should be done for the contest before the prompts are released.

As writers, OF COURSE we are all constantly thinking of characters and stories, and are inspired by the things we see and hear on a daily basis. But we shouldn't be specifically prepping anything story- or character-related for the third round prior to 11:59PM EST on May 17.

I wish everyone the best!

(Is anyone else getting twitchy waiting for results???)
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Random Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02 May 2019 at 2:04pm
Originally posted by chrissie0707 chrissie0707 wrote:

Okay, party people. I went back through the Official Rules and Participation agreement (instead of doing the work I SHOULD be doing) and found the following:

17. Preparations - The ONLY work that may take place in connection with the Contest prior to the date and time of the genre, Subject and Character announcements in each challenge, is the preparation, execution, and submission of required documents to NYC Midnight Movie Making Madness, LLC.

(Is anyone else getting twitchy waiting for results???)


I'm creatively deciding whether or not I care about two spaces between sentences.  I'm also going to pack a laptop this weekend, and I'm sure it will be very artfully included.  Otherwise I refuse to worry about a problem that hasn't happened yet, so no, not even a little twitchy.

I'm far more concerned about the plane arriving too late to catch the train that will take us to our automobile.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote jennifer.quail Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02 May 2019 at 7:44pm
Any outline would inevitably be blown out of the water by the setting (or object in flash. The worst I've gotten so far? Thermostat.)

I'm BORED waiting for results. I have other stuff I could be working on but I'd love to know if I have to worry about this or not. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Seacore Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02 May 2019 at 8:00pm
Furious Fiction starts their monthly flash contest in a few hours.

I don't quite know why I'm advertising it to a room full of strong competition, but there I went.
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