Yesterday while Andrew was using the home office to work, I took the laptop into the kitchen and sat at the table with it. I pondered what to do on it.

Should I surf YouTube?

Should I work on my YouTube channel Life Lessons From Books?

Should I write a short story?

What?

I decided to download Scrivener and learn this writing software program by undertaking its tutorial and learning it as if I were writing a short story on it.

In all honesty, I think I was procrastinating from writing. The reason is that writing daunts me sometimes. As much as I love it, there’s another part of me that fears what comes with it.

The “added” unmentionable extras.

I see many authors having to build a website, use social media channels and do their promotions for their writing. I see them using different tools and programs, being offered advice by others on what, how and when to do their writing. Ultimately though, the result is that no writing gets done. Lots of people complain they don’t have time or that it isn’t fun anymore because you have to create the engine around getting your writing “out there”.

All of a sudden, what should be an enjoyable creative endeavour becomes hard work.

You see, that’s my problem. I don’t like this idea that if you want to write, you need to also have some platform to launch and sell it to the world. I don’t buy this new way of selling books through your own followers or that publishing houses look at your followers or subscribers before judging whether they’ll take a chance on you.

It’s all BS if you ask me.

I like the process of writing but I don’t like all the “other” stuff that comes with it and sooner or later, someone somewhere is going to ask me the following questions:

“Why do you write if you’re not going to publish or promote it?”

“How will you get your writing out there?”

“Why don’t you get on social media, build a following and then promote it to them?”

*Yawn*.

You see? It always comes down to the same formula of flogging your creative endeavours and creating a business around it.

What if you don’t want that?

I don’t have a problem with the writing. I regurgitate much of it in my handwritten journals or here on this blog. I also use Apple Notes to type out short stories on the go. I also have Google Docs for long form. My problem is that my writing is…. everywhere and no where at once. I need to calm my monkey brain and just sit and write a FULL story from start to finish.

Worst of all, I scare myself into thinking about this “other stuff” rather than just throwing caution into the wind and buckling down to just….write.

Without the paralysis by analysis.

So I had heard about Scrivener being the tool of choice for writers so I downloaded a Free Trial to see how I could use it and if it’s worth my while.

After downloading it onto the laptop, I spent a couple of hours going through all the functions of the program. It seemed relatively straightforward to use but the function I liked was how you can clear your screen completely so that you don’t have the distraction of clicking anywhere else in the program; and the Compile function.

The Compile button does just that. It takes all your chapters and pulls them together into a formatted book with one click. There’s also an option for different script templates if you’re a script writer.

I remember when I was writing for the two books on Microsoft Teams: A Manager’s Guide to Communication and Collaboration and Gourmet Teamwork the one factor that helped me write was the draft was formatted to look like an actual book. That meant that as you wrote, you could see the chapter and book layout immediately. I’m someone who likes to see how the words, spaces, quotes, footnotes and references look on the screen, it made writing easier for me.

Scrivener, allows for this to happen (although you need to compile it in the end). If you were to use a Google Document or even a Microsoft Word book template, you can see this already on the screen. The Google Document is free but for Microsoft, you may need a licence which is about the same cost of the Scrivener licence. I guess what you’re paying for is that Scrivener is specifically designed for authors and scriptwriters and the layout is less for word processing like the former programs.

This morning I spent a couple of hours writing to practice using Scrivener and wrote about 1500 words, a short chapter however, I’m not happy with how I write. I don’t think I’ve found “my voice” yet when it comes to fiction.

I can start the chapter with no issues but there comes a point where it starts to fizzle out. I’ve lost interest.

Having Scrivener allows you to plan out your entire project before hand and I believe I need to do this before hand by using the ‘Corkboard’ function which is similar to the palm card approach. I need to create all the Characters and their back stories, the Settings, the Problem, the Journey and the Resolution BEFORE I start writing.

Once I have all that, the writing should be pretty quick for me – and it would mean I could then just allow the creative flow to happen. In some way, I’m minimising the times I would let my brain fall back into that analysis stage – do it all up front and before any actual creative writing – then go wild.

Let’s see how I go.

(I’m thinking of doing a Creative Writing Course through the Australian Writers Centre to help me along but once again, I’m analysing it too much and beginning to make excuses such as it’s too expensive ($450) when I need to buy a dishwasher or bring in an electrician to fix some lighting or I need a new golf putter more. Maybe I need to also buy a subscription for Grammarly too….ARGH! See? It’s never-ending…the way I think will be my downfall.