Friday, September 25, 2009

Friday Finds!

I have a few things today that aren't really new. In fact, a lot of people have probably seen them before, but they bear linking.

I've known about yWriter for a few years now, and even downloaded and tried it. I couldn't figure it out. The layout and the functions just didn't make sense to me, so I abandoned it and went back to Word.

Now, I have discovered Page Four, which is a similar program, but looks more straightforward and simple. So, I'm going to give that a try.

ADDITION: I have actually tried it now, and I can say that it's a good program, but I'm not sure it's for me. For one thing, an unlimited version costs $39.95 - a perfectly reasonable amount of money, but still a tad higher than I am willing to pay if I can do the same thing elsewhere with software I've already purchased.

It has a very nice system of Notebooks and Pages, and is very nice for organizing the parts of a novel. It also has a few writerly bells and whistles, such as the ability to scan for repetitive words, etc.

However, in the limited version (which is free to use for all time and does not expire) you can only have three notebooks and 20 pages (I'm not sure if that's 20 total or 20 per notebook). I managed to just about fill that to capacity just importing the two novels I'm working on now. I also just felt a little....uncomfortable about working on anything in there, simply because I'm not used to it and what if I lose or destroy my novel?

On the other hand - I think it might serve me very well as a tool to organize research, editing notes, and things like chapter lists.


Author Storm Grant found this useful tool for writers: Wordcounter.com which will tell you the frequency of any word in a body of text.

Sarah Simas posted over at Mama Writers with a Show and Tell style run-down of her organizational tricks when working on a novel.

5 comments:

Val said...

Hi, Elle! You said: "I also just felt a little....uncomfortable about working on anything in there, simply because I'm not used to it and what if I lose or destroy my novel?"

I know just what you mean. I'm a bit of a Luddite myself when it comes to new software. I'm going to check out these other two links, though.

Elle Parker said...

I know I should trust it - it's got some great archiving capabilities, and I'm sure there are archive files I can back up online...but I'm too used to my Word docs, I guess.

The Sara Simas post is especially fun - I LOVE to read about how others organize themselves.

Elle

Sarah Simas said...

Thanks, Elle, for pimpin' my show and tell!

I had a lot of fun writing that post up. I'm a school supply junkie, so organization is my favorite! *heehee* Luvin' back to school clearance sales right now.

I will definitely check out the programs you mentioned in your post. What a great site!

Smile!,
Sarah Simas
The Lovestruck Novice

Elle Parker said...

Hi Sara! I loved that post - I'm big school/office supply junkie myself and mess around a lot trying to find the perfect system for keeping track of all this stuff

Elle

Elle Parker said...

I have to apologize - I guess I need to clean my glasses! I swear I checked several times, and I STILL got Sarah's name wrong! I'm sorry.

I'll fix the post now.

Elle