My New Best Writing Buddy

Writers have many tools, some of which are like trusted friends: a thesaurus, a computer/laptop, Spellcheck...

I have found a new one that I just want to hug:

 
Yes, it's a book; not a new software program, or an app, or anything downloaded. I'm writing a story that travels through almost 400 years of history. I wanted to include both momentous and unnoteworthy historical events. Trying to Google history decade or year by year would have taken too long. I remembered my son had a book that traced history. Actually, he had two. Not only could I get all the basic information I needed on any time period or event in history quickly through the index, BUT! The one book, The Times, edited by Richard Overy, IT HAS A TIMELINE.

It shows all the events from 700 BC, from development of simple farming to creation of major works of art and music, to every war.  At a glance, I can scan all the continents and see what was happening at any one time across the globe. There are maps and diagrams and charts, too.

For a novel about time travel, or which spans decades, centuries, or several millennia, this book is a gold mine- even though it's old school. I'll bet it's even quicker and easier to use than any computer program or Google, too.

My son no longer wanted the books, so they go on my reference shelf, adored once more. I have a lot of plans for those two. Stay tuned.

Char

What I Hate About Writing

Yep, I'm going to rant. You know, writing's not the glamorous job people think it is. Here are the 5 Things I Hate Most About Writing:

Photo courtesy of Pexels, Mohamed Abdelgaffar

1. Microsoft Word and every other word processing program. They are written by geeks, and therefore, there are always glitches, or rather, stupid things that makes writers and other non-geeky people yank out their hair because IT MAKES NO SENSE. Take headers. You can insert them, but it isn't that simple if you want page numbers in a certain place and a different first page and a title. I have spent the last half hour trying to get the page numbers on my sci fi manuscript to make sense. Why does it stop halfway through the document and then start over? I did not click on a box for that. Grrrrrr. And EVERY PROGRAM IS DIFFERENT. I don't want to learn another stupid, doesn't-make-sense program. I won't live long enough.

2.  I hate when critiques give you completely opposite advice. "Cut this character." "I love this character!" "Less dialog." "More dialog." How can I reconcile all this? Granted, some opinions hold more weight, like from an editor or agent, versus someone who hasn't published their first book...but readers know good stuff (it's why only editors and academics like James Joyce....).

3.  I hate when I make revisions- and the manuscript is WORSE. Do I throw out both manuscripts and start over? Do I try to fix one of them? Uggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

4.  I hate when I have an idea, and I get the story written, but someone (i.e. editor, agent, crit group) says "I loved the premise sooooo much! But not the rest of the story."  *Bangs head against wall.

5.  When I have too many ideas to ever write them all in my lifetime because I'm busy fighting with the damn word processing software or revisions. You really don't know what you're going to miss...

Okay. Rant over. But I still haven't figured out the stupid headers.

Char