SecondIron's Blog

Sharpening Iron to Live Second

How Scrivener Helped Me Win My First NanoWrimo

For some you may be thinking what the heck is Scrivener, better yet what is NanoWrimo. As a writer they are indispensable ways to write your first novel or even fiftieth. Let me start by saying I am tired, worn out and whooped from competing in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)  a writing competition the entire month of November. I had to rely on some incredible bloggers to guest blog for me over the month as I wrote my first novel. OK well sort of novel, I wrote 50,350 words in a month and compiled it into a story. Is it finished? Not really, it is 50k more words written of my first novel than I would have had if I did not participate.  I struggled through fear, extreme mood swings, emotional turmoil and sheer exhaustion yet I kept writing. I wrote in the morning, lunchtime and night, words consumed me for days on end. I had been told for years that I needed to tell my story, I cannot claim the words I wrote to be my story per se, yet they are fiction inspired and based on truth like many books would be better to claim to be. Whether the work actually will make it to print remains to be seen, at least for public consumption. However without Scrivener it is quite likely is simply would be a bunch of words making little real sense. I purchased a license to Scrivener and even became an affiliate as I felt the software was made […]