There are some interesting things going on at Literature & Latte. First, they've released a Windows Beta version of their unique and popular writing software Scrivener, which isn't really news. However, what doesn't seem well-known yet is that on their message boards, a group of folks are playing with an unofficial version for Linux.

If you're really interested in using Scrivener, I urge you to sign up for the Windows Beta and try it out. Use Wine if you're Linux only. Also, see the Linux user thread on L&L's forum. Sign up; help out. Finally, be aware that I do not give any files directly in this post. I only link to files on L&L's forums.

This'll get you started, then once you're up and running head back to L&L's message board for updates.

Installation

I'm going to preface everything here with a quote from L&L's Blog, 13 Sept. 2010:

10. Syncing for iPad, iPhone and Working Externally

There’s been a minor furore over my announcement that we currently don’t have any immediate plans for an iPad version, although an iPad version isn’t ruled out altogether in the long-term (other platforms that Scrivener won’t be coming to any time soon include Google Android, Linux and Commodore 64). But even without a dedicated app, Scrivener 2.0 provides some great ways for you to take your Scrivener documents with you for editing on an iPad or iPhone. (Emphasis mine).

This is all very unofficial. I use Ubuntu 10.10, i386 on my laptop and AMD64 on my desktop, but this information should apply to other distros as well.

Manual (i386 & AMD64)

See the Announcements on the Windows Bug Hunt forum for the latest Beta release. As of this writing, it's 1.3. Download the .zip file for Linux. I assume your download goes to ~/Download.

sudo unzip -d /tmp ~/Download/LinuxScrivenerBeta3.zip
sudo mv /tmp/LinuxScrivenerBeta3/LiteratureAndLatte /usr/local
sudo ldd /usr/local/LiteratureAndLatte/bin/Scrivener
sudo chmod 755 /usr/local/LiteratureAndLatte/bin/Scrivener
sudo rm -r /tmp/LinuxScrivenerBeta3

Packages

randywallace has provided packages on the forum. The latest are available here. He provides deb, rpm, and tgz.

Spell Checking

Spell checking worked for some but not others.

i386

Make sure you have the libaspell and libaspell-dev packages installed. That's it.

AMD64

Not so easy. It appears that Scrivener can't use the 64-bit aspell libraries. But, it also seems that Opera had a similar issue on Ubuntu. Based on the Ubuntu help for Opera, I did the following:

Install libaspell and libaspell-dev from the repositories. This'll put the AMD64 versions on your system.

Download the i386 versions of libaspell and libaspell-dev. If you're not using Maverick, search for your release @ http://packages.ubuntu.com. Again, I assume you downloaded to ~/Downloads.

cd ~/Downloads
dpkg -x libaspell15_0.60.6-4ubuntu1_i386.deb ./libaspell
dpkg -x libaspell-dev_0.60.6-4ubuntu1_i386.deb ./libaspell-dev

You have a choice now. You can install to Scrivener's lib directory:

sudo cp -d ./libaspell/usr/lib/libaspell* /usr/local/LiteratureAndLatte/lib/
sudo cp -d ./libaspell-dev/usr/lib/libaspell* /usr/local/LiteratureAndLatte/lib/

Or you can install to /usr/lib32 (which is what I did):

sudo cp -d ./libaspell/usr/lib/libaspell* /usr/lib32/
sudo cp -d ./libaspell-dev/usr/lib/libaspell* /usr/lib32/

In either /usr/lib32 or /usr/local/LiteratureAndLatte/lib, you should wind up with:

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    936 2010-11-24 16:19 /usr/lib32/libaspell.la
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root     19 2010-11-24 16:19 /usr/lib32/libaspell.so -> libaspell.so.15.1.4
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root     19 2010-11-24 16:18 /usr/lib32/libaspell.so.15 -> libaspell.so.15.1.4
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 603852 2010-11-24 16:18 /usr/lib32/libaspell.so.15.1.4

My original forum post is here.

Install the Tutorial

The Linux zip file is provided without the Tutorial project. Here's how you can add it. This requires an install of the Windows Beta, either in Wine or on Windows box:

1. In the Windows install, go to: C:\Program Files\Scrivener
2. In that directory, you'll find a folder called: Tutorial.scriv
3. Copy that entire folder to the bin directory of your Linux Scrivener install. This might be/usr/local/LiteratureAndLatte/binor /opt/scrivener_beta/bin depending on if you installed from scratch or used one of the packages from @randywallace.
4. Make sure the Tutorial.scriv directory and all its files/subdirectories are owned by root:
   chown -R root:root Tutorial.scriv
5. Start Scrivener, go to Help -> Open Tutorial, and choose a place to save the Tutorial project.

Tutorial.scriv is not distributed in the Linux zip. I assume there's a good reason, so do the above at your own risk.

Well, that's it for now. Enjoy!

None of that is particularly interesting, but they're facts that lay the groundwork for what's been on my mind lately. Every professional writer develops their own flavor of discipline, without which they would be unable to sustain professional standing.  It's actually pretty common among most successful people regardless of profession to develop a habit around their chosen work.  What I've been interested in is how writers measure their progress?

Last term I measured my progress in terms of word count.  It seems reasonable since the publishing industry is largely word count driven.  Every submission guideline includes a word-count limit.  The industry has accepted word-counts attached to novels in each genre.  For instance, horror novels range around 300-400 pages, but an epic fantasy comes closer to 700 pages.

What I found, when I measured word count, was that I spent too much time generating words to reach that count.  It became too easy to wander on the pages, adding words here and there to meet a necessary but arbitrary goal of 500 words per day.  I did pretty well--although Stephen King recommends shooting for at least 1000 per day.  But I had to ditch a lot of it due to the bad behavior that specific goal encouraged.

For this term, I've opted to measure my progress in terms of pages, a page being roughly equal to 250 words.  My goal is to write 4 pages per day, or 1000 words per day to align with King's recommendation.  If you're familiar with On Writing, you'll know that King actually counts a page as 200 words, but for my purpose 4 is as good a stepping stone as 5.  I'll ratchet my goal up another notch next term.

Does it really matter?  I put some thought into this over my break, and these past few weeks have shown my hunch correct.  Yes, I write better when my goal is page count over word count.  I focus better on the story and don't worry at all about producing dense copy.  Before, I would work in extra words.  But now, I can write whole pages of dialog, which tends to be pretty sparse in terms of words per page, and still make my goals.  I just don't care, because a page is a page.

In addition, it helps to remember that word count for a publisher is really a means of estimating number of printable pages.  They take the word count, divide by around 250 (I think this varies), and arrive at page count.  Novelists don't get paid by the word, and I wouldn't want paid that way anyhow.  My goal is to write well-told stories with efficient, emotionally charged language, not drudge on for miles, taxing both the reader and myself by counting every step along the way.

My other read was The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, Volume 20, edited by Stephen Jones.  It's filled with some excellent short horror from 2008, and definitely worth the time.  It's late, I'm tired, so I won't do any sort of review of them, but here's a list of the one's that appealed most to me:

• It Runs Beneath the Surface, by Simon Strantzas
• These Things We Have Always Known, by Lynda E. Rucker (my favorite of the lot)
• Through the Cracks, by Gary McMahon
• The Camping Wainwrights, by Ian R. MacLeod
• The Oram County Whoosit, by Steve Duffy (excellent story in the vein of Lovecraft)
• The New York Times at Special Bargain Rates, by Stephen King
• 2:00 pm: The Real Estate Agent Arrives, by Steve Rasnic Tem

That last one verges on poetic.  It's shorter than this post, a mere 3 sentences, but paints a beautifully horrific picture and punches you in the end.  Loved it!

And now, I'm off to see if I can wrap up some stuff before getting into the groove tomorrow.

I just started reading Old Man's War, by John Scalzi, the reading selection for my January writer's residency.  I've not decided if I'll do any journal posts or not on it, since it's not Horror.  First impressions [2 chapters]: Scalzi makes good use of the CDF contract as a framing device for providing background information to the reader; he does an equally good job of slipping in a space elevator explanation during casual conversation.  Those are just the first two things that came to mind; I am enjoying it as well.

Finally, I've started work on new short story based on the name of a character that I've carried around for a few years.  I didn't mean for it to be a zombie story -- already tried my hand at zombies once -- but... it's a zombie story.

BTW - Beware the Krampus!

I think that to be an effective writer at this sort of thing takes a lot of practice.  I kept thinking of Cormac McCarthy and his breaking of the rules.  I think the challenge put to the reader must be rewarded by the payoff, and in this case, I don't think the payoff was worth it.  A good story, yes, but I think it would have been just as effective told with more conventional grammar and just using the child's point of view.

Anyhow, this little snippet is almost poetry.  It's a great collection of images given in clear, if abrupt, language:

Sky clearing its throat with thunder, picking and dropping ling lightening from immeasurable shoulders.  Rain hushing the world, bowing the trees, pocking earth.  Square building, low, with one wall plastic.

It's what really stands out to me here.  Matheson's use of imagery is overpowering here, which is okay since there's not much other than an intriguiging incident here.  Not even a main character to speak of, nor a clear conflict other than the generic conflict we find in any war.  As a writer, the poetics of this piece really appeal to me, and I think it's a good example of how to work poetic images into narrative.

I started a Master of Arts program in Writing Popular Fiction at Seton Hill University at the end of June.  Kismet - the first day of my first writer's residency was also my birthday.

Anyhow, part of the program involves reading (of course).  And that requires a reading journal.  Perfect use for a blog.

Welcome back, poor little neglected blog.  Welcome back.

Sweeeeet... I'm going back to bed

There's an excellent site - an adventerous woman takes a motorcycle tour of Chernobyl and surrounding areas, including Pripiat. See KIDDofSPEED. It is thought-provoking, saddening, and generally depressing. It provided the example for which I was looking.

After reading the site, I began to wonder if some of the pictures she had could be viewable on google maps. They were. Here are some interesting comparisons.

• Ship Graveyard: KiddOfSpeed vs. GoogleMaps
• Ferris Wheel: KiddOfSpeed vs. GoogleMaps

Also, you can go to wikimapia and search for Chernobyl or Prypiat. There, people have outlined places and you can get a little more infomation.

Check out this YouTube video of Prypiat:

Some of the participants I checked ran way over, some nearing 100,000 words, but when I checked their excerpts, I must say YAWN. Not worth the time. Not one excerpt I read sparked my interested except maybe the one for a piece titled AFTRLYF. To be honest, I only checked people in my region, and maybe, just maybe there's truth to the 700 monkeys for 700 years, that one of these folks has turned out the works of the master himself, but I'd be hard pressed to figure out which one it was!

Long and short, with a writing plan, I've proven to myself that I can still maintain home life, my full time job, and produce sizable and (hopefully) worthwhile works of fiction in a reasonable amount of time. Oh, and the piece I started is only about half done. I wasn't in any hurry to meet the NaNoWriMo goal necessarily because it was in no way indicative of the novel I'm writing.