After seven-and-a-half years of writing Get Well Soon’s main narrative in the present tense, I’ve decided I don’t like present tense writing. That is, I don’t like the I do this, then this, then this happens etc. journalistic style. I’m not going to go trawling through the SEVENTY-THREE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-FOUR words I’ve written so far, and convert everything into past tense. But I will re-tune things; use fewer verbs, a bit more description of what just happened, and so on. This will all be part of a re-write that would happen anyway. Anyway. Perhaps - no, definitely more importantly, I may have finally found a way to tell my story. Although it’s all real-life stuff that really happened, there’s a significant difference between recounting a series of events and telling a story. Yes, life is, essentially, one thing after another, and during my year in hospital it was reduced to a succession of tiny occurrences, details and observations, and at first I thought I’d be able to simply present a stream of vignettes, and that might have worked - for a few pages, maybe even a whole chapter or two. Inspiration came from an unlikely place. I bought an ebook, China Miéville’s Perdido Street Station, which turned out to be corrupted. It wasn’t unreadable - the corruption took the form of occasional repetition of the preceding 50-150 pages. After a while I became familiar with the book’s structure (it occasionally shifts POV and tense) such that I could predict where the odd repetitions would begin, and find my way past them. And in being forced to look at the construction of chapters and parts, I began to see how I could herd all my vignettes (or “bits” - 216 of them so far) into A STORY! And now, once again, it’s time to big up Scrivener. It’s a program, not a person - a writing program. What? Word? Word? Scrivener is to Word what Citizen Kane is to any Adam Sandler film except Punch Drunk Love. If I hadn’t bought Scriv I would have given up on Get Well Soon years ago. Actually Fifty First Dates and The Wedding Singer are quite nice. But that’s probably because they have Drew Barrymore in them. But they’re not Citizen Kane are they? Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is: Scrivener! Rearranging 216 “bits” into some semblance of a novel (the practical aspect of it anyway) is click’n’drag child’s play with Scriv. I’ve mentioned this before, but because I can’t stick Post-It notes hither and yon (unlike Will Self, whose writing room (photographed by Phil Grey) that is, up there), shuffle pages, or draw flowcharts on a whiteboard, I need another method of marshalling my tropes (I’m inclined to change that, just because trope is such a wanky word. But no, I’ll leave it, and put a pound in the wanky word box.) and Scriv provides that method. Basically, if you’re writing anything long- or even medium-form (a dissertation, say, or even a long essay), it’s essential. I’m no tech geek; I’m writing this on an eight year old PowerBook, and although I’ve had a smartphone for almost a year, it was free, and I haven’t downloaded a single app. I’m not even on Facebook. But Scrivener is the nuts. Here, see for yourself.

After seven-and-a-half years of writing Get Well Soon’s main narrative in the present tense, I’ve decided I don’t like present tense writing. That is, I don’t like the I do this, then this, then this happens etc. journalistic style.

I’m not going to go trawling through the SEVENTY-THREE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-FOUR words I’ve written so far, and convert everything into past tense. But I will re-tune things; use fewer verbs, a bit more description of what just happened, and so on. This will all be part of a re-write that would happen anyway.

Anyway.

Perhaps - no, definitely more importantly, I may have finally found a way to tell my story. Although it’s all real-life stuff that really happened, there’s a significant difference between recounting a series of events and telling a story. Yes, life is, essentially, one thing after another, and during my year in hospital it was reduced to a succession of tiny occurrences, details and observations, and at first I thought I’d be able to simply present a stream of vignettes, and that might have worked - for a few pages, maybe even a whole chapter or two.

Inspiration came from an unlikely place.

I bought an ebook, China Miéville’s Perdido Street Station, which turned out to be corrupted. It wasn’t unreadable - the corruption took the form of occasional repetition of the preceding 50-150 pages. After a while I became familiar with the book’s structure (it occasionally shifts POV and tense) such that I could predict where the odd repetitions would begin, and find my way past them. And in being forced to look at the construction of chapters and parts, I began to see how I could herd all my vignettes (or “bits” - 216 of them so far) into A STORY!

And now, once again, it’s time to big up Scrivener. It’s a program, not a person - a writing program. What? Word? Word? Scrivener is to Word what Citizen Kane is to any Adam Sandler film except Punch Drunk Love. If I hadn’t bought Scriv I would have given up on Get Well Soon years ago.

Actually Fifty First Dates and The Wedding Singer are quite nice. But that’s probably because they have Drew Barrymore in them. But they’re not Citizen Kane are they?

Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is: Scrivener! Rearranging 216 “bits” into some semblance of a novel (the practical aspect of it anyway) is click’n’drag child’s play with Scriv. I’ve mentioned this before, but because I can’t stick Post-It notes hither and yon (unlike Will Self, whose writing room (photographed by Phil Grey) that is, up there), shuffle pages, or draw flowcharts on a whiteboard, I need another method of marshalling my tropes

(I’m inclined to change that, just because trope is such a wanky word. But no, I’ll leave it, and put a pound in the wanky word box.)

and Scriv provides that method. Basically, if you’re writing anything long- or even medium-form (a dissertation, say, or even a long essay), it’s essential. I’m no tech geek; I’m writing this on an eight year old PowerBook, and although I’ve had a smartphone for almost a year, it was free, and I haven’t downloaded a single app. I’m not even on Facebook. But Scrivener is the nuts.

Here, see for yourself.