develop a scene for your novel with scapple

Scapple_flowScapple comes from good stock: it is produced by the folk at Literature and Latte, who brought us Scrivener, a writer’s best friend (after inspiration and momentum). Scapple is a free–form note–taking app. It allows you to type anywhere on the page, and notes can be connected by arrows.

Hm, a mind–mapping app, you say. Not quite, since you can use Scapple without relying on any central idea, linkages or hierarchies. It is more of a brainstorming, content development app. I use Scapple to develop scenes for my novel. Let me show you what I mean.

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resilience update #2: back to school

My big news over the past month is that I have attended Euan Mitchell’s Digital Makeover course organised by Writers Victoria at The Wheeler Centre. The 12–hour program was spread over four weeks and I found the course both comprehensive and stimulating. Euan gave us an overview of self–publishing and then taught us practical skills for formatting e–books and uploading them on Smashwords and Amazon’s Kindle. It was a fantastic course, ranging from purchasing ISBNs to marketing your work. Do not despair if you’ve missed the course: Euan’s immense practice wisdom can be found in Your book publishing options (2014). A fantastic resource, especially for Australian authors. Check out Euan’s website for details.

Meanwhile I keep hammering away at my novel. I am up to 63,000 words now (~58% into my first draft). Joy. Bliss. And yes, I intend to put Euan’s teaching into practice. I am planning to publish two short stories later this month. Check back here for details or on my brand new author’s page on Facebook.