This is a gritty, crime drama about a man who breaks into safes legitimately who gets drawn into a deadly robbery scheme by a sexy woman and her wacked out crew of misfits.  The story was inspired by a good friend of mine who is a real safe cracker. I was so fascinated by his tools and abilities I created this fictional account of someone who opens safes for frustrated owners who have forgotten their combinations.

If you like crime stories, you’ll enjoy The Safe Cracker. If you want to read more please check out Null Pointer, a novel about a programmer turned amateur sleuth. Now only .99 cents in the Kindle store!

When you are first starting out writing a novel and are not set in your ways, you tend to look closely at how other writers ply their craft. This includes how they structure their novels and what software programs they use. Every writer is different and we all have our own way of doing things. The only way you are going to discover what works for you is to try the methods that others use and see if you like them.

For this post I’m showing screen shots of my actual Work In Progress (WIP), the Space Opera novel, Starveyors. There may be spoilers in the images. If you are a reader and don’t want to have the story ruined for you, perhaps you should skip this post. I’ll do my best to not show critical moments, but if you study these images, you could glean quite a bit about the story. You have been warned.

Scrivener

Many writers have discovered Scrivener and have adopted it as their primary writing tool. I first used it while it was still in beta and realized that the programmer behind it really understood a writer’s needs. There were other Mac based writing programs like Scrivener, but Scrivener was clearly the better of them in my mind. When it finally was available for purchase I began using it for several of my novels.

Scrivener was born on the Mac platform and has now been ported to Windows. The Windows version is slightly behind the Mac in features, but its completely usable and stable. The Windows version has been ported to run on Linux with Wine. Right now its only available as a beta download and expires after a couple of months. So in order to use it on Linux, you have to re-install it periodically. It is also not officially supported by Literature and Latte.

You can get Scrivener for Linux here: http://www.literatureandlatte.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=17933

You can get Scrivener for Windows and Mac here: http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php

The Windows and Mac versions are free for a trial period but once you decide to go with them, the price is only $40.00 USD. Quite the bargain, if you ask me.

Setting Up Scrivener

I’m not going to do a basic Scrivener tutorial in this post. There are many such tutorials available on the web, including some great screen casts on the Scrivener web site. I will assume that you already know your way around the program and are more interested in how I use it to write a novel.

Everyone uses this program in their own way and few of us use all the features so if I fail to mention something that you find critical, tell me about it in the comments and then we’ll all know about it.

Templates

The first thing I do when I start a new novel in Scrivener is create templates for scenes and for character sketches. The scene template is called every time I start a new scene and it has the font that I prefer to write in. That way I don’t have to reset all that for each scene I write.

Scenes are the component parts of a chapter. Chapter One: Scene 1 – the maid finds a body; Scene 2 – the police show up; Scene 3 – Our intrepid detective arrives and discovers a clue. End of Chapter One. In this example it’s pretty clear the order of the scenes. But when you are deep in a novel and the scenes are not always as obviously sequential, it helps to be able to reorder them. Many times each scene is in a different location or takes place at a different time, like our Mystery example.

Scrivener keeps all these scenes as separate files so that you can move them around in whatever order you like. Then it binds them all together in the compile stage to create the linear story that is a proper novel. That’s a different way to go about things than forcing you to write in order, just like the reader reads it. Word and other word processors are linear and less forgiving when you want to switch around the order of your scenes.

The Character Sketch I use is the default one that comes when you start a novel project in Scrivener. I just fill it in and add to it as needed. Same for the Setting Sketch template. Here is a shot of my current templates. All three are under the Template Sheets folder in the Binder – screen left bottom, highlighted. * Click on all images for larger versions.

When you start a new chapter folder and go to add a document, you can then select your Scene Template and its already set up the way you like it. Very convenient.

Character Sketches

A bit more about the Character Sketches. Below is a view of the sketch I started for Pentos, a politician in Starveyors. I don’t have a photo of anyone who looks like Pentos but if I did, I would put it in that black box to the right. Sometimes the Document Notes will have some ideas for scenes with Pentos. Right now it’s blank.

I try and do Character Sketches for all the main characters and all the characters involved in subplots. For a Space Opera novel, this can create a rather large cast. Sometimes I forget character names and or what they do, so these sketches come in handy for quick reference while writing. I have my cast broken into Good Guys, Bad Guys and Silicants. Sometimes I have a Grays folder, for those characters who are not quite good and not quite bad.

Another trick is to use the Keywords feature of Scrivener to hold the character names. I’ve just started to mess with that feature so I can’t speak about it much at this time.

Photos/Maps

There is another folder in the Binder that is for storing Images. I usually create the same folders I used for Character Sketches and add a few more folders for Maps, Characters and Starships. Remember, I write the Space Opera stuff, so sometimes I draw pictures of ships and especially maps.

In the Characters folders I sometimes use images from around the net that I find while browsing. Could be an interesting face or an unusual outfit. This is pretty much just an inspiration art folder. I’m not an artist in real life, but sometimes I pretend I am on my own computer. I’m likely to include doodles I’ve done on pencil and paper in these folders too. Just scan them or take digital pictures of the drawings and slot them into the right folder for inspiration when I’m writing.

The one thing I use the heck out of is a map. Specifically a map of my known universe. The map I use for the Star Trilogy has been handed down to me by the Gods as an old, bitmap rendering in Microsoft Paint. I have used a paper copy of that map forever. Last year I finally recreated it using a vector line based program. As far as maps go it is not very impressive. But when you write about multiple planets and empires in space, you better know where your towel is, I mean map. Here is my shinny new map. Good guys in blue and bad guys in red. Undiscovered or unnamed planets are black.

Scrivener also includes a Places folder where you can include templates for locations. This is really handy in Space Opera as I’m often traveling to many different planets and starships during the course of the story.

Outline 

I’m all about outlining my novels. If I were to pants them, it would take me years to do a single novel. I start with a basic three act structure in a txt file and then throw in plot points. I usually have a main character arc in there to start with and then add in the minor character arcs and subplots as I think of them. Standard story creation stuff.

Before Scrivener I would start an outline in Excel and break it down by chapter. Hitting all the main plot points along the way. Then later on, I would break each chapter down into several scenes. A spreadsheet was useful for this as it let you keep adding or subtracting scenes and chapters as needed.

Scrivener has a built-in outline program and the cool thing about using it over a spreadsheet, aside from the fact that its built into the writing tool, is that you can move your scenes and chapters around as you see fit, much easier than you can in a spreadsheet. In fact you can even view chapters and scenes as note cards and pin them to a cork board and then move them around as necessary.

To be honest, I don’t use it that way at all. I could do without the cork board myself. But the outline is the bee’s knees. To each his or her own. I can see Pantsers really loving the cork board.

Above you see the completed first part of my outline for Starveyors. Since these chapters were written months ago, they are pretty well locked down. So I numbered the scenes sequentially like in a movie script. But further down the outline, where things are more fluid, the scenes are just lettered. Sometimes they are not even in alphabetical order.

When I’m developing the outline I make a point to describe every chapter and scene in the Synopsis area top right of screen. This actually helps you do a decent Synopsis when you are finished. Especially if you make them readable.

I use the Document Notes area in yellow, as a place to jot notes about the scene or chapter so I can remember important bits of plot or character. Every scene has a purpose and sometimes I just write that in the notes area. Hero’s mother dies from wounds sustained by ruthless Sandpeople. Oops, wrong story.

In the General meta data area between the Synopsis and the Notes I just mark scenes as you see in the image. Scene color is blue, First Draft checked and Include in the compile. Nothing unusual there.

I’m going to cut this short here and save the rest for Part Two. This post is already getting a bit long. I blame the screen shots. Anyway, come back for more later.

You’ll have to click on them to make them bigger so you can appreciate the intricate details. This is exactly how I am picturing the Silicant ships and technology in Starveyors. Not at all Borg looking in squares, but just the level of detail that is obviously nano-tech looking. In my story, the Silicants use nano-bots to build all of their tech. These renderings look eerily like what I imagined for the Silicant technology.

This cube is amazingly detailed and even closer to what I imagined than I even realized.

Krzysztof even does landscapes with his Mandelbrot paintings. This is how I picture the XiniX home world to look. Machine designed landscapes across the interior of a Dyson Sphere. The landscape is alive, moving and aware.

Some kind of alien moon or simply another area of the Sphere. I absolutely love it. These are just some of the completely fascinating things you can find when you surf around the internet.

The Path to Self-Publishing Success by Michel Hicks

Let’s Get Digital by David Gaughran

250 Things You Should Know About Writing by Chuck Wendig

The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human by Jonathan Gottschall

The first two books are related to Self-Publishing, something I’m a tad bit familiar with already. So I didn’t get as much out of them as someone who has not been doing his own thing for the past five years. However, I will say that I did enjoy David’s book regardless of how much I already knew. This man’s smart and you should listen to him. Oh, and read his blog too! Did I mention Let’s Get Digital is free on Kindle right now? What are you waiting for?

Chuck’s book is also written by an incredibly smart and experienced writer who gives back far more than he’ll ever take. Read his book, read his blog, learn from he who knows.

Johnathan’s book is my current favorite on my Kindle. I had no idea how deeply human it was to tell stories. Every writer should be required to read this book. I mean we’re not writing for dolphins here, or robots. We’re writing stories for fellow humans and it only makes sense that we as writers should be more familiar with our audience.

Natalia Osiatynska via Compfight

For the past few months my Star Trilogy novels have been selling pretty steady. Nothing to get all excited about, but nothing to sneeze at either. At the same time, free downloads of short stories set in the same universe are dwindling. One would expect a bit of trickle down from those getting the novels, once they realize that there is the equivalent of another whole novel in the dozen or so short stories that I have available on Kindle right now. But that’s not happening.

I can only assume one of two things is going on. First, people buying the novels are not reading them, and therefore not coming back for anything else I’ve written. A distinct and likely possibility. Second, they are reading the Trilogy books and not realizing there are more stories set in the same universe. I have no idea which is happening or whether it’s a bit a both.

I think if you spend more than a minute clicking on the pages of this website you will quickly realize that I have a ton of short stories and an anthology all set in the same universe as the Star Trilogy. But readers are somehow not making that connection. They are also not buying Tyrmia, one of the best novels I’ve written and also set in the Star Trilogy. Somehow I am completely failing these readers who may want more of my stories but are possibly just waiting for me to complete the third novel of the Star Trilogy.

I’ve taken great pains to fill out my universe with many different short stories and all my novels are related to each other, not just the Star Trilogy ones. In fact if you have read Starforgers, for instance, you can get all kinds of added character knowledge about the protagonist if you read the stories in Tales From Ocherva, Volume One. But so far, nobody is following up and reading the anthology.

Either there is a massive miss-communication going on, or people really don’t like the Star Trilogy novels much and just are not interested in reading anything else I’ve written. I’m sure there is plenty of that going on. But I’d really like to know how I can get readers of the Star Trilogy to try the short stories.

Part of the problem with the individual shorts and the anthology too, is that their covers don’t necessarily imply they are related to the Star Trilogy. They still have the Starstrikers Universe logo on them. Maybe that is confusing. I don’t have the time or money to have unique cover art for all the individual shorts, but even if I did, they still need to be tied into the books better. Visually their covers are similar, perhaps a bit too similar.

New versions of the Star Trilogy are being prepped for release soon. I will be including links to the anthology and short stories in the new ebooks, to try and make readers more aware of them. That’s about the only thing I can do right now.

Anyone else have any ideas how I can point interested readers to the short stories?

This week’s free Kindle short story is Ocherva. An origins story about Stellar Ranger Devon Ardel’s first day on the desert moon. If you have read Starforgers, you will be familiar with Devon and her Rangers. This is where Devon’s Devils started.

The story was first published in the anthology Barren Worlds edited by Eric T. Reynolds for Hadley Rille Books.

As lyrics from the song Mahalia Einstein suggest, “If I can just get you to step out of your comfort zone, we would be closer, closer,” you might find this hip-hop/jazz album to be quite entertaining and at times, very poignant if you just give it a try. I was alerted to this new album from CopperWire by following SF author Nnedi Okorafor on Twitter. She helped write some of the back story of the artists who have themed their new album after a space opera.

The Sci-Fi elements in this album are front and center, but they are rooted in some very melodic and beautiful music that I really enjoy. My musical tastes tend to lean more to jazz than hip-hop, but this blend hits all the right notes with me. My only beef with this album is that it’s too short. More please!

Sometimes music puts me into a writing mood and this is one album I reach for when I need to get inspired to write. Thoughtful lyrics throughout that convey universal messages and make you ponder the universe as you chill to the music. I can’t say enough how much I really enjoy the songs on this album, they are fresh, intelligent and fun. I especially love the haunting and melodic voice of Meklit Hadero. Every time she sings my ears perk up and listen closer.

Do yourself a favor and get Earthbound from CopperWire. You won’t regret it and you might just discover a new favorite band.

Those of you who follow this blog, that would be you and you, over there; know that I prefer to use Linux over Windows and Mac operating systems. I’m not alone. Other writer types use Linux, or so I’m told. But we are a rare breed of writer, to say the least.

My preferred distribution of Linux for the past half decade has been Ubuntu. Ubuntu have impressed me over the years with their ability to innovate and bring desktop Linux to a place where anyone can now use it. I rarely have issues with using the OS myself and I’ve gotten to the point where my tolerance for tweaking is lower than ever. I just want my OS to work and get out of my way. At the same time, I’m willing enough to give innovative new features a fair shake to decide whether I like them or not.

Ubuntu has been doing a fair bit of innovating lately with Unity. Many users either turned off the feature or left the distro for more traditional versions of Linux and that’s their option. But loyal Ubuntu users have doubled down and learned the new system, sometimes offering suggestions for improving it. With this latest version of Ubuntu I think we can say that Unity is pretty well polished and integrated. I’m no longer concerned with that aspect of the OS. It’s fine.

The fit and finish of this release is at an all time high. Sure there are little things if you look for them, but you could say that about any OS. For the most part, Ubuntu looks great now and works great too. Job well done by the developers, testers!

My primary writing laptop is an old white MacBook. Apple no longer supports it and refuses to let me upgrade to Lion. Although the hardware is starting to slowly fall apart in places, the little bugger keeps on ticking. So to help extend it’s life even further, I split the hard drive in half and installed the latest Ubuntu on it. Ever since I did this, I’ve been living in Ubuntu land and have never once booted back into Mac for anything.

The 12.4 release of Ubuntu has awesome support for Mac hardware and it runs great on my laptop. I hope that when my MacBook dies, this support is also lauded on the new HP Folio 13, the next laptop in my future.

Here are some screenshots of my desktop under the new Ubuntu. Shown are some of the programs I use on a regular basis. All of them seem to work just fine a week into using the new release.

The top screenshot shows Scrivener running on an older monitor. Notice that the Unity buttons are huge. When you run it on the laptop, the resolution on my MacBook is good enough to allow for the option to shrink the Unity buttons. The result is much more pleasant and gives you more screen real-estate.

This screenshot shows the Twitter client Hotot and the old faithful chat client – Pidgin. Which I much prefer over the default chat client.

This shows my default browser – Chrome. As you can see, when I run it full screen, it pretty much gives me all kinds of real-estate. I like Chrome better on Linux than Mac or Windows. For some reason, it has a smaller memory footprint. Seriously, the Cubs on Tumblr? That service has jumped the shark man.

Here is the new Gimp, showing off it’s single window look. I like. I can’t wait to get some time to play around with the new features in Gimp 2.8. That’s a stock USAF photo of the new F-22. Because I just love airplanes, don’t you know?

This is Geany, a GTK based IDE for programming. I use it when I mess around with Python. I’ve got my son using it now on the HP Mini. He’s been watching the Khan Academy class on beginning programming. Don’t get me started on why Sal Khan is using a Windows only IDE in the video. I mean come on!

Here is Sigil, the Open Source EPUB creator that nobody seems to know about, but that I adore to pieces. I no longer build my own ebooks, but when I did, or when I need to look at one, Sigil is my go-to program.

As you can see, Ubuntu is working just fine for me and the programs I use on Linux. Not saying that it’s for you, but if you’re looking for something different and free, you should consider using Ubuntu.