5 Ways to Cultivate a Good Writing Environment

I popped into Hastings Entertainment the other day and noticed a young man near the coffee kiosk.  He was sitting at a table, laptop in front of him, his big styrofoam cup of joe steaming, his fingers not on the keyboard, staring at a blank screen.  Five steps away from him a little boy was

New Scrivener for Windows BETA Released

The good folks over at Literature and Latte have just released a BETA version of Scrivener for Windows that improves the way Scrivener works with that operating system.  You can find the link to download the program here. Note: This is a BETA version so it is a work in progress.  They need people to

Scrivener Addict: Why I Won’t Go Back To Word for Novel Writing

I really can’t remember why or how I found out about Scrivener, or as I like to call it “The Novelist’s Friend”.  I downloaded it back in December of 2011 and use it every day.  Many of my friends who really know me look at me with raised eyebrows and crooked mouths when I mention

Using Scrivener to Create a Proof Manuscript

Scrivener does many things automatically that have to be set up manually in Word. One of the things it does for novelists, writers of nonfiction and screenwriters is that it will format your document automatically for submission to a literary agent. It makes your document look professional and sharp with just a few clicks of

The Great Balancing Act: Writing Novels and Blogging

I have been blogging non-stop since December, and I will have to say that my efforts are paying off.  While writing my novel, I have discovered the ins and outs of using Scrivener as a word processor and have posted a few articles about its use. I have been getting increasing traffic on my blog,

Using Scrivener’s Help Function

                Scrivener is probably one of the best word processors out there for novelists.  I use it every day and find it more easy to use than Word or any of the others.  One of the reasons this is true for me is found in the overly helpful help

Using Twitter Mentions to Increase Blog Traffic

I was averaging 45-50 hits a day until the last two days.  I decided to try a little experiment after hitting upon this sort of by accident. It seems to work pretty well.  If you don’t believe me, then look at these blog stats: What I did was simple.  I started looking around my desktop

How to Use Scrivener to Format an e-Book for Kindle and Nook

You all know how I feel about Scrivener, but it is truly the best program for novelists out there.  For $49 it’s a steal and it is really not that complicated to use.  Today I thought I would show you how to format a Kindle .mobi file and an .epub file that is used on

Using Scrivener to Format for Indentations and Line Spacing

The act of publishing is not as easy as sending a Word document in to a publisher or uploading the file to Amazon Kindle and letting their software do all the work.  There are two faux pas that writers make all the time that bug type-setters to death and will make your work that much

My New e-Short Story is Up

A short story I submitted to Kindle Singles is now up.  It is available on Amazon Kindle and on the Nook.  I formatted the book for Kindle and for Nook using Scrivener. …and hey, it’s only .99 cents! The Kindle version is found here. The Nook version is found here. If you buy a copy,