Hi, gang, Craig here to start this off. One of the fun things about a group blog is the camaraderie established by working with friends. We have a place to chat that’s free from others, and Sunday nights can get pretty crazy in there. This is a talented bunch, and I’m honored to be working with them.

One of the other advantages is mutual promotion. We haven’t done this for a couple of years, but we all have titles that match up with the Halloween season, and we’re taking our show on the road once more. Watch for us to show up on each other’s sites during our tour.

For myself, I’m going to be pushing a book I haven’t published yet. I’m still doing a few advance teasers, but this is part of my “year of sequels.” This one is a second book for Lizzie and The Hat. At…

Hi, SE Readers. Joan with you today. In recent weeks, Staci has shared some of the tools she uses when plotting a new novel. I’m more of a panster rather than a plotter, but there is one tool I’ve come to rely on for writing.

A calendar.

When I wrote my first novel, not only did I have to keep track of events in the current timeline of the story, but also ones that occurred years earlier. Because the two timelines were almost exactly twenty years apart, it was easy to become confused.

Simple solution? An Excel or Word calendar template.

Here’s an example from Unseen Motives. (This is a Word template.)

You can see where I’ve made notes on various days. While I don’t record everything, I do note the more crucial elements and important events.

My second and third novels had tighter timelines (they were spread out…

Keep track of a project at any time can be difficult. If your not able to do so things can become a monstrous mess that can consume the good intentions behind your goals. The same is true of managing a project in Scrivener.  So let’s take a look at one way to keep a lid on the beast of disorganization and it consequences.

I got an interesting question a while back from a follower on Twitter who asked about performance issues with Scrivener. It was a rather general question so I followed up by asking for more details.

The answer I got went something like this: the person asking about performance issues had a project that was opening/closing very slowly. A little further explanation indicated that the project was one that had been in use for several years with daily input during that time.

It wasn’t hard to imagine how…