I’m currently plotting a story on my wall, pics to come when I buy some batteries.

Hopefully I can get the NaNo Tracker working and let you see how I’m doing throughout the month.

Wish me luck, and good luck to all of you out there participating!

The application is great for writing.  It has a clean interface, and helps you work on whatever your writing and focus.

The strong points of Storyist are the main editor and the different “plotting” sheets.

The main editor is nice and big.  It shows you how your text will look when formatted and keeps the text formatted.  All text you enter will have a style applied.  You can tab through the different styles if needed.  This is great in some cases, but some people might feel that it is limiting or distracting.  I think it is a strong point if you have a good idea on what you want to create.

The “plotting” sheets are another piece of awesomeness.  There are note sheets for characters, sections, and the plot.  If you’re a “plotter,” this’ll allow you to come up with some order for your novel.  It’ll also allow you to remember the small details.  Since you can also view these as index cards in a split-view, it’s quite helpful.

Split view is another strong point.  It wasn’t included until 2.0, but it’s a nice new feature.  If you want to view another section of the piece you’re working on, or want to look at notes or “plotting” sheets, it’s a must use.  Many other writing applications include this as well, but Storyist takes it even further by allowing you to have multiple windows opened in case the split view isn’t enough.  Split view is a bit buggy when you have 3 or more.

Sorry for the bad screencast.  I’ll redo it soon.

Storyist 2.0 is a great writing application.  It’s $59, so it’s a bit pricier than other applications.  It does target those who like to work with the formatting and everything present.  Also, those who have trouble keeping the formatting/styling consistent.  Storyist takes a lot of the hassle out of writing if it meets your workflow.

I’d recommend it, but I’d suggest trying it before spending the $59.

-Website
-Manual
-Direct Download

It adds loads of new features.  You can find a more complete list here.

Some of the features I’m looking forward to are:

-Full-Screen Mode—Remove the distractions and focus on your writing. The new full-screen editing mode puts the whole screen at your disposal, turning your Mac into a dedicated writing environment.
-Split Views—With Storyist 2, you can split views both horizontally and vertically. You can even nest split views.
-Multiple Windows—Have multiple monitors? Now you can open multiple project windows to take advantage of them.
-Workspace Management—Once you’ve got your workspace set up to your liking, use the new Workspaces panel to take a snapshot for easy recall. The Workspaces panel stores multiple workspace snapshots to accommodate your various writing activities.
-Easier Navigation—New navigation enhancements adopted from Mac OS X Finder let you navigate your project with familiar shortcuts.

-Comments—Annotate text with sticky-note style comments.
-Color-Coding—Color-code outline entries to get a high-level picture of your story.
-Shortcuts—New shortcuts make outlining faster and more intuitive.
-Collage View—Assemble collages of images and text to visualize the relationships between your story elements.
-Customizable Storyboard Representation—View storyboard items as index cards, images, or icons.
-Drag to Import—Importing files is now as simple as dragging them to the Project view.
-Project Trash—Storyist 2 provides a project trash that lets you keep “discarded” items around until you’re sure you don’t need them any more.

I haven’t been able to play with it yet.  I get a “15-day trail has expired” error.  I think it’s because of my 1.X license information…

So I’ll wait for my 2.0 key to arrive so I can post a more detail review about my thoughts about it.

Ulysses is long overdue for a 2.0 release.  Features and features have been added.  Heck, it’s been on version 1.X for 6 years now.  People paid $100 for 6 years of free updates.  Sortof awesome if you ask me.

Scrivener has been out since 2007, only 2 years old.  Hitting the big 2.0 already.  It’s a paid upgrade.  Alright, so people only paid $40 for it, and the upgrade will be ~$20, so they’ll spend $60 in total, but think about it.  That’s $20 every 2 years.  6 over 2 is 3, times 20 is $60 plus the original 40, $100.  About the same price as Ulysses was.

Storyist is also hitting the big 2.0.  It too came out in 2007.  Only 2 years old.  $30 to upgrade, $60 originally, $90 total, almost as much as Ulysses.

Although, I’ll admit, both of those support more file types and styles of writing than Ulysses do.  And I personally believe, that people should work in an environment they love, and developers have the right to charge as much as they want for letting people use those environments…

I sortof hate MS Word, but I have to buy it for class.  I’d rather pay lots of money to a person who develops software I enjoy using than something I consider an eyesore.

Also in comparison, Jer’s Novel Writer isn’t at 2.0 yet (although it does have a strange numbering system).  Jer’s Novel Writer has been around since 2003(?).  Not sure about upgrade costs or how the pricing worked… I think it’s $30 no matter what.  So if that’s right, then it’s been $60 for people so far (excluding hagglers).  Although, it’s very different from those listed above.

CopyWrite is already at 2.something.  It’s been out since 2003 as well.

I’d mention StoryMill and WriteRoom, but those ones are also young and already at/approaching 3.X.

I’m just wondering what constitutes a change from 1.X to 2.X or even higher numbers.  I know that in some online software, the rule of thumb is 1.X to 2.X if there is a major change to the database and code base.  But for software developers, I’ve been told different things.  I think the rule of thumb one of my teachers said was major interface changes constitute of 1.X to 2.X change (because the major version number changes usually mean needing to re-learn the software).

Some other people are a tad more crazier saying whole code re-writes are the only reason for 1.X to 2.X changes.

But yeah…  I’ve been looking into software and some of their history, and it’s a bit shocking.

After all, the minimal Office can be bought for about the same amount.

I read it’s features, and thought it was useless compared to it’s cheaper competitors.  I kept using other software, like Scrivener or Storyist.

Scrivener is planning on releasing 2.0 sometime later this year (Fall I think?).  Storyist is supposed to be releasing 2.0 really soon.  In my search of other writing software, Ulysses 2.0 is due out this month le gasp.

I never tried Ulysses, but I’ve heard about their user-base.  People either love it or hate it.  I was looking for something to manage my poetic writing.  I currently use Scrivener, but I found that it’s work-flow doesn’t work for my poetic work-flow.  Storyist doesn’t fit my poetic work-flow either.

So I was like, I’ll hate the app, so why don’t I try Ulysses anyways.  So I download it, launch it, play around for it for 30 minutes…  That 30 minutes grew into a few hours.  Next thing I knew, I was in love.

When I write poetry, I need a blank canvass, no distractions, no pretty eye candy, just a place to write.  Ulysses provides that.  The environment is set just for writing.  There’s also no formatting on the text, which prevents me from being distracted by the text.

My mom was kindof upset when she saw how much I spent, and that I already own Scrivener and Storyist.

But those fit my work-flows for other writing.  When writing short stories or screenplays, Scrivener and Storyist provide the features I need there.  So each program provides a different interface and work-flow for different types of writing.  Also, each application has it’s own focus.

In Ulysses, it’s all about the text.  There’s no rich formatting, and not a lot of features for you to play around with.  Just sit down and write.

In Storyist, it’s about planning and plotting your writing, and then composing.  There’s character notes, plot notes, setting notes, and notes for everything else.  You plan out the novel or screenplay, and then piece it all together.

Scrivener is about writing and research.  You can make it do a lot more for you too.  It sets it up for you to focus on your writing, but it also allows you to have different view modes in order to see what you’ve written, your research, and whatever else you need.

Storyist 2.0 is supposed to bring in a bunch of features that people want to see.  It’ll add different view modes, full-screen, and much more.

Scrivener 2.0 is supposed to bring in a new interface and new features.  The developer feels that the interface could be better designed to focus on writing.  The menus seem cluttered, and some of the dialog boxes seem cluttered as well.  2.0 is supposed to make Scrivener more refreshing.

Ulysses 2.0 highlights a change from the Blue-Technologies Group to The Soulmen.  It’s supposed to bring in some new features, a new way of upgrades, and a new licensing/registration version.  It’s also supposed to bring a new pricing scheme.

I installed a podCasting plug-in.  I’ll start posting some video coverage of the different programs.  General introductions, cool features, thoughts and reviews, and etc.  I’ll still blog about my writings.

This blog will remain as a general writing blog.  As for poetry, it’s moved over to a new blog under it’s own domain at emoPoet.com.

The rest of the poetry for NaPoWriMo will be posted on my main blog.

Feel free to stop by!  http://lost-whisper.com

I think,
What makes poetry
Interesting,
Is that
Each time
You read it
You’re another step
Closer
To understanding
Why it sent
Such a chill
Down your spine.

Day 5, “Like Poetry?”

Because a voice from heaven comes down,
and says,
“Why’d you just do that?

Day 3, “Whenever…”

Abandonment.

Day 2, “Abandonment.”

Other times it’s said
I try to little.

But I’ve never heard
I’ve tried just right.

Day one, “Trying”

NaPoWriMo isn’t as cultish as NaNoWriMo.  I’m not someone who clings to each NaWhatEveR.  I just plan on doing NaNoWriMo and NaPoWriMo.  I’m not sure what to publish on this blog between the two…  But, readWritePoem does do weekly prompts, so I might do that to try to build up experience and become more creative…

I’m planning on starting tomorrow.  I hope you all like what you see?