A Life of Crime and Chocolate

[Shakesbear]

Hello shakes! Life under COVID can be like that, can't it? But you and I are still here, despite that year, and I am very grateful for that!

So good to know you are still here! X I am also grateful to be here. Stay safe.

 

[cmhbob]

Where's the vacuum cleaner? Time to freshen this place up a bit. Can we rearrange the furniture or something?

I'm up to my wrists on the outline for the first book in my next series. What's everyone else up to?

 

[cmhbob]

So I started the first draft of the first book in the new series, and after 600 or so words, wasn't really feeling it.

Now I'm 200 or so words into an alternate opening. Feels a little better, I think. Maybe. Possibly.

 

[PatDog]

Hi Guys Here's a piece of chocolate.

I'm sitting at work, pretending to do something important, when in reality I'm fawning over this amazing new forum that I just got accepted to

Currently writing a Thriller based on the main Character's adventure, which turns out is only a delusion and he is an escaped mental patient. (Still a work in progress)

 

[cmhbob]

Welcome aboard!

 

[TeresaRose]

Welcome! Thrillers are fun to write. I find, well I've only finished one (last stage of editing), them like writing a puzzle.

 

[Mr Mitchell444]

Hi all. Please accept this chocolate peace offering from me. As a fellow suspense story author, I believe I have arrived at my destination.

 

[cmhbob]

Well, you brought chocolate, so you can't be all bad.

 

[Calla Lily]

Welcome!

 

[Brandy]

Hi all- I wanted to pop in and introduce myself. I've been around for awhile but will attempt my first thriller for NaNoWriMo this month. Looking forward to the challenge.

 

[Calla Lily]

Hello, Brandy!

 

[Alessandra Kelley]

Hi all- I wanted to pop in and introduce myself. I've been around for awhile but will attempt my first thriller for NaNoWriMo this month. Looking forward to the challenge.

Whoo! Good luck!

 

[Brandy]

Hello, Brandy!

Hi!

 

[CobraMisfit]

Howdy, gang. Long time AWer, first time Mystery bipedal humanoid construct. I tend to hang out in the Sci-Fi Cantina since Sci-Fi has been my "forte", but since I'm working on a cozy mystery, figured it was worth venturing outside of the normal 5 walls of the Cantina to investigate other genre hang-outs.

*looks around*

Nice place you have here.

 

[Calla Lily]

Howdy, gang. Long time AWer, first time Mystery bipedal humanoid construct. I tend to hang out in the Sci-Fi Cantina since Sci-Fi has been my "forte", but since I'm working on a cozy mystery, figured it was worth venturing outside of the normal 5 walls of the Cantina to investigate other genre hang-outs.

*looks around*

Nice place you have here.

Welcome!

 

[CobraMisfit]

Welcome!

Thank ya' kindly!

 

[Calla Lily]

Here, we need a laugh. Have one on me:

I adore my MacBook BUT Apple Pages (Word) and Numbers (Excel) suck LARGE POINTY ROCKS. They're designed with graphics in mind and the files sizes are ginormous because Apple automatically loads stuff to support graphics. An 80k novel in Word is like 350K. In Pages it's 1.5 MEGS. Yeah.

So.

I outline in Numbers (Excel) because it's how I learned. I'm comfortable with it. Tried Scrivener twice but it slowed me down. I write mahoosive outlines and have multiple-page spreadsheets with plot points, character charts,

I'm working on two books (bad Lily!]. A caper mystery and a portal fantasy. I came up with new ideas for the portal fantasy. Its spreadsheet in Numbers is all over the map and I wanted to convert it to a Pages doc to organize it. Can't be done. [insert much cussing] [insert about 20 minutes of research]

Result: Convert the Numbers spreadsheet to an Excel spreadsheet. Upload the Excel spreadsheet to Google Sheets and convert that to an actual Google Sheets. THEN download from Google an app called Convert to Doc. THEN select one tab at a time from the spreadsheet and convert that tab to a Google doc. But! If your tab has multiple columns, and all of my tabs but one do, you have to convert each column to its own doc, or the rows of each column will interleave like a pack of cards.

You can't make this stuff up.

At least now I have a pile of regular docs to sort and reorder. #WhyWritersDrink

 

[Shannon_H]

Seems like I should introduce myself.

I'm Shannon and I'm currently querying a crime mystery set in modern day Belfast.

 

[mccardey]

Seems like I should introduce myself.

I'm Shannon and I'm currently querying a crime mystery set in modern day Belfast.

Welcome! Is this your first?

 

[Shannon_H]

It is!

Still a bit surprised I completed it xD

 

[KitCarruthers]

I love the older medical terms like apoplexy and ague and gout and dropsy. Croup, colic, spleen, delerium tremens, bile. The go-to resource for all these types of words is Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy" from the 1600s. I'd probably vote it my favorite book of all time. There's others which emulate it --such as all the whaling info you find in 'Moby Dick' --but Burton is the best example.

 

[Calla Lily]

Welcome, Shannon!

 

[KitCarruthers]

THEN select one tab at a time from the spreadsheet and convert that tab to a Google doc. But! If your tab has multiple columns, and all of my tabs but one do, you have to convert each column to its own doc, or the rows of each column will interleave like a pack of cards.

There's a macro which exports all tabs from an Excel workbook into their own spreadsheets as separate files using the name of the tab as the filename.

 

[Calla Lily]

There's a macro which exports all tabs from an Excel workbook into their own spreadsheets as separate files using the name of the tab as the filename.

Thanks. I'll look for that one. I wanted to export to a word-type doc, thus the hoop-jumping.

 

[Shannon_H]

Welcome, Shannon!

Thank you!

Glad to be here