12 replies to this topic

[nadinbrzezinski]

Well folks today I spent sometime putting the final touches on the second craft article on world building at the website. This time around I tackled mapping...

http://www.deistgame...uildessays.html

Enjoy... and feel free to share if you find it useful

[Marguerite]

nadinbrzezinski, on Mar 23 2008, 12:46 AM, said:

Well folks today I spent sometime putting the final touches on the second craft article on world building at the website. This time around I tackled mapping...

http://www.deistgame...uildessays.html

Enjoy... and feel free to share if you find it useful

Very nice site, Nadine. Thanks for posting the link. I must confess I'd never thought of mapping my interior settings (I just keep notes in the Settings sheets), but your essay made me look at mapping in a whole new way.

While we're on the subject of maps, have you tried turning your main map into a desktop picture? (While you're waiting for Steve to do all that image work, of course. ) Before I discovered Storyist, I worked only in Darth Processor (that's MS Word, for those who haven't followed every thread on the forums)—may its developers' toes turn into crunchy chicken nuggets and be eaten by bears after their misbegotten pup of a program crashed this weekend and then restored a file that was only 99.5% the same as the most recently saved version, leaving me wondering whether I should annoy the agent I had sent it to by clogging her mailbox with another 50-page file or just leave her wondering if I wrote that way on purpose....

But I digress. The point is that in my pre-Storyist days I used to use suitably sized JPEGs of my hero/heroine as my desktop picture. Besides brightening the life of my filial unit, who rolled on the carpet every time he considered that an obvious dinosaur agemate like his mother might be mooning over Alan Rickman ("Does Dad know?" he would ask in shocked tones, as though I were preparing to run off with AR before lunch), this allowed me to see my main characters at any moment as I wrote in the infamous DP (may its coders be condemned to submit query letters for eternity, with Word munching every one at the last possible moment). Now, of course, I just click on the character group in the storyboard and there they all are, but as you noted, that doesn't help with something as large and detailed as a map.

The (electronic) dog ate my manuscript—honestly, how do you sell that yarn to a complete stranger?! Meanwhile, I am off to check out NeoOffice. Maybe Word has munched its last file.
Marguerite

[Thoth]

Marguerite, on Mar 24 2008, 10:13 AM, said:

The (electronic) dog ate my manuscript—honestly, how do you sell that yarn to a complete stranger?! Meanwhile, I am off to check out NeoOffice. Maybe Word has munched its last file.

Don't forget to make a donation. Developers can't live on love alone. It makes their toes crunchy.

I wonder how NeoOffice 2.2.3 will stack up against MS Office 2008? (May all of Darth Processor's teeth fall out but one and in that one may it have a toothache! - Ancient Russian Curse, thought you'd appreciate it.) If you do decide to explore it I'm sure we'd all appreciate a review at Procrastination Station.

-Thoth.

[Thoth]

Nadin, love the site. Very helpful for world building. (Never thought about local economics before when world building.)
-Thoth.

[Marguerite]

Thoth, on Mar 24 2008, 12:48 PM, said:

Don't forget to make a donation. Developers can't live on love alone. It makes their toes crunchy.

I wonder how NeoOffice 2.2.3 will stack up against MS Office 2008? (May all of Darth Processor's teeth fall out but one and in that one may it have a toothache! - Ancient Russian Curse, thought you'd appreciate it.) If you do decide to explore it I'm sure we'd all appreciate a review at Procrastination Station.

-Thoth.

Oh, yes, if I adopt, I will make a donation. They only want $5, so guilt alone would prompt me. I'm not sure NeoOffice is picking up my voluble translator's voluble comments, which could be a problem, but otherwise, so far, so good.

'Twas DP 2008 that performed this dreadful deed. May its starship run out of fuel at a crucial moment and leave it around Yoda's planet in eternal orbit drifting. I wrote to the agent and explained the situation, and fortunately she hadn't printed it yet and was willing to accept a substitute. Still, I could have lived without the hysteria.

Yes, that Russian curse is a good one. Thanks for the support!
M

[nadinbrzezinski]

Thank you both. Will have to tackle another issue next time....

And Marguerite Neo Office does 90% of what Word does... and for those wondering how it stacks against Word 08... well given the WIN machine has the 07 version...

I can tell you the only thing word does better is page layout... and I KNOW that was not the main objective of that program. I use it for that purpose these days and it works fine.

That said, most of my work is done in storyist (for fiction) Scrivener, for article and RPG book writing (First and second, perhaps third drafts) and Neo for correcting text

From time to time I find myself looking at text edit when I need to move files to and from my hand held PC, something about formats and preserving it more or less

[Thoth]

nadinbrzezinski, on Mar 24 2008, 04:22 PM, said:

And Marguerite Neo Office does 90% of what Word does... and for those wondering how it stacks against Word 08... well given the WIN machine has the 07 version...

I'm not Marguerite (please don't hold that against me) but I have a question. Does Neo Office do macro recording like Word 2004 for the Mac? I know Word 2008 (for the Mac) doesn't. It depends on a paltry and inadequate set of Automator commands instead.

nadinbrzezinski, on Mar 24 2008, 04:22 PM, said:

That said, most of my work is done in storyist (for fiction) Scrivener, for article and RPG book writing (First and second, perhaps third drafts) and Neo for correcting text.

Neo uses Leopard's grammar and vocabulary tools. If Storyist had grammar support (possible under Leopard) would it be adequate for correcting text in your eyes. Or is there something else Neo brings to the table?

Still not Marguerite,
-Thoth.

[nadinbrzezinski]

Thoth, on Mar 24 2008, 10:14 PM, said:

I'm not Marguerite (please don't hold that against me) but I have a question. Does Neo Office do macro recording like Word 2004 for the Mac? I know Word 2008 (for the Mac) doesn't. It depends on a paltry and inadequate set of Automator commands instead.

Neo uses Leopard's grammar and vocabulary tools. If Storyist had grammar support (possible under Leopard) would it be adequate for correcting text in your eyes. Or is there something else Neo brings to the table?

Still not Marguerite,
-Thoth.

I believe it does macro recording. I don't use that part of the program do I am not sure.

As to grammar and vocabulary it goes beyond grammar support (I use grammarian as well for near to final copy), but tracking changes, and having a wonderful bookmark. Both of those are available in Neo, and why I use them for extensive editing. In fact, beyond short pieces, I fear after the first draft of the War of the Gods is put to bed, I will use Neo for editing, the book will be close to 70,000 words at that point... so we need bookmarking ability.

And I am sorry, was answering to both

:blush:

[Thoth]

nadinbrzezinski, on Mar 24 2008, 07:47 PM, said:

...tracking changes, and having a wonderful bookmark. Both of those are available in Neo, and why I use them for extensive editing. In fact, beyond short pieces, I fear after the first draft of the War of the Gods is put to bed, I will use Neo for editing, the book will be close to 70,000 words at that point... so we need bookmarking ability.

***sigh*** bookmarks.

-Thoth.

[Callista]

I love NeoOffice; used it for years.

[Thoth]

Callista, on Mar 24 2008, 11:41 PM, said:

I love NeoOffice; used it for years.

What can you tell us about it?

Begging for a mini-review (here or at Procrastination Station),
-Thoth.

[Steve]

Thoth, on Mar 24 2008, 03:14 PM, said:

Neo uses Leopard's grammar and vocabulary tools. If Storyist had grammar support (possible under Leopard) would it be adequate for correcting text in your eyes. Or is there something else Neo brings to the table?

Storyist uses the same grammar checker that Neo uses on Leopard.

-Steve

[Thoth]

Steve, on Mar 25 2008, 02:01 PM, said:

Storyist uses the same grammar checker that Neo uses on Leopard.

I should have known. **blush**
-Thoth.