After you’re done editing a document in Word, save it and close it.
When you reopen it, hit SHIFT+F5. Congrats–you are now back to the last place the cursor was editing.
Wish I coulda known this last year when I was in the middle of making SCVK…Would’ve saved me a lot of PageDowns! On the other hand, it did teach me to use the document map. Hmm…
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I’m long overdue for an update but I wanted to at least share that tip.
SCVK’s climactic boss fight has been written.
All that is left is the denouement and the ending scene, probably 8-10 pages, and then…it’s done.
In the meantime, I have to function normally.
After I filled up my last novel notebook I rummaged through Amazon for another one and found the Miro line of lined journals. Unfortunately, Miro’s groovetastic styling doesn’t make up for the cramped writing space inside. Still, it may work for you! Read my full review of the Miro Large Lined Journal on Amazon.com.
First, the general tip: If your next scene isn’t starting off right, it might mean your last scene isn’t finished yet. Take the scene a little further: it might launch you right into your next scene.
Second: When you’re trying to find out different members of royalty are addressed, you’ll have better look looking up “royal stylings” or “royal styles” than “royal forms of address.” Took me months to discover this! It also helps if there’s a monarch alive with the title you’re writing for (in my case, I had to go to Denmark.)
I just blew through a brand new black inkjet cartridge in, oh, a half-an-hour, printing the pages of my novel I hadn’t yet printed out (because…er…I was out of ink). Only 81 pages to go!
The cartridge was only $15 and printed out about 160 odd pages, so I guess it was worth it, but if I had a Delorean, I’d get up to 88 and then buy me a Brother brand laser printer. I hear that toner lasts for many more pages than an ink cartridge does.
For novel writing, I usually only use black (for text) and red (for things I’m not sure about, or notes to myself), so I could probably make do with greyscale printing only.
So I went from being inkless (many months) to having ink (3 days) and now I’m back to being inkless!
Just bought my latest blank notebook to write SCVK in.
It is amazing.
So amazing, I wrote an Amazon review about it. Click the big red book to read it. Let’s get Amazon to stock these properly!
I was looking forward to seeing THE HOBBIT*…until I found out it was being broken up into three parts!
Dear Peter Jackson,
Even though your names contain the same amount of syllables, you are not Richard Wagner. Thus, you do not have the genius needed to justify drawing this children’s book out into a 10-hour epic. Just don’t.
Yours,
Danielle
PS, just a reminder? Rankin-Bass already did THE HOBBIT in 77 minutes back in the 70’s.
RANKIN BAAASS
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*Mostly because of Smaug. There are not nearly enough good talking dragons in movies.
There ‘s a plethora of reasons to love WRECK-IT RALPH, of course–too many to mention here. But in the course of talking to my friends and family, I’ve narrowed my intense devotion to it down to two main reasons:
The movie is bigger than my imagination.
Any number of fantasy movies out there promise to show you exciting worlds. Too many of them fall short, causing you to walk out of the movies thinking, “That was cool, but there was something missing. Why didn’t they do…?”
RALPH makes good on the promise. After the second viewing, I though to myself, “There is nothing I would add to this movie. I can’t imagine anything that would make it better.”
Simply said, every possibility is explored to the fullest. You’re watching, and in your hindbrain somewhere, it says, “Wouldn’t it be cool if…?” And then…IT HAPPENS IN THE MOVIE. It’s not just in the jokes–the mechanics of the worlds lock together perfectly to support the character journeys.
Which brings me to my second reason why I loved WRECK-IT RALPH so much:
RALPH explores the struggles you can encounter while you’re learning to accept your native abilities.
In writing SCVK, I’ve realized this is a theme I feel strongly about. So many movies say, “If you follow your heart and believe in yourself, things will work out.”
I believe this is true, but a lot of movies gloss over the fact that sometimes it is really hard to be true to yourself. It’s easier to look over at someone else and say, “I wish I could be like her, I wish I were funny like him.” You can waste a lot of time doing this (even your whole life!). Claiming your gifts is a tough deal sometimes!
In RALPH each character either was doing, or wanted to do, the very thing they were designed to do! Felix fixed, Calhoun commanded.
Ralph wrecked, but people looked down on him for doing what he was designed to do, and that caused him a lot of heartache. Vanellope wanted to race, but was being shut out because she wasn’t like the others. So much of the story comes out of these characters trying to do what they were meant to do, and feel good about it. That resonated with me.
Between this and Paperman, Disney is starting to feel more like the king of family films again, rather than the lazy emperor of entertainment. I hope the keep it up!
Marketing guru Seth Godin posted some more golden advice about getting unstuck. It’s a shorty-but-goodie!
