What was used to write HERA Rising?
Well, that really depends on what time of its development lifetime we are talking about. At the VERY beginning, don’t laugh too much, I wrote it with good ole paper and pen. Yes, no joke, that’s how long ago I started writing this story. Of course computers existed at the time. It wasn’t that long ago, ok? But for some reason at the beginning my best moments of inspiration just seemed to flow from writing the words and scenes by hand…
Not exactly this paper and pen but you get the idea…
After some years I decided I needed to go digital, wake up and smell the year 2000s so rather than toil away and typing in page after page of writing I enlisted some help. My niece, thank you Jenny, to be more specific. She was totally willing and I, of course, paid her for her efforts. After some time she finished and it was finally digital in the “not so amazing” writing tool known as Microsoft Word. Yep, I know I can hear the groans from here. What can I say I was a novice?
Yes, it was this version of MS Word. I told you it was a long time ago…
Fast forward many years later and I looked for something BETTER and thank God I found it! Scrivener was a Godsend for me as it helped to arrange chapters, scenes, research materials, you name it. It even had versions for my PC and my iPad. It would even compile my manuscript into the formats I needed, such as PDF or ePub. The pace of development sped up like a Porsche vs. a Vespa! How’s that for a visual?
Now we get the picture…
So things were looking up and then came the EDITING! What can I say? I HATE editing… And I realized soon on that placing commas was to be my nemesis in literary life. Being the DIY kinda guy, I decided I would face this dragon head on, with the proper armor, of course. In came another great tool, which I get nothing for mentioning by the way, ProWritingAid. It is a magnificent piece of software that is a helluva lot smarter than I am in grammar, punctuation, passive verbs and all the other minions that plague any writer. BTW, I’m using their plug in as I write this blog posting 😉
And so there you have it: the extraordinarily abridged version of the tools that made Shadowcraft HERA Rising a reality. Feel free to pickup a copy if you haven’t already and drop me some feedback. Happy Reading!