November Meetup Summary

We were a party of five at Cafe Express for the Houston Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' November Meetup. The long-absent Clif was present, eager to hear Keri's opinions on writing assist software packages.

Keri spoke for about an hour on writing assist software, and showed demos for seven packages. Writer's Cafe, WriteItNow, Power Writer, PageFour, Liquid Story Binder are all for-pay packages with varying costs. RoughDraft and yWriter are both free. The packages cover a range of types, from a simple RTF editor to a scene-based story builder with numerous bells and whistles.

Keri was very clear about how her search for (and thus her review of) writing assist software was shaped by her own personal desire for a tool built around outlining and scene-based writing, rather than a tool based on linear, single-document writing.

Even from this short presentation, it is clear that there is a great variety of assist software, including packages that are more about encouraging creativity and organizing support material than about actual text preparation. Such packages might be of interest for writers who are comfortable working in existing word processors or text editors, but are looking for options to organize their research and development notes.

For those of you who missed the Meetup or who lost their notes afterward, Keri has posted a short summary on her LiveJournal and on our Meetup forum . In LJ, we even get the added value of helpful comments from her LJ Friends! Check out the post to discover which package Keri decided to use for her own work!

Links to all the demonstrated packages and two for the Mac (not reviewed) are listed in her LJ post and in the post in our Meetup forum.

After Keri's presentation and the ensuing discussion were over, we turned our attention to the optional writing exercise. Lee had brought a complete short story in a military-horror mode based on the posted prompt: meteorite, railroad flares, and poisonous gas. We gave him feedback, and encouraged him to look for a market for it. It's amazing what a few words can do for creativity!

The new optional writing exercise prompt for December: light, boxes, and small furry animals.

PLEASE NOTE: For December, we would REALLY APPRECIATE seeing RSVPs if you plan to attend, and changing RSVPs if your plans change.

Looking forward to seeing folks (especially some of our new members!) in December.

Cheers all!!

K.