Little acorn of advice enables oak to at least start to grow in the direction of upwards ..

Sometimes you only need one tiny bit of advice to make a huge difference: "start as near the end as possible"* has enabled me to firm up my plot immeasurably :), especially in conjunction with reading Chris Brookmyre.

N.B. I had already done this instinctively, but reading the advice made me note and strengthen it, more assured of its merit.

 * Thank you Emma D, once again! http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00e54eced2e18833014e8ba0ba66970d

All my trials: Scrivener

A recommendation for Scrivener last week - and a list of reasons why - from Emma Darwin's excellent blog.
I tried it once before when I set myself up for Script Frenzy, but both died within days (my fault - too little preparation of either Script or software) but now being aware of the amount of work it took to sort Not wanted on voyage into sensible order, and that the follow-up will be trickier, I thought it worth a second go.

The video is useful, as is the tutorial, but the best thing is that the 30 day trial is for thirty days, i.e. if you have a day when you don't use it, it doesn't count, you don't have to use it within that time.

One day spent wrestling, back and forth between tutorial and a section of my wip left me scratchy and exhausted, but I think it will, in the long run, be useful, although it needs to be remembered it is an organizational tool rather than a writing tool.

Inhibitions

They erected a barricade between themselves, all the while each blaming the other for it, each knowing that really they were the one responsible.  ‘If only he ...’, ‘If only she ...’ and so on and so forth, neither able, or willing to say what they really meant, really, truly wanted.

Upbringing, of course, parental ‘advice’, heavy handed, red-faced, oblique, couched in such formal twisty words, with averted eyes, that it was almost meaningless.

Peer pressure another thing that made them tongue-tied. 

How could she really be sure that what Jacky said was the best way really was, when she was such a ... well, not really someone you wanted to be copying, taking advice from.   Especially when it was couched in such a sly manner, eyes sliding to older friends, who sniggered as if they knew she was lying while you had no way of telling, because of your ignorance.
He ... well he’d claimed to have, already.   Not to her, (don’t be so effing stupid!)  but to the others.   Wasn’t sure that they’d believed him.   Part hadn’t wanted to, part had.   But he suspected they could tell it had been cobbled together from magazines and the film he’d found at the bottom of his parents’ wardrobe.

[This a Thinking Ten piece from a week or so ago. ]