Just spent about two hours searching every online repository I use, every writing program I use, every text file (all of which have bizarrely cryptic names) that might contain it, five different notebooks and even random scraps of paper. All to try to find an overly complete biography for a character I decided I didn’t want to use but have now changed my mind about. Of course I can’t find it. I did find a four line biography which now makes me suspect whether I actually wrote this thing in the first place. The real problem of course is that I probably shouldnt be checking around fifteen different places for material related to one project. So I bit the bullet and finally bought a copy of Scrivener. I’ve been half using demo versions on and off for the last three or four years but it feels like time I use something, anything, to keep everything related to individual projects in one place (of course I’m saving my files in my Dropbox folder, have to keep the glorious work safe for future generations). I’ll probably still use WriteMonkey for the actual writing as I really love its super minimalist approach. But at least now I know that organisational nirvana is only a quick copy and paste away.
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On the actual writing front my major stumbling block at the moment, as its been for some time is that I just don’t find my conspiracies convincing. I’m not sure if it’s a matter of perspective or if they’re just shit (I am of course convinced its the latter). Its odd, I mean there have been real life conspiracies with shakier philosophical goals and organisational structures, but as with most occurrences of “truth is stranger than fiction!” we have to believe things that are real but its all to easy to disbelieve those that are fictional. That sounded more profound in my head. I think there may also be an element of self-indulgence involved, conspiracies within conspiracies, sleepers, double agents, hot german assassins, its like an architectural folly at this point. So I keep tearing it down and building it back up. But it goes up slower each time. I can see the appeal of Algernon’s chosen fate in Flowers for Algernon.