In the coming weeks there will new content here for my 10 regular visitors. I will also be announcing the launch of a new website, (mentioned above).

More good news coming soon!

One of my weird personal eccentricities is that I like to see me words in the format they will be published in, this is true of my playwriting, and it’s true of my blog writing.  WordPress has a nice online writing interface, but it’s not every thing I’ve ever wanted.

I do most of my writing in Word then paste it into its final destination application or page at the time of publishing, but I want to work with my blog in a more intuitive and fluid fashion.

Windows Live Writer is really cool.  I don’t herald Microsoft’s praise very often, but they really did something right with this product.  Firstly, it’s FREE.  This alone made me slap my forehead a couple times, blink, and ask the guy sitting next to me at the coffee shop to check my reading on the products COST.  The actual cost is ZERO.  That’s a nice turn from Microsoft.

Secondly, they’ve incorporated so much functionality that you’d normally expect to see exclusively when connected to the Internet, but in this case they give you these tools offline as well.  Category selection, tagging, inserting of media resources, etc.

How about this for an interesting twist:  Live writer will go out and read your site’s theme and CSS, then setup a custom writing interface that uses your site’s colors and formatting so that you can actually SEE how the post will look once it goes live, AS YOU TYPE.  How’s that for thinking ahead? 

And of course you can save a post as a draft until the next time you’re online, then publish it to your site at your leisure.  I gotta say… there are so many good ideas going on in this product it makes me wonder who they stole them from, and how much their product costs, because I’d like to see the source material for such a cool Microsoft offering.  If this really is M$ product top to bottom, all I can say is: Nice work, Bill!

I’m a nerd. I know, I know… You already knew that. There are a lot things in this world that I think substantiate this fact, but none more so than what I’ve recently done in order to stream line my writing process.

Good news? I’m using my powers of nerd for the good of my writing. Bad news? I’m wasting time geeking out instead of writing. Check out what I’ve done.

I took the time to figure out how the normal.dot basic template file in Microsoft Word works well enough to create custom formatting style sheets in order to essentially apply CSS to my play writing projects. You may be asking yourself, “Zac, you’re a dork, why is this cool?”

It’s a lot more interesting than you might think. This allows me to use style sheets to employ predefined formatting at any given location within a document simply by clicking a button.

Play writing uses a very specific style sheet. That style sheet is provided to all playwrights by the Dramatists Guild. You aren’t required to follow it, but following this style sheet makes it easier for people to read your script, and lends itself to a professional look and feel. Using the Guild’s style sheet also allows you to communicate to a reader that you take your work seriously. Presentation and formatting can go a long way towards selection… Of course, you still have to generate good ideas, and be able to write…

Therefore, I have created two sets of style sheets I can use for my work. The “Classic” style sheet uses the old “Courier New” font and layout schemes for: Character Names, Dialogue, Stage Directions, Character Directions, and various other formatting used in this writing style. The second, “Contemporary” style sheet is the revised version of the Classic format that uses Times New Roman, and conforms to the new formatting guide lines provided by the guild.

I click a button and everything changes: 3″ margin, all caps, ready to type a character name.

Pretty cool stuff.

Even cooler? Yeah, you know I took it to the next level. I wrote a macro script with a VB front-end that lets me choose the styles from a panel that’s always available. It also allows me to create a “Cast-list” from which I can simply click on a Character name, and it automatically inserts a line-break, inserts the character name in the proper formatting then inserts another line-break, and resets the style to “Dialogue” so that I can immediately keep typing the next lines of my play.

I’ve wasted a lot of time putting this together, but I must admit that using this new system makes writing in this format 100 times easier. No more worrying about formatting or style guides as I’m typing my script. I just have to write.

Some people may not appreciate this, but for me it’s a life saver. I tend to get distracted and off center if I have to invest time thinking outside of my character’s mind. Worrying about structure and format takes me out of the process, it’s cumbersome. This new system enables me to stay in the moment and focus on my work.

I know this makes me a nerd. But it’s satisfying to know that my geek factor is having a positive impact on my creative life.

It’s times like these when I am reminded that I should be grateful that I inherited my father’s hardcore nerd skills. He gave me the ability to do this sort of stuff for myself. Thanks, Dad… you old dork!