Ever sit in a hot tub? Personally, I can’t resist the lure of the relaxing hot water, messaging jets, and all of those bubbles. During a recent hot tub experience I was mesmerized by the bubble patterns as they clung together in big, foamy islands, zipping past me in the strong current, forming, breaking, and forming again.

As I contemplated bubble “behavior” I couldn’t help but think of the multiverse. Oh, you know you would, too! ;-) But even as abstract as the multiverse theory is I got even more abstract by likening the bubbles to ideas or the muse. So, read on if you’re in the mood for some philosophical musings.

A hot tub has a jet that adds air bubbles to the water like a fount of micro-ideas. They’re tiny yet plentiful; tangible yet impossible to hold. They come to the surface to die or join forces with other bubbles and coalesce into bigger ideas. This is our big chance to catch them.

Over time these bubble islands -- already well-formed by themselves -- seem to seek out other bubble islands while ignoring others. It’s the strangest thing. It’s almost like the bubble islands have a gravity that attracts others and yet lets others pass by. These islands represent bigger and bigger ideas. Ever feel that way as you were conceiving your story? Like your ideas were snowballing into more intriguing, exciting, complex ideas? That’s bubble islands at work.

Many times the bubble islands have one or more dominant large bubbles that provide a crystal clear view into the complex structures of the bubble island. In your story it’s this richness of detail that can really set your story apart.

But, “bubble” implies a short life. Here one minute and pop! it’s gone the next. Whether you’re peering into the window provided by the dominant bubble or trying to understand the nature of the bubble island (that is, the idea) you need to capture what you see and not let it slip away. Good ideas are precious and should be captured immediately in writing. Unfortunately, I’ve lost many good ideas over the years so I now try to capture them as soon as possible.

How about you? How do you ensure that you don’t lose your good ideas?

Image by Glenn Loos-Austin

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Posted by Mike Fleming on January 1, 2012 9:09:00 PM EST #

If you’ve used the Writer’s Knowledge Base (WKB) you’ve probably noticed that it’s “Powered by Hiveword.” It’s true, too. The WKB has shared its existence with an unseen twin that has only been referenced in hushed tones. Sort of like Voldemort, I suppose. But not any more. I’m pleased to announce that Hiveword has finally busted free and is waiting to help you organize your novel in one place on the web.

Hiveword allows you to track multiple stories whether those stories are novels, short stories, or whatever. It’s geared toward tracking fiction so each story can have characters, settings, and scenes.

Screenshots: Story Detail, Story List

Characters

The data sheet for each character is very rich in detail with sections for Basic, Physical, Psychological, and Miscellaneous attributes. Each section has various fields for fleshing out the character. While I suppose the number of fields could be intimidating the reality is that the only field that has to be filled in is the name (and that’s filled in automatically for you with a placeholder name).

Screenshots: Character Detail, Character List

Settings

Settings don’t lend themselves to tons of fields like characters do so there are just fields for the name of the setting, aliases, and notes. Aliases, by the way, allow you to track multiple names for a setting. For example, the “New York” setting might have an alias of “The Big Apple.” Characters can have aliases, too.

Screenshots: Setting Detail, Setting List

Scenes

Scenes, of course, are where everything comes together. You see this reflected in Hiveword with a big area for the scene summary along with the critical linkages to characters and setting. You can select a setting from the dropdown list of settings. You can can also indicate which characters are in the scene and which one has the point-of-view (POV).

There are also pages where you can list all of the characters, for example, where each one has important details right there in the list.

Screenshots: Scene Detail, Scene List

Hey, what about my data, Mr. Hiveword Man?

Excellent question! Thanks for asking.

Most sane people are concerned (and rightfully so!) about entering their data into a system and not being able to get it out. It’s called “lock in” and I don’t like it, either. Hiveword has you covered, though. Each story has an export link. Click it and you can instantly download all of the data for that story in one rich text (RTF) document. The RTF format is readable by just about all word processors so have no fear.

Exporting is also a great way for you to make your own periodic backups. Grabbing a backup every now and then will give you peace of mind but you can also rest assured that Hiveword is backed up daily.

Screenshot: Story exported as RTF

Future Plans

What you see in Hiveword today is just the beginning. I have BIG plans for it and can’t wait to get them done so that you can start benefiting from the new features as soon as possible.

Try it!

You can try Hiveword now to see how it can help you you get more organized with your stories. No more scraps of paper here and there. There will eventually be a small monthly fee but I’m not sure when that will actually happen. My intention is to keep Hiveword ad-free (which I do for the WKB as well) mainly because I find them annoying and I think you’d find them distracting while you’re trying to create.

Of course, the good news is that I haven’t written the billing code yet and don’t know when I will so Hiveword will be effectively free for who knows how long. So, there’s no risk in giving it a try; you can always export your data at your whim.

Thanks for reading. I truly hope you find Hiveword useful.

What are you looking for in a novel organizer?

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Posted by Mike Fleming on November 26, 2011 8:13:56 AM EST #

Writers and software developers have a lot in common. One of these days I'm going to write a big ol' blog post on that. I'm sure, though, that many writers don't consider themselves to have the same geeky creds as a computer guy. Pocket protectors and all that. But what do computer guys like? Shiny things, of course! Enter Google+.

IT folks are flocking to Google+ in large numbers. We simply can't resist new toys from Google. The Google Plus Directory tracks details about Google+ membership and, looking at the table below, you'll see that computer guys dominate the top categories.

But wait, what group is that nestled among the IT categories? Why, it's writers!

My guess is that writers are there in high numbers for several reasons, the most predominant of which is that Google+ presents another platform for writers to amass a following and spread the word.

I just started looking into Google+ and the main thing I like about it is the follower segmentation possibilities. You can group your peeps into social circles such as friends, family, coworkers, or whatever label you care to apply. Perhaps the biggest thing I like about it is that Google+ seems to combine Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn into one interface. One stop shopping. Finally, I think the Hangouts feature has a lot of potential.

I'm not going to go into the details on Google+ because there are tons of articles that would do it more justice. I'm just getting started, after all. However, I did want to point out some obvious advantages to writers:

• Segmentation
• Promotion
• Ease of use
• Crit groups
• Writing groups
• Readings

The last three items take advantage of the nifty Hangouts feature.

It's still early times, of course, but Google+ seems to have considerable potential for writers.

What do you think? Have you tried Google+ yet? What new possibilities do you think it makes available to writers?

Connect with me on Google+.

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Posted by Mike Fleming on July 21, 2011 9:37:00 AM EDT #

As you know, the Writer's Knowledge Base (WKB) is a searchable collection of links to great articles about writing. The purpose of the WKB is to:

1. Enable writers to find great content that matches their needs
2. Expose great bloggers to a wider audience

The obvious way to achieve those goals is to have people go to the website and search. They'll get the content they seek and, hopefully, discover and follow the bloggers that provided the information they needed. It works and it's a rather personal experience.

Elizabeth and I decided to try to extend the reach of the WKB via a free newsletter. It helps to achieve our goals in a new way -- namely, through "push technology." OK, email if you must. The newsletter will bring the best of the WKB to your inbox every month. We plan on having "best of" lists but most importantly we're going to interview a top blogger each month and profile a random one, as well.

Here's what you can expect in the first issue:

1. Our featured blogger is Jason Black of Plot to Punctuation. In his interview he provides great advice that will help you up your game.
2. Our randomly selected blogger is Michael Hyatt from Intentional Leadership. He's a mover and a shaker.
3. The top 12 most popular links from February
4. The top 10 most popular links on the web from February

That fourth one is interesting. Of the links added to the WKB in February, this list ranks the best-performing ones as determined by readers from around the web. Meaning, outside of the WKB. It's very possible that this list will be different from the most popular links in WKB searches. Let's just consider this a little WKB secret sauce, shall we? ;-)

The first newsletter comes out this Saturday, March 5th. You can sign up for it at http://writerskb.com/newsletter. It's free, of course, and you can unsubscribe at any time. We hope you'll give it a try.

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Posted by Mike Fleming on March 2, 2011 9:57:00 PM EST #

I wrote a guest post over at Elizabeth Craig's blog about how a "Reese's moment" spawned the Writer's Knowledge Base (WKB) along with some background on how the system works. There's quite a bit of detail there but you can also find more information in the announcement posts by me and Elizabeth.

You also might find the original mockup of the search screen amusing. I posted that on the WritersKB Facebook page.

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Posted by Mike Fleming on February 14, 2011 9:05:00 PM EST #