For today’s writing challenge I went back through “The Companion Guide to The Family History Writing Challenge” by Lynn Palermo, to check Chapter 4 – Creating a Work-Flow because the next things I need to do to prepare to write are part of the work-flow. Two of the three steps seem pretty straight forward but the third one is new ground for me.

First off is gathering my research. I think that I have most of my stuff already gathered and organized in folders on my computer. I’m going to make sure and check through my physical stuff for more items.

Step three is identifying where I’m going write. I had already decided to use Scrivener. I’ve heard about from several sources. A few weeks ago I downloaded the trial version and did the tutorial that comes with it. Lynn also recommends Scrivener. It is designed for writers and I’m excited to try it out.

The second step is bibliography and citations. Lynn recommends using a citation manager. But I just can’t wrap my head around it. So I have to do it by hand. Hopefully I won’t have too many sources outside of my Dad and his personal documents. I may have to change my mind on this in the future but at this point I’m not going to embrace it. Maybe it is just too much for this non-writer, designer brain of mine.

Next step is make sure that all my documents, photos etc. are logically organized and ready to reference during the writing process. I’ll check back in here on Monday at let you know how things are coming.