“I didn’t mean to punch you so hard in the nose,” said David, after martial arts practice finished for the evening.

No, I’m not some sort of masochist–I really don’t like getting punched in the face.

So, then why does my face keep finding itself in front of someone else’s oncoming fists?

Because I stubbornly keep pushing forwards, wading into the onslaught. I’m in a new environment, with new rules and new requirements, . . . → Read More: Why I got punched in the face, and an exercise to enrich your life]]>

“I didn’t mean to punch you so hard in the nose,” said David, after martial arts practice finished for the evening.

No, I’m not some sort of masochist–I really don’t like getting punched in the face.

So, then why does my face keep finding itself in front of someone else’s oncoming fists?

Because I stubbornly keep pushing forwards, wading into the onslaught. I’m in a new environment, with new rules and new requirements, and I haven’t yet learned to adapt and figure out how to make my face not be where the fists are aiming.

No, really. It’s that simple.

For right now, I’m poor at bobbing my head and shielding my face with my forearms. Retreating to safer ground is not an option though, as I see it.

But this is kind of a mirror of life, right?

Any time we try something new, any time we move outside of our comfort zone, any time we embrace change, life is bound to punch us in the nose, at least at first.

It’s how we react to that punch in the nose that sets our path and determines our character. We can turn back and retreat to safer ground, or we can forge ahead, determined to withstand the unfamiliar and harsh new environment until we learn to react, to slip and weave, to parry, to move, and maybe even to punch back once our feet are under us.

And then, just when we thought we’ve figured out what’s going on, there appears a new opportunity in front of us.

Change, already? Risk being punched in the nose, again? Maybe we should stay where it is now comfortable, where we’ve figured out what’s going on.

Life is short.

Stoic philosopher Lucius Seneca wrote an illuminating letter titled “On the Shortness of Life.” It is worth reading in full, and there’s much to comment on in that letter, but for now I’ll illustrate that letter with the following simple exercise:

Imagine yourself on your deathbed, looking back at your life.

Will you be satisfied with what you accomplished in your life?

What did you do when you were punched in the nose?

There, on your deathbed, what do you wish you had done instead?

The gym where I train, THE EDGE, mentioned recently that they are considering offering a parkour class.

What is parkour? Watch the early part of the James Bond movie Casino Royale, but basically it involves vaulting, rolling, running, climbing, and jumping to maneuver through an environment.

I have to decide: should I take the class?

Most people my age are looking forward to their sofa chair and watching golf on TV.

Parkour is dangerous. I could get hurt.

Life could punch me in the nose.

Or, on my deathbed, I could smile, remembering.

Carpe diem.

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• How to Get Started in the Martial Arts, Part 4: Final Thoughts

Scrivener has become my go-to writing application. I use it for everything—creative writing, academic papers, blog posts (like this one), recipes, project ideas, and notes. One day I’ll convert one of my short stories into a play . . . → Read More: Scrivener: the secret weapon for writing like a professional]]> Previously, in my writer’s quick-start guide, I had mentioned a must-have writing software package called Scrivener. Given that I think Scrivener will transform how you write, I wanted to talk about this application here in more detail.

Scrivener has become my go-to writing application. I use it for everything—creative writing, academic papers, blog posts (like this one), recipes, project ideas, and notes. One day I’ll convert one of my short stories into a play script, and I’ll use Scrivener for that too. Like no other word processor I’ve used before, Scrivener has changed the way I write, increasing my writing productivity and organization by an order of magnitude.

There are many features to Scrivener, and I’ll only highlight below the ones I’ve found to be the most useful.

One of the best features of Scrivener is that it allows me to keep drafts of my document along with research items (webpages, images, audio and video files, pdfs, etc.) all in the same project. I no longer have to switch between applications and files on my computer for all the notes, images, and documents related to a particular writing project. With Scrivener, I can keep them all together in one project, within Scrivener itself.

Below is a screenshot of some of the different types of files that can be organized within a Scrivener project.

Scrivener allows me to see the project from multiple perspectives. The basic metaphor is that of a binder, and the document view shows the folders and documents that compose the entire project. You can divide a long manuscript into multiple documents and folders, such as having a folder for each chapter and multiple documents in each folder representing multiple scenes in the chapter. The ordering of documents and folders is easy to rearrange, which makes editing and organizing a complex manuscript much easier.

You can even keep multiple subprojects within one project, as shown below, which is a screenshot of an early draft of this web post. On the left you can see the Binder view, which shows multiple subprojects, such as FICTION, NONFICTION, and blog posts for this website, kendallgiles.com.

There is also a corkboard view, which represents documents as index cards pinned to a corkboard. The index cards show summaries of each document and the corkboard metaphor sometimes makes visualizing and organizing story arcs easier.

Below is a screenshot of the corkboard view.

The outline view represents the manuscript as the familiar outline structure, which many people find useful when writing with a top-down approach.

Below is a screenshot of the outline view.

When writing, the split-screen feature is useful for viewing a document in one half of the window (such as notes, or another scene) and the document I’m currently writing in the other half. This saves me from having to flip between windows.

For distraction-free writing, Scrivener has a built-in fullscreen composition mode.

Below is a screenshot of some of the different fullscreen mode options.

Scrivener even has a name generator so that you can get ideas for character’s names without having to go to the Internet and get lost down some distraction hole.

For writing projects that are more formal or academic, where citations and bibliographies are required, I use a free research tool called Zotero, which easily allows me to collect and organize citations. Maybe I’ll leave how to use Zotero in general for another post, but to import properly formatted citations into Scrivener, I select the citation style in Zotero that I want, such as Modern Language Association (MLA) or American Psychological Assocation (APA), select “Copy Bibliography”, then paste into my Scrivener document. Voila.

Another favorite feature is Scrivener’s ability to export the manuscript to a wide variety of formats. Sometimes I’ll need the manuscript in Word format, sometimes as a PDF, sometimes as RTF, sometimes as a Kindle ebook–Scrivener conveniently supports these output formats, and many more. After having gone through a complicated process to turn a Word document into a Kindle ebook, I was totally sold on Scrivener’s built-in export process to create Kindle and ePub files.

Below is a screenshot of some of the Scrivener export format options.

Finally, Scrivener makes it easy to keep backups of all your manuscripts via integration with DropBox.

Below is a screenshot of the sync-to-Dropbox feature.

So, whether you want to write a book or a poem, an article or a thesis, I think you’ll find Scrivener the best tool you can use if you want to be more organized, productive, and professional in your writing.

How To Get Scrivener

Scrivener is available here for PC or Mac.

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You’ve always had the option of transferring files to your Kindle using a USB, or emailing a document to your send-to-kindle email address. But now with the SendToKindle application, you can also transfer files to your Kindle using a Wi-Fi or Whispernet connection easily from your computer.

It has been almost a month since I last posted, but I just wanted to let everyone know I’m still alive!

Sometimes the deadlines, deliverables, and demands of the universe pile up and pile on.

I’m slowly digging my way out–hopefully I’ll be back to my regular posting schedule soon.

Just so you don’t think I’ve been kicking back, eating bonbons, here are some highlights from the last month:

So I was just getting used to 80 degree F temps in March, when the skies opened up and unleashed a torrent of hail, flash floods, and lightening strikes that have the power in my house going up and down like bad strobe lighting. Hurray for country living.

Yes, that’s hail coming down in the pic.

Turns out it was a bad day to hang laundry outside.

Anyway, I hope everyone is . . . → Read More: Hail, power outages, flash floods–hello March]]>

So I was just getting used to 80 degree F temps in March, when the skies opened up and unleashed a torrent of hail, flash floods, and lightening strikes that have the power in my house going up and down like bad strobe lighting. Hurray for country living.

Yes, that’s hail coming down in the pic.

Turns out it was a bad day to hang laundry outside.

Anyway, I hope everyone is weathering the storm okay. Here, the cats are freaked out, but otherwise I imagine we’ll be fine.

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