Software for Authors

Word was getting completely unwieldy. 

In the past I've written essays, reports, letters and manuals using Microsoft Word. I even used it to write my Master's dissertation. I've always been happy with it. Then I started trying to write a book. I've never written anything this long before and it was soon getting out of hand. 

My book on the Kungsleden is gathering pace and the word count is creeping up and although this is good, I was beginning to feel very chaotic; scrolling through reams of pages whenever I needed to add or check anything was not leading to a state of authorly tranquility. I knew I needed to find a solution before I went any further.

I asked the Google gods and found that there are generally two choices of software for authors out there. I'm sure there are more, but as I have no knowledge of writing books and so don't really know what I need until I need it, I wanted to choose something mainstream and with good reviews.

Of the two software choices - Scrivener and yWriter5 - the first is pay and the second is free. I didn't particularly want to pay for something until I knew what I really needed and fortunately the freebie yWriter5 seemed to have everything I wanted and I only found good reviews. So without further ado, I decided to give it a go.

It was really easy to install and just as easy to figure out how everything works. I've copy and pasted my book from Word and been able to set each chapter up in its own folder which can then be sub-divided into different scenes. The chapters are listed in a left-hand column and by clicking on a chapter I can bring up a list of scenes. I had briefly considered setting something like this up in Word but soon realised that as every chapter would be a separate document, this would probably be even more unwieldy to use than just one long document. With yWriter5 each chapter is always easily to hand.

Once I've clicked on a chapter, I then have options for adding planning notes, character profiles, locations, goals and a description of the chapter as well as the actual content. Clicking on different lists reveals exactly how many, and in which, chapters each character and location has been mentioned.

I've been using yWriter5 for a couple of weeks now and I'm finding it very intuitive and really user-friendly. As the work on my computer becomes more organised and less chaotic I feel as though the same is happening to my brain. I'm thinking more clearly, noticing errors and repetitions, knowing where more detail is needed, fixing omissions and generally starting to feel like a real writer.

From pictures I've seen of Scrivener, it looks to be a lot fancier and to have even more functions to play around with. As with yWriter5 I've only read good reviews of Scrivener and so would like to have a test run with it to see how the two compare. For now though, I'm very happy with yWriter5 and the way it's working for me.

Researching and writing

After a lot of research into travel books (good excuse to do lots of reading) I've come to the conclusion that most books have around 200 pages and 100,000 words. Give or take 10-20%. This is reassuring because this is what I'm aiming for with the book I'm trying to write at the moment. I'm not looking at bestselling travel writers as they tend to have much longer books, but more the sort of writers you only discover when researching books on a particular region or way of travelling.


At the moment I'm about a third of the way there with around 32,000 words. I've divided the writing of my first draft into three phases:


Phase one was typing up my diary notes. I kept quite a detailed diary as I was walking, but as I was hand-writing and, more importantly, not wanting to add a huge notebook to my load, it was in note form. My typing up in phase one involved writing it up into proper sentences and paragraphs rather than just copying up notes. As I'm a fairly fast typist this was completed quite quickly.


I'm now working on phase two, which is much slower going. Phase two involves the factual side of my walk and means lots of research. One of my USPs (unique selling points) is that the book will be useful for anyone planning, or thinking about, a walk along the Kungsleden. Although it's not intended as a guidebook, I do want to get quite a lot of solid information into it. One of the reasons I wanted to write this book is because so few people in the English speaking world are aware of this walk and there is very little written on it in English. The very reason I want to write the book is also the reason my research is going quite slowly - there's very little written on it in English.


I'm finding quite a lot on the internet, but it tends to be in Swedish. Although I picked up a few Swedish words, my language skills are definitely not of the proficiency needed for reading Swedish websites. I'm ploughing through, picking out the words I know and finding myself doing a complicated process of translating into English via Dutch. Yes, Dutch. When I was in Scandinavia in February I noticed how a lot of the words in both Danish and Swedish seemed to share a similar root to Dutch. I don't speak Dutch, but my Dutch vocabulary is far more extensive than my Swedish vocabulary and whilst I was travelling over the summer I found this came in very useful. I'm finding it just as useful now. When I've read through a page and got the gist of it in Dutch and English (Dutlish?), I'll put any relevant bits into Google translate to double-check. Although it comes up with a few strange translations and the word order is sometimes rather jumbled, I'm quite impressed with it. I wouldn't use it to translate anything of importance, say a legal document, but for my purpose it's fine.


Once I've done some research and made my own notes, I'm then inserting this into whichever part of my draft I think it'll best fit. This is all taking quite a long time. I'm aiming to have roughly 50,000 words by the end of the phase two. That'll be half the book dedicated to my first USP. Only 18,000 words to go then ...


Phase three will be dedicated to my second USP which is something along the lines of stressed, middle-aged woman/teacher gives up job and goes for a long walk in the Arctic wilderness. I think I'm going to enjoy writing this part. Not that I'm not enjoying what I'm doing at the moment, but I'm conscious of time and want to get as much done as possible before the need to pay bills means I have to go back to work. 


Of course, once it's all done, that's only really the start of it. My first draft will be a collection of disorganised ramblings and will be in need of some serious editing. But I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Goalless Walking

I mentioned previously that my long walk in Sweden had given me a new mindset on walking. So, what would that be then?

In the past I've always seen a walk as a kind of challenge: a list of places to be ticked off; a certain time to get somewhere; a set-in-stone quota of miles to be covered. This hasn't been something I've done consciously as my main reason for walking has always been that it's something I enjoy. But because I do enjoy my walks, I've always found it easy to get distracted. I'll sit and gaze at an idyllic view for twenty minutes, then spend another ten minutes trying to take a perfect photograph of a leaf. Add in distractions like tea-rooms, old churches or obscure little museums and my walk can easily take twice as long as it's 'supposed' to. Although I finish my walk happy, I'll have a little niggle at the back of my mind telling me that I haven't done well enough. On the other hand, when I have to rush to finish the walk to make sure I'm in time for the last bus or that the gates on the car park aren't locked, then I don't feel so happy. I feel like I've missed out.

It should be obvious really shouldn't it? That I should walk with the intention of doing what I want, when I want and enjoying myself rather than trying to achieve some self-imposed target. However, it took a long walk in the Arctic with plenty of thinking time for me to figure this out. 

At first I was concerned that I wasn't putting enough miles in each day; that I was starting too late in the morning; that I was taking too many gorgeous-view breaks. I justified it by telling myself I'd never be here again. If I don't absorb the view fully, or camp at that amazing spot by the waterfall and enjoy pottering around in the sun the next morning, I'll never get another chance. In the Peak District, I can always nip back for another look. In Swedish Lapland? Not so easy. Not when I have to take a plane, then a very long train journey, then a bus ride of several hours to the end of the nearest road, and then walk for a few days to get there. It's easier to come back and walk a part of the trail I haven't touched on, than it is to go back to the sections I've already walked just to see a bit here and a bit there because I rushed it first time round.

Once these thoughts started to sink in I began to relax and enjoy myself a lot more. I was learning to stop feeling guilty about something that there was no reason to feel guilty about anyway. I met lots of Swedish people, including some quite young ones. Although some were rushing along with only a few days to complete a long section of the trail, others were enjoying moving slowly and making the most of their time spent in the wilderness. Rather than rushing from target to target, their goal was to find a nice campsite, cook some good food and chill.

Swedes seem to have a different attitude to the great outdoors. From an early age, it's quite normal to spend time walking, carrying a pack, wild camping and jumping in rivers for a wash. Have you ever tried walking with a five-year-old? If so, you'll know how long it can take to even get a few hundred metres down the road. Everything is fascinating to them. They have to turn every stone, pick up every stick and sometimes sample every worm. Give them a backpack to carry and the chance of finding bits of reindeer antler in the stream beds and you've no chance of getting very far. This is fine. The point of the trip isn't to walk a long way, but to enjoy being in the wilderness.

Once they hit their teens they're chomping at the bit to get out there with their mates. No grown-ups allowed. And you know what? The grown-ups are fine with this. They walk a bit further than when they were younger, but still seem to get far more out of 'just being there' than they do for breaking records of distance or speed walked.

As adults, the annual trip to the wilderness is a time to de-stress away from busy lives in Stockholm or other cities. It's quality time with family and friends, or time to be perfectly alone with no-one else to worry about. Yes they have targets; goals they want to achieve, but the targets are not the main reason for being there. 

So why do I always have this feeling of needing to achieve a goal? Is it a general British attitude to walking? There's no point doing it unless you're going to achieve something? I don't think I'm alone in feeling this. Is it because we don't have any 'real' wilderness to spend days alone in? Even the remotest parts of Scotland are not that far from civilisation. I could have driven to the Highlands three times in the time it took just for the train journey from Stockholm to Lapland. Does this mean we never really shed our city feelings of targets, goals and everything at a specific time? Is it because walking is an 'adult' pastime and so we never have the opportunity to learn lessons from five-year-olds about the joy of going slowly? I know some Brits will take their children on short walks, but I don't know any who wouldn't shudder at the thought of taking them into the wilderness for two weeks at a time.

My time in the wilderness has taught me that the goal of not having a goal can be the best goal to have. Of course sometimes it's good to challenge yourself; to keep yourself on your toes rather than sat on your bum taking yet another gorgeous-view break. And sometimes there is no choice in the matter. Why do so many last buses depart at 5pm even in the long, light summer evenings?

So how am I going to apply these lessons now I'm home? I'll still walk according to other people's criteria, whether that's people I meet (it only took us three hours) or what the guide-book says. Or, more importantly, what the bus timetable says. But I also want to walk without a plan or goal. To just wander wherever I think looks interesting. To stop when I want and where I want for however long I want. Will I achieve this goal? Or am I just setting myself another target that I'll feel guilty about not achieving? Is it even possible to have a target of not having a target? Watch this space ...

When your campsite looks like this, why would you be in a hurry to leave?

I've returned ... what next?

I've been home for about 10 days now and I'm slowly getting myself sorted out. As planned, I've spent the summer on a long walk in a long country. I aimed to walk the Kungsleden trail in the far north of Sweden and managed to complete just under half of it before my knees gave out. Although it's disappointing not to have finished the whole thing, I really enjoyed what I did and developed a whole new mindset towards walking. I'll write more about that in another post. I've also got an excuse to go back next year.


Before I went to Sweden, I left my job. Drastic but sometimes these things have to be done. I was getting less and less time to do the things I want to do with my life and to spend time with the people I want to spend time with. Work was, quite literally, taking over my life. I feel a lot calmer and more in control of my life since finishing work. Unfortunately, as I'm not a rich heiress or lottery winner, and I don't have a sugar-daddy to hand, I'll have to find some other means of earning a living. But this time I want it to be on my terms. In the meantime I want to spend some time focussing on things I want to achieve personally.


One of the items on my list is to write a book. I've had ideas roaming around inside my head for years, but they've never seemed quite right when I've come to put them down on paper. My time walking in the wilderness gave me lots of thinking time and I now feel I have the right ideas for a book. I had thought about writing up the walk even when I was at the planning stages. There is very little written on it in English so I'd hope it would be helpful to others wanting to do something similar. This would be one of my USPs. Yes, I've been reading up on what helps a piece of writing to sell and found out all about the need for a USP (Unique Selling Point). I have two USPs. Is that a good thing? The first, as mentioned, concerns the lack of writing about this trail that is currently available in English. The second goes something along the lines of 'stressed, middle-aged woman gives up job and goes off alone for a wander round the Arctic'.


I kept quite detailed diaries whilst I was away and I'm now in the process of writing them up and adding to them. As I read back over them and think about fleshing them out, the book is almost writing itself in my mind. I have so many ideas. I think I'm almost glad I only completed half the walk as I definitely have enough material for one book already!