To start off with, I’m going to take a look at a plugin shared with me by Bowe of BP-Tricks, that we’ve been using for managing the content for the Infinity Theming Engine:

Content Audit

Content Audit is a WordPress plugin written by Stephanie Leary for anyone who has lots of content to manage. It’s particularly useful for plugins, themes, software, services etc, that are in active development. Or any content that’s either time sensitive or has a team of people working on it.

What is It?

Content Audit is a really simple idea but a very effective way of keeping track of your content. It uses Custom Taxonomies that you can create and apply to your content, helping you to keep track of it while it’s being developed and over time.

The Content Audit Taxonomy

You create a content audit attribute by going to Pages > Content Audit attributes. The screen there looks like any taxonomy screen, and there are already some preset attributes creates – Redundant &  Outdated, for example. Anyone who has created a WordPress category before will know how to create an attribute.

Page Admin Screen

On the page admin screen you’ve got some new columns added:

• Content Owner
• Content Status

The content owner could be different from the content author – they might be responsible for ensuring the page is created and up-to-date, rather than being the author.

The content status section is what I find really useful. You can quickly see what needs to be done to each piece of content, without having to check each page or keep an external tracking spreadsheet.

Also, some new filters have been added so you can filter by Status, Owner and Author – this makes updating websites with large amounts of content much easier.

Content Notes

Another nice feature of Content Audit is that a page has a new meta-box for adding notes. The content owner or whoever is editing can leave notes about things that need to be addressed, or perhaps ideas for future updates to the page.

Other Features

• Emails the content owner to tell them if a page is about to become outdated
• Show notes and status on the front page (works like a dream with Front End Editor)
• Apply to posts, pages and custom post types (though there are some problems – see below)
• Control over which WordPress user roles can audit

In Practice

I’ve been using it with Bowe for about a week now, and it’s bee a great tool in bringing the website to completion. Once we installed it I did an audit of all of our content. Here are some of the content audit attributes I created:

• Needs styling – Bowe needs to add styles
• Needs copy-editing – I need to copyedit
• Content Complete – the content is complete (e.g. if it’s marked as Content Complete, Needs Styling, I have finished but Bowe better get busy)
• Styles Complete – design & styles are complete (like above, but vice versa)
• Issue – there is a comment on the document that needs addressed
• Needs Links – content needs hyperlinks
• Needs Updated – can be used by developer to mark content as needing updated after an update to Infinity. He can also leave notes in the Content Notes section

You get the idea.

Any Negatives?

The only real problem i have encountered with it so far is that while the Content Audit table columns appear for pages, they don’t appear for posts or custom post types. We use CPTs a lot on the site and now that we’re used to being able to tell a piece of content’s status in an instant, it’s a bit sucky that we can’t do it for CPTs. Bowe suggested that we could make it work with a bit of hackery but I’m hoping we’ll get that option in a later update.

The Verdict

Content Audit is a fantastically useful WordPress plugin for writers, or anyone managing a large amount of content. It has made my life a lot easier, and I’ll be recommending that my clients install it when we’re going major documentation projects. There’s no learning curve, it integrates with your workflow and it improves your documentation process instantly and in a meaningful way.

What the Hell is Scrivener?

Scrivener is a content management tool for writers (they call it a content generation tool, but I generate my content, Scrivener manages it, geddit?). It can be used to manage long pieces of writing that normally become unwieldy in a Word document. Not only that, but they have stripped out all the crap that comes along with MS Word, and have included just the essentials that a writer needs. There are lots of useful tools that make writing a long piece of work much easier. I’ve been using it for my book and it’s a dream to work with. Let’s take a look at my favourite bits of Scrivener:

Organisation

When you open Scrivener, on the left hand side is the binder. Here is mine collapsed:

You can see how I’ve organised my book and my information. I’ve got a folder for themes that are in the book. I can jot down ideas about themes that are central to the narrative. It’s important for me to have some sort of threads that run through the book that I can look at and think about. Then is the book itself, split up into folders – the book is in three parts and each part has a number of chapters. Below that is information about characters and places, a folder that I can dump research into, some preset template sheets and my outline.

Here is the manuscript with the folders open:

Each part is broken down into folders of chapters, and each chapter is broken down into discrete scenes. When I turned Chapter 2 into Chapter 4, all I had to do was drag and drop the scenes into another folder and it was done. This made the act of moving the chapter much less painful than the fact that I have to write a new chapter.

When I click on a part, it brings up lots of information in the main writing pane. Here is Part 1 with some of the individual chapters extended:

I’ve chosen to display label, status, word count, total word count (gives you the word count for a whole folder). You can choose other bits of information to display such as synopsis and modified date.

Labels

I find labels really useful because there are two main styles of narrative in my book – investigation and re-creation. I can easily see which are which using a color code. And if I want I can show only one type of label and it’ll just give me that. This is helpful for ensuring the narrative remains consistent throughout. You could also use labels for characters, themes, or whatever.

Status

Keeping track of my status is really important. My documents folder is scary because I have files called “4th draft – to keep!” and “4th draft – this is the one!” and I’m kind’ve confused about which is the right one. So long as I keep updating my status I know where I am.

I still want to keep copies of old drafts, however, so I can use the snapshot tool to keep a version of the document in each state. That way I can look back when I’m finished and laugh at how shit I was.

The Corkboard

One of my favourite things about Scrivener has got to be the corkboard layout. It was ultra-helpful when it came to putting together the narrative structure in my book, and continues to be helpful as I move stuff around.  Each section of the document has got an index card which you can write the synopsis on, or any other notes you want to make.

Clicking on the corkboard icon will bring up the index card for each part or chapter, all laid out on a corkboard..

I actually use the index cards for the manuscript  to make notes for myself about things that I want to do directly related to the writing. And I keep a separate folder called “outline” which I use for plotting. I can add synopses and notes on a chapter, and scenes within a chapter, and then move them around until I’m happy. When it came to putting together the plot I made index cards for every scene and drag and dropped them into chapters and sections and it really helped with creating my structure.

Inspector

The inspector is a great place. I’ve already talked about snapshots, labels, status and index cards. The other thing that I find really useful is document notes. While I use the index cards in my manuscript to remind myself of things I need to do in a section, the document notes are useful  for dumping anything else that is relevant – links to websites, notes, and I always like to make note of the music I’m listening to when I’m writing . Here’s my inspector for a section that I wrote about driving along the Blue Ridge Parkway in the fog:

You can  see how I organize things. Index card tells me what to do with the piece, I can tag it with meta-data and use the notes for other bits and pieces. People writing non-fiction and academic books would probably also find the document references section useful.

So that’s the most important Scrivener functionality to me, although a few other things to note:

• Scrivenings mode lets you see the whole document in one go, by chapter, part, whole manuscript, whatever you’ve got selected
• You can compile a document to Word format, PDF, or whatever else you need
• There are built-in templates that you can use for writing screenplays, novels, non-fiction books, academic books, recipe cards, essays, or whatever
• There is a distraction free writing  mode so you can write without all the junk on the screen.

The Not-So-Good

This wouldn’t be a balanced review if I didn’t talk about the things that annoy me about Scrivener. Here they are:

• The default font on the Windows version is Courier. Not necessary
• I’ve not figured out yet how to have first line of a section not indented and then every other paragraph indented. That’s probably me being lazy tho
• I have a PC and a Mac so I need two copies (still on trial version on my PC laptop). This isn’t a problem with Scrivener itself, it’s more that I’m tight and don’t want to cough up the cash for two copies of the same software. On the plus side, I keep my project file on dropbox and there’s no problem moving between the two (apart from fonts which don’t transfer Mac-PC and vice versa).

Finally, and this might be a big one if I can’t figure out a way around it. My agent works using track changes on MS Word (he is so last century). This means I’m going to have to compile my draft, send it to him, make any changes he suggests that I like in Word and then copy each section individually back into Scrivener. And that is a whole lot of blah.

Conclusion

I would totally recommend Scrivener to anyone who is writing anything of substantial length. The tools are exactly those that writers need. You can quickly focus in on details, but also come out of the book to look at it as a whole. For me, that’s really important. As a writer, you need to move in very close to your writing in order to be able to craft it, but you also need to be able to quickly grab an overview of your work. Scrivener lets you do that, and more. It’s awesome. I love it. Thank you Scrivener developers.

I spoke to D’s boss about this method of writing, and he was pretty fascinated by it, so I thought it might be worth putting down my reasons for it.

Structure

Obviously my book has a structure, but I want the act of writing itself to have a structure, and, for me, a specific number of words works. There is nothing more terrifying that sitting down in front of my computer to just write. All I can see is an endless stretch of white hopelessness. A blank page on a computer screen. It’s not even like writing on a notepad where there is a finite stack of paper. A word document goes on and on and on and on.

I type up Faulkner and I can say to myself “Okay, you’re writing 672 words today, keep going if you want, but really, 672 words is all that you have to do.” This gives me an easily achievable target, and also provides me with a definitive end point. So on the days where I’m feeling crappy or uninspired or pissed off, I can stop if I want. But usually while I’m writing I get inspired and I keep on going until I run out. It’s this type of structure that I need, a jump-start every morning, or I just stare at my computer, feeling sad and overwhelmed and hating writing.

Focus

Before anything else, I type up Faulkner, I do my writing. I make a cup of coffee, go down to my desk and start writing. It must be done before my brain starts to fill up with all of the things that happen during the day. I am of the YouTube generation, I have no attention span. I skip from thing to thing, a million different thoughts, wondering who’s said what on Twitter, what the comments are on my latest blog post, who has sent me an email.

Typing up another writer is an act of meditation. When I’m doing it (it only takes about 10 – 15 minutes), I am allowed to think of two things:

1. what I am writing (i.e. currently The Sound and the Fury)
2. my book

That’s it. And if I think about anything else I mentally bitch-slap myself into focusing. This process means that I am 100% focused on what I’m doing when I actually start my own writing. I can usually manage a few hours of decent, focused work before I start to feel the Gmail-twitch.

Consistency

One of the things everyone tells you when you start to write is that you must do it every day. Unfortunately this is true. I hate writing, and wish I could just spend my days hanging out at Nandos or watching back-to-back episodes of America’s Next Top Model and The Bachelor.

However, wanting to achieve something as a writer means that I must do it every day. Just this exercise of typing up Faulkner and then writing the same number of words of my own book, means that every day I produce at least 600 words. This may not seem like very much, but over a six month period that is around 100,000 words, and that is a whole book. Yes, a shit book that ends up in the dump folder, but writing 100,000 words over 6 months can only make you a better writer.

Being Told What to Do

I need to be told what to do, I need rules and I need boundaries. Since I’m an adult now, this is usually just a matter of me setting up a fictive big Other and projecting a disapproving eye on to it. This was why I did an MA, and now I have an agent he can be the big O without even knowing about it.

But on a day-to-day basis I have William Faulkner to tell me what to do. Not that he says anything (being long dead and all that). I feel like, in typing up his book, I have made a commitment to my own book. The book sits on a book chair, on my desk, accusing me, disapproving, if I haven’t typed it up that morning, reminding me of my  failings with regards to my own book.

Finitude

You know that feeling that you get when you are reading a tough book that you really want to finish and you get about half way through it and you’re pretty proud of yourself. You can feel the weight and texture of what you’ve already achieved. You get that. Only when you reach the half way point you can look at the book that you’ve been typing up and think “my book is also that length (or longer! hehe).”

In many ways, typing up someone else’s book helps you to see your own as a finite object. Something that you will be able to pick up and read. You can feel the number of pages and think “Yes, that is also the thickness of my book.” You can see your book as a book, rather than just as a story in your head.

—

So that’s what I do, every morning. If I don’t get back to your email until after 12pm GMT that’s why. I’m hoping that by the time I’ve finished writing Faulkner I’ll have finished writing my book. And then I’ll have to worry about what I’m going to type up next.

And yes, he was right, you can’t. But what if, I thought, you could hire a copywriter who does know about WordPress. So Words for WP was born.

Of course, we don’t only write copy, we also produce blog posts, articles, tutorials and any documentation about WordPress that people need. Since our launch in November we’ve already worked with the following:

• OntheGoSystems (the WPML guys) – to produce documentation for their new WP Types and Views Plugins
• Event Espresso – producing various docs and tutorials
• PressCrew – producing docs for the Infinity Themeing Engine (ongoing and lots of fun!)
• ManageWP - currently updating their docs
• Convert My Flash – rewriting web content

I’ve also produced blog articles for various smaller companies and agencies, wrote a mission statement for a company that disappeared (no invoice paid as yet – yes, lesson learned, thx), continued to write for WPMU.org (until Jan 2012) and also, excitingly, produced two articles for Smashing Magazine, with two more currently in the works.

Part of what has been so great about it has been interacting so much with people running different WordPress businesses. While there is a recession going on across the world, the WordPress ecosystem is thriving and it’s so interesting to meet people from all sorts of countries (America, Israel, Serbia, Netherlands, UK) who have founded their own start-ups using WordPress.

So that’s just been in the first 2.5 months in business. Mason, who works with me and tells me what to do because, although I run my own business, I still need someone to boss me around, said that I need to start a blog. Apparently some one might be interested in what I do. Or perhaps only Mason will be interested, which is likely because he is weird.

Anyway, here it is. I’ll keep it updated with all sorts of good stuff about Words for WP, my own personal writing projects, and perhaps with some photos of Radders the Cat.