I'm just trying to get my filbert flange to mesh with my grapple grommet. Anybody got a sledgehammer?

Hmm. Even if I can figure out the sorting problems, I'm not sure Excel or Word tables are going to work. I have section headings and up to three levels of bullets deep. If I try to sort the whole spreadsheet (e.g., to see all book one, then book two, etc.), I either have to put entire sections in one cell (which prevents sorting on the individual bulleted items below the headings), or I have to put each bulleted item in its own cell (which results in one big sort across all bulleted items). I need to be able to sort sections along with their bullets, and I then need to be able to sort level one bullets while keeping them together with their headings, etc.

Yup. Sorting copied cells is total cr*p. Seems to have something to do with the bullets and copied formatting.

Uh oh. Sorting the copied text is causing cells to be deleted.

Cool! Even color coding comes across. This is going to take at most a day. I'm sure something will bite me in rear before this is done.

I'm better at Excel than Word tables, so Excel it is. I thought the conversion was going to be a nightmare (80 pages of notes just for the study guides), but I can copy and past whole sections of bullets from my notes file into either an individual cell (for related bullets) or spanning multiple vertical cells for unrelated bullets. MS Office 2007 rocks! tongue

Good to know. Thank you.

I may have a solution. Word allows you to sort tables by up to three criteria. That way I could put all bible study notes in order by either study guide, novel number, etc. It's a lot of work to set this up, but it really should be in tables to manage the data. I'll have to play with it to see if it's doable. I hope word can handle an incredibly long table, otherwise this will be a huge waste of time.

For those reading this, how do you organize your notes? I have a names bible in a spreadsheet, but mostly I have one long Word document (about 120 pages and growing), most of it notes from what I thought was important in each of the study guides. Naturally the notes are organized by study guide, or by topic in the case of other research for the books. The file also contains growing notes for each of the three books I will eventually use for the outlines.

My biggest problem is taking all the research notes and applying them to the trilogy and, more specifically, to the individual books. If the notes were in a spreadsheet, I could flag each item by book number (some items would appear in more than one book.) Such a spreadsheet would be huge, with cells that are half a page long. It would, however allow me to sort by book number to geta complete list of all notes related to a specific book. This would be a ton of work to create and I'm sure there would be a lot of vague cases where I don't know where to put it. It also wouldn't allow me to sort in chronological order, so that I can see what belongs in each chapter of the novels, unless I include that in the spreadsheet as well.

Currently I colour code important and very important notes in green and red, respectively. Short of creating such a massive spreadsheet, I'm left with the idea that I have to read each note throughout the Word file and then copy the note into every outline to which it applies (books i, ii, or iii). This seems just as unwieldy as the spreadsheet.

Suggestions?

Thanks.
Dirk

Or you could just make a request for a good editor on this site. :-)

amy s wrote:

I agree that having Tazar disappear a third of the way through the book isn't a good way to keep the character's nobility alive. Let me think about it. His journey isn't the focus of the story, though.

You've been subconsciously influenced by Snoke.

Amy, how much was the editor? I've seen estimates that run into the thousands, although that's for a very detailed edit.

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njc, how bad is the weather near you?

Woohoo! Taxes done. Tomorrow I get to celebrate with a big grocery shopping trip in foot deep snow. I'm down to oatmeal and a few slices of bread. This'll be a chance to see how well my all-season tires perform.

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vern wrote:

Hi, Tirz, you are telling the story in first person, but the story has already occurred or you wouldn't be able to tell it; therefore, you "flipped" Binny the bird as you are not in the process of flipping him the bird while you are telling the reader that you did so in the past.

Don Chambers writes a lot of his stories in first person, present tense. So I believe he would write it: I flip Binny the bird. You can tell a story as it is happening, which is present tense. Send him a message if you want him to comment on this. He's not very active on the site at the moment.

Finally did something tonight besides decrypting Revelation. Wrote one lousy paragraph of dialog explaining orphan Connor's family history. Kept getting sidetracked by things I need to research: Italian given names, Italian surnames, Italian Police (very different structure from North America), Vatican City State Police, including ranks and uniforms (no direct equivalent to detective in a trench coat), Glock 17 semi-automatic pistols, allergies to gold (didn't know there was such a thing), etc. Wasted way too much time trying to slip the name Angel (Angelo) into the family, but since the name Connor is in the book, the link to the TV series was too obvious. Names will be the death of me.

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Personally, I wander in blizzards. This winter is sh*t in Calgary. I'm stuck indoors half the time because all-season tires aren't sufficient for the roads. Although I'd rather be here than in the NE US today. I saw a video of a cross-wind so strong, it almost tipped a tractor trailer on its side along a straight stretch of highway.

Have to add this to K's inheritance:
https://www.amazon.com/Rose-Book-Bible- … +Timelines

I joined Scribophile a while back. They rejected my pen name and deleted my account. If I remember correctly, your chapters can only get new reviews for a limited time. That doesn't work for me.

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(11 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

Ignore my previous two posts. I really must stop sniffing glue.

I blush.

You're writing 4-5 books at once. I'm just an unworthy tax collector. I collect K's taxes to pay my bills. I'm going to put him in my will. K, you'll get all the rights to Into the Mind of God. You can replace Queen Aussie with a blue smurf.

I think I found the ultimate Catholic study guide for Revelation. The author spent ten years researching and writing it. Eight hundred pages, including many of the private prophecies (to saints, seers, etc.) that I've read about but can't interpret or fit into a timeline. I figured for $10 on Kindle, what the heck. Another week or two of reading and note-taking. For those keeping score, that's eight study guides.

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(11 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

You can add comments to existing comments. You can't start a review in xline, placing new comments.

2,200

(11 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

You can't leave inline comments in xline view, at least not during the initial review. Also, as Bill said, the 2x2 summary field at the bottom requires html tags.