Software, StoryBox

StoryBox Will Become Even More Free!

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There’s a new era for StoryBox on the horizon. Surprisingly, it’s something I thought I’d never do, on multiple fronts, yet here we are.

What the hell are you talking about?

I switched to using Linux about two months back. I got fed up with all the crap that Microsoft is shoveling these days – bad updates, shoving ai in places where it doesn’t belong, ads in your operating system that you PAID for, tracking you across the internet, no matter what services and settings you change (yes – this is a new one – search out Windows GDID).

So I switched, and I’m never going back. My experience with Linux, so far, has been pretty much better in every way. It boots faster, apps start up faster, it doesn’t force updates on me, ever (I’ve had my windows machine reboot on me when I’m in the middle of working on something to do an update – no way to stop it).

You might ask, “Why not Apple?” The answer is simple. I don’t want to afford Apple products. They’re not expandable or upgradeable, and they sunset them far too early. I had a Macbook Pro once, that suddenly couldn’t get new OS versions, and it was only four years old. They just decided, “Nope. We want you to shell out more money.” I’m also not a fan of the OS. And have you seen the latest UI changes in the latest version of the OS? Those huge rounded corners are so space wasting and fugly, it’s impressive.

And that is why I chose Linux.

But what in the name of word count does that have to do with StoryBox?

I’ve been asked in the past if there would ever be a Mac version of StoryBox, and I always had to answer with a big “No”. It’s written in C#, and uses a UI library that is not available on the Mac. So, essentially, it was impossible.

Until I decided to switch to Linux, and discovered that the writing app landscape on Linux is in dire need of better software. You *can* get Scrivener working on Linux under Wine (which is this software that can make Windows apps work on Linux – but not all of them), but native options are few and far between, and none of them are what I would call first rate pieces of software.

I’m not talking about office style writing software – the word processor that comes with Libre Office, for instance, works great for general writing tasks, but for writing a novel in the way that StoryBox does? There are apps. They aren’t for me.

So I decided on taking a stab at porting StoryBox to Linux. However, I kind of hate straight porting, and I wanted a challenge, so I decided to not only port it to Linux, but also have versions for Apple and Windows. In addition, I chose to do it the hard way: I switched languages.

One of the things that always bugged me about StoryBox, and it’s C# underpinnings, was how long it would take to open. On my super fast machine (fastest I could get last September before the ram apocalypse ruined everything), it still takes multiple seconds even for the splash screen to show up (at least, on first load). You could also see it chug loading some of the UI, which I always kind of thought was terrible. I don’t want to see those things. It had lots of features, but it didn’t feel as zippy as I’d have liked.

Which led me to this: I’m rebuilding StoryBox in C++. From the ground up. And from the start, it runs on all Windows, Linux, and macOS. The best part? So far, startup is instant. It takes practically no time between clicking the icon to start it and the moment it appears on your screen. It’s amazing. Splash screen to hide the loading? Who needs it? Project loading? It’s near instant. It just feels so responsive in a way that the original never did. I put a million words into a single document (not how I envision anyone using StoryBox, to be honest), started typing, and did not feel any lag to speak of, despite counting the words with every keystroke. At 1.6m words, though, yeah, a little laggy.

This version of StoryBox will be backward compatible with the most recent version of StoryBox 2. All of your old files will open in the new version of StoryBox. If you don’t have the latest version of the older software, you will need to get it, just long enough to open your projects in it. It’s also currently available free on StoryBoxSoftware.com.

You won’t be able to switch a project back, though due to the internal format of the text changing. Previously, it was rtf, but the new editor component doesn’t support rtf, so it will be the version of html that it supports, which, of course, the old StoryBox won’t understand. So, back up your projects if you make the switch.

And now, the most important part of this post. The explanation of the title of this whole thing.

StoryBox, the new StoryBox, will just be called StoryBox.

Wait. That’s not it. What is it?

Oh.

Oh yeah.

StoryBox will be free. Free to use. Free to copy the source and build it yourself. Free and open source, and as liberally licensed as I am able to make it. I don’t think most writers care about the open source part, but, the price? It’ll be priced just right.

Why, though? Why make it free?

I just DON’T want to run it as a business, anymore. I don’t want to deal with having a store front. I don’t want to deal with having to do tech support on a basis where I feel obligated. I never made enough money on StoryBox to support a living. Not even close.

I’m doing this, because I want to see StoryBox out there, and I want to see it used, because I think it’s better than any of the other pieces of novel writing software I’ve tried, even Scrivener.

There’s no date set, yet. But I do have a screenshot:

StoryBox

StoryBox is Now Free

StoryBox started back in 2009 as a “how hard would it be to do this?” kind of project. It didn’t take as long as I thought, but at the same time, it took far longer than I imagined.

StoryBox 2, though, was where it really became the piece of software that I really was kind of proud of. It did a lot of things that other pieces of well known writing software did, but it did some things differently.

I never added as you type spell checking, as I believe it breaks the writing flow. I also limited how flexible the formatting should be, as the app was about writing, not about making things pretty.

I moved the menu/toolbar to the bottom of the screen, for two reasons. The first was to put it close to you when you were on a laptop and were using a touch screen, but also to put it in an area of the screen we’re all used to ignoring.

It failed, though, in other ways. The first of which is that it really kind of failed to gain traction like I hoped. The week I released it, those Scrivener guys announced they were bringing Scrivener to the Windows platform. It was written in C#, which required a download of a .Net runtime for many people, at the time, which also kind of put a damper on things, I suspect. It also made it nearly impossible to port to other platforms due to the UI library I chose to use.

And, so it sat since 2016 without another update. In 2022, I took down the sales page. It still works, and you can still download it, but you could only use it for 45 non-consecutive days, and then it’s over.

Wow, I just did the math. it’s been 10 years since I released an update. Crazy. I DID make some changes that never got released. Things got in the way, new features didn’t get completed, that sort of thing. One of the changes was to the full screen mode. I wanted it to have a faster switch between modes, but I never quite got it to where it wasn’t a little buggy. Usable, but was missing features the previous version had.

So. Why am I going back through all this?

I’ve put a key on the website. You can now download the last version of StoryBox, use that key to register it, and use StoryBox for free, for as long as you want, or until Windows breaks it.

It is just, I hope, a first step. I want to release it as open source, but that UI library I mentioned makes that impossible.

Stay tuned to this space for more information coming later this summer (probably), and I’d love to tell you what it is right now, but this is not the space for that. Not yet.

Until that time, enjoy StoryBox 2 on me!

Life

Anybody Listening?

It’s been a long time. Longer than I ever anticipated. I’m not going to go into a lot of detail, as I went into detail in a youtube interview I did a few weeks back.


I won’t tell you there are new books coming. I’ve told you before, and I had every intention of making them happen, but I’ve failed. So, as much as I’d like to think there are still books to be written buried deep in my brain, it may not happen.

Right now, I’m in the middle of trying to figure out who I am, again, as some of the things that have happened in my life have resulted in making some changes (watch the interview if you want to know what those were), and I’m still working on incorporating the mental clarity that’s come with them. Looking for meaning, you might say, in the things that I do.

So, if you are still paying attention to the page (and you’re not a bot…), I still live, and I haven’t completely given up on writing, yet, but it still may be awhile, and I just thought I’d let you know.

Peace, Love, and Kindness.

Weekly Update

The Size That Fits

Two weeks have passed since the last of these, and it may be that will happen often, at least for a while, until I have a completed book to promote. It turns out that I don’t have a lot of topics ready to hand that I want to talk about on an ongoing basis, except the current state of the writing, and perhaps, just saying, “Still writing,” isn’t a compelling topic in and of itself.

However, I’m still writing. It’s not a breakneck pace, but I don’t expect any pace but a plodding one for quite a while. Still, the novel sits at 37 thousand words, which is almost the length of October, yet I don’t believe it is much more than a quarter of the way done.

Speaking of the length, I do want to mention, briefly, that I intend for this kind of length (160-180 thousand words) to be my new normal. If you look at the books I wrote in the years before the drought, my longest book, Fragments reached only 120k words, which was about twice as long as Moony and Minders and the unreleased fantasy novel that will now be getting a rewrite. But even Fragments did not quite match the kind of books I really love, and prefer to read, in terms of length and depth.

There just isn’t room in a 60k word book like Minders or Moony to tell the other side of the story, or to fit in scenes that provide more of the flavor of the place. You can, of course, write that more flavorful thing as three separate books, but I feel every book needs to conclude “something”, even if it’s not the whole story, so breaking a 180k word book into 60k chunks so you can publish once a month gives the story a rhythm that might not be there if you weren’t doing that.

And I don’t prefer that rhythm. It doesn’t make any of those 60k word books bad books, by any means. They’re just not my favorite.

And that’s what I decided to do during the dark days of the drought. I won’t be chasing trends, or trying to drop a new book every month like some people are able to do. I will be writing what I love, in the way that I can write it, to whatever length best fits it. Which means it’ll probably take four to six months to write a book. We’ll find out together, won’t we?

What I’m Reading

I just finished Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay, which is honestly, a book I should have read long ago. I was put off by the setting, years ago, but after having finished it, finally, I think it’s a fantastic book

I also finished reading Becoming Superman by J. Michael Straczynski. It’s a fantastic auto-biography of the man behind Babylon 5, as well as a bunch of other well known properties. The first half is brutal, though.

My next book conquest, I think, will be The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie. I previously read Best Served Cold and enjoyed it very much, and it’s high time I read some of his other work.

Weekly Update, Writing

Streaks?

I wasn’t planning on talking about this, but I’ve been putting words down on a new novel, now, every day for the last five weeks. Thirty-five days in a row. It’s not a huge accomplishment, in the overall scheme of things. I once wrote 450 days in a row, which I still think is pretty impressive. My next longest streak after that was 40 days in a row, when I was writing Shattered. This one comes in at number three.

A friend of mine and I have had multiple discussions about streaks vs the need to take days off. I’m not going to rehash the argument here, because we’re both right. I think getting and staying on a streak is useful as a way to keep the momentum going, and he thinks you need days off to recharge.

For me, if I take days off, I worry that I won’t come back for weeks, which has been proven to happen, time and time again. So when I get a streak going, I’m really, really excited about it, because it means words are going to get written, and books are going to get finished.

I don’t think I’ll ever write 450 days in a row, again. I might take a couple days off between books. But again, I might not. While I’m on a streak, I wanna ride it while I can.

What do you think?

What I’m Reading

I finished the available Cradle books by Will Wight, and I’m eagerly awaiting the next one, which is supposed to be the last. So I had to pick something new to start, and I ended up picking two things. The first, which has had more time spent on it, is Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay, and the second is Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erickson. There’s a good chance I’ll still be reading at least one of these next week. See you then!

Weekly Update, Writing

So, Wednesdays

I had a good week of writing. The story has taken a bit of a twist that I’m really pleased with. The whole thing will likely require some major redrafting of the opening, if I ever decide to publish it (spoiler: I probably will, even though it was intended to be a learn how to ride a bike again kind of thing), but I’m super okay with that.

A note to new writers out there. If you hear writing advice, check to see who’s giving it to you. If you see some advice about how to start your story (for instance), and you go and check to see what they author has written and see they’ve only written two books, read their openings. See if they follow their own advice, and then see if you like their openings (or whatever is relevant to the advice they’re giving).

I watched a video from a young author (young in book terms, it turns out), who gave the “standard” advice about what NOT to do when starting your story. Don’t start with exposition, don’t start with a character we’ll never see again, don’t start with a boring day in the life, don’t start with your character waking up in bed. So I looked up their writing, I found two published books. I read the openings. One started with a dream sequence, and then they woke up in bed. In the other, they woke up in bed to see it snowing outside. Couldn’t follow their own advice.

Also, don’t follow my advice. I don’t know what I’m doing.

What I’m Reading

I’m still reading Will Wight’s Cradle series, but I’m in the middle of the last available book (Dreadgod). I dread finishing it, and having to wait for the final book in the series (which I think should be out this year), but I’m having so much fun reading it that I don’t want to put it off.