A Scrivendium Origin Story

It was a dark and stormy night in the middle of November, 2023. I was typing my fingers as fast as they would go, when suddenly the NaNoWriMo forums went down!

Now, up until that point, I'd relied on NaNoWriMo for basically everything. Write a novel draft? NaNoWriMo. Have a writing question? NaNoWriMo. Need a beta reader? NaNoWriMo. When the forums imploded, I was left with four novels that needed beta readers and absolutely no way to get them.

What followed was several weeks of weeping, angry prose, and... nope, just kidding. I actually shrugged and moved on, hopeful that the forums would come up again quickly. Honestly, I hadn't really kept abreast of the forum drama. I didn't care what mods were doing what, and I hadn't really looked in-depth at all of the NaNo sponsors because they weren't all my cup of tea. (Y'all, please do your homework on any company you work with! Writer Beware is your friend!!!) 

Anyway, November passed and the forums weren't up yet. I researched other ways to get my beta readers, but everything was either too clunky, too hit-or-miss, on Facebook (y'all, social media is not my cup of tea), or too expensive. All I wanted was to get my novels into the hands of people who could poke holes in my plots! I didn't need experts (I'm an editor in my own right. Yes, editors need editors, but they also tend to know enough to call in reinforcements when needed and workshop the smaller problems themselves), I needed readers. 

So I did what everybody does. I complained... A lot... All the time... After every writing session.

After about a month of this I'm not going to make my publishing deadlines, I just want someone to tell me where my problems are, I've read the stupid thing thirty times already, if I just had a beta reader I'd be done already! stuff, I made the mistake (or genius I-totally-planned-it-this-way tactical move) of complaining to my dad.

Ok, I get that complaining to your parents isn't a grown-up move. I maintain that growing up is a trap that I'd rather avoid, thank you very much.

Anyway, I told my awful sob story to my dad, who said... well, how did the NaNo forums match you with beta readers? I explained the whole forum thing (for those of you who weren't on the NaNo forums before the implosion, you basically wrote a post describing your novel and hoped someone who liked your genre came along and didn't get completely lost in the thousands of posts) and you'll never guess what he said.

"Putting together a database to match writers and readers is easy! You could do it yourself."

Well, it's officially almost six months later and due to a few technical things (totally not me jumping up and down and saying but what if we added this thing tooooooo!) it was not as easy as he said. But it is here, and it has grown.

See, I'm an indie author, and I happen to think that independent authors are the way of the future. I'm also a bit of an entrepreneuer (when I stop whining and decide to actually do something, that is), so while we were putting together the answer to my beta reader problem, I made a list of other problems. Here's a brief sample:

• Once I get a beta reader, I have to export my whole project to a cloud-based program so my reader can read it.
• I have to make a copy for each beta reader so they can't read each other's comments - and then I have to recombine them!
• Oh, and after I get the feedback, I have to import the whole thing back into my favorite writing software (that has a few of its own holes...)

So we decided to fix those problems too.

Scrivendium is what came out of that whole be-a-big-girl-and-solve-your-own-problems thing. We're starting with beta reading, but the plan is to tackle all the problems an indie writer faces in a traditional publishing world. Why? Because I'm not convinced it is a traditional publishing world anymore.

In the end, I came up with one big goal for Scrivendium. It's going to be a one-stop-shop for the whole writing process, from outlining, to drafting, to feedback, to revisions, and it's going to be 100% ethical.

WELCOME TO SCRIVENDIUM, THE ETHICAL SOLUTION FOR INDIE AUTHORS!

And hey, if you've got stubborn writing problems to fix but you lack a technology-savvy father, send me a note and we'll see about getting your problems fixed too!