Liquid Story Binder – Review Part 1

This software comes from Black Obelisk.  I bought it on a whim.  These are my first impressions.

The LSB has an elaborate structure, but most of the actual writing occurs in chapters.  Right now I’m keeping my menu to the right and my chapters to the left.    It looks like this:

I like not having Word’s basic blue behind the document, and changing the background is easy as pie. Right click anywhere on the background. Select new image. Add image. With the image open, click Change Wallpaper.

Look – a Dragon Lady.

You can also change colors of everything on the fly – as you can see I like when the background of the documents is not 100% white, but a bit off-white. Easier on the eyes.

And here we come to an interesting part. Lookit here. This is why this software is from the devil.

The first number is the word count.   The second is the version word count.  Technically “Versions refer to individual days.  No matter how many times you open Liquid Story Binder in a single day, the version number only changes with the date. ”

Practically, it ends up being  how many  words you’ve written since the program was running. And because the cursed thing is telling you the time too, you can actually get your hourly statistics.

Do you know how bad this is?  I’m extremely competitive.  I like to beat my own productivity average.  I am obsessing over it now.  Del the Fear-inducing doberman puked on the carpet today and my first thought was, “God Damn it, there goes my productivity average.”  (You can pause the statistics, but it’s cheating.)

I can’t even check email while writing anymore.  It’s like having a chain.  It makes it nearly impossible to goof off.  The only reason I am on here, is because Gordon is reading two versions of the short story to tell me which sucks the least.

I am so keeping this thing.