HeyJaredMonalisa's Musings
Thoughts of an unhyphenated American turned scifi writer. Readers can find my works via my website, www.monalisafoster.com, online at all retailers, or in brick-and-mortar stores.
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 9
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- Sep 27, 2026
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- Jul 3, 2026
Latest issues
Part 2-I Tried Notion, Obsidian, Aeon, and World Anvil. I Came Back to Scrivener. (opens the original)
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Last time (link to part 1) I walked you through building the codex via cross-linking scene documents with worldbuilding elements. I also covered template sketches, folder structure, and the handling of tricky categories like when something is a location and a vehicle. In part two we are going to deal with the harder part, what to actually include in your codex. Let’s dive right in.<a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/
Part 1-I Tried Notion, Obsidian, Aeon, and World Anvil. I Came Back to Scrivener. (opens the original)
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Since I talked about using Scrivener for a series last week, I’ve been asked to elaborate on some specifics, so I’ll show you how I create a codex via crosslinking. If you’re a worldbuilder, this one’s definitely for you.<a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!hdhW!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe940ef3d-09f3-4025-9a6c-f065120e53d8_1536
How to Make Scrivener Scale to a Series (opens the original)
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After I posted my previous article on using Obsidian to organize information, someone mentioned that they planned to ditch Scrivener for Obsidian because Scrivener doesn’t work for series. I just want to clarify that this is not true and go over how to set it up for a series, because that is exactly what I’m in the middle of doing right now.<a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!2-uv!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/
“AI” Didn’t Write My Book. It Helped Me Find My Characters’ Pants. (opens the original)
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One of the handy things about Scrivener is its robust Search functions. Today I’m going to show you how to use it with RegEx and Collections to find things with broad, non-specific searches for things like “all mentions of clothing” or “all mentions of time passage” or “all filter words.”<a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!kl-l!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F10b
You Have an Idea. Now What? (opens the original)
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One of the most-asked questions we get from new or aspiring writers is “How do you know what to write?” Ideas are everywhere. You can get a writing prompt from pretty much anywhere, which is why ideas have never had much value. I can have an idea —a young farm boy rescues a princess and ends up saving the world—but it’s the expression of the idea matters. <a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YZGC!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https
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