Thursday, June 28, 2012

MasterWriter – an Unbiased Review



What is a writer's best friend? A thesaurus? A dictionary? How about writing books or screenwriting magazines?

Want to know my nonhuman best friends? Ideas! Research! Words! A sense of wonder! And MasterWriter! Perhaps you and I share the same friends. But if MasterWriter is unfamiliar to you, I invite you to read on.

Maybe this scenario sounds familiar. You gather all of the basic ingredients (ideas, notes, etc.) for your book, blog, screenplay, or article, and you sit down at your computer or laptop. Your hands hover above your keyboard and you type. Everything runs smoothly until, much to your dismay, one necessary word – the only word that suffices in describing exactly what you have to say, seemingly disappears from your vocabulary. Poof! Gone!

You can almost see it. You can almost taste it. But you can't get to it because that perfect word flits around the synapses in your brain like an elusive butterfly. Finally the word lands on the tip of your tongue – so close and yet so far away. 

Yes, friends, you suffer from "tip of my tongue" syndrome, and the malady is frustrating. In desperation, as you near your assignment's due date, you find you sometimes have to let your work go "as is," knowing you could have explained yourself so much better.

Like many writers annoyed by "tip of my tongue" syndrome, I hoped somebody would design a program that was intuitive enough to locate precisely the word I needed simply by plugging in that insanely "close" word that was not the word I wanted to use. If only the correct word would magically spring onto the keyboard, I would applaud myself for finding the exact word I needed amidst the 1,013,913* other words in the English language. Oh, what a relief it would be to rid from my tongue the weight of holding that one word I was thinking but couldn't quite capture. 

And then MasterWriter appeared and I couldn't wait to explore it. The English language is filled with so many "close" words that trying to match a specific idea to the word that defines our thoughts demands precision. MasterWriter contains that precise word. It includes a thesaurus, a dictionary, and lots of exciting surprises for writers!

Bob Zemeckis, an Oscar winning writer, director, and producer, (Back to the Future series, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Forrest Gump) says, "MasterWriter is an absolute necessity for today's creative writer." William Peter Blatty (The Exorcist) and Andrew Davis (That '70s Show) agree.

MasterWriter claims that MasterWriter 2.0 is, "The most powerful suite of writing tools ever assembled in one program." Their claim is spot on. If you take a look at their Short Demo, you will agree. I'm not going to waste any more of your time by advocating the benefits of this program. You can see for yourself the advantages of MasterWriter 2.0 by watching the Short Demo (click the link).

MasterWriter even offers a program for songwriters and poets, though its basic program, MasterWriter 2.0, offers so much it just might provide exactly what the lyrical crowd needs. However, it might be worth exploring for all the poets and songwriters out there.

So go ahead – explore – and be amazed!

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Thinking of Joining the Disney Club? DON'T!


Several years ago I decided to join the Disney Club. I wanted to get all of the classics. Period. I did not want to get every single movie that Disney ever put out from Disney's beginning until the day I died. 

Don't get me wrong – I love Disney movies. Always have. HOWEVER, trying to quit the Disney Club is like trying to get out of the Hotel California (Eagles song). Disney allows you to join its club, but you can never leave.

Disney politely tells you that if you want to cancel your membership, after you have fulfilled all of its requirements, all you have to do is call 1-800-362-4587.

Good luck with that. You will be sent on an endless trip through the telephone circuitry that always leads you back to the same taped recording you received when you first made your call. You think maybe you missed something, so you hang up and try your call again. No luck the second time either.

Then you find a different phone number, so you call that one (1-800-362-4527). But guess what? You get the same recording. You can never talk to a real person at the Disney Club, and nobody there will ever cancel your membership. They threaten to cancel it if you return too many DVDs, but they never actually follow through with canceling your membership. I know. I have returned LOTS of DVDs, and I still receive those envelopes every time I miss the email that asked me if I wanted it.

When I return too many in a row, Disney sends me notices reminding me that all I have to do is respond to their emails, but I get over 300 emails a day – the likelihood of losing a Disney reminder is astronomically high, especially when I have something to do other than sit at my computer and open over 300 emails a day.

So, if you are considering joining the Disney Club, make sure your commitment is for life. Don't forget to respond to Disney's emails, and make sure you have enough money in your checking account to cover the cost of the DVD you didn't want, because if you become overdrawn, your bank may charge you $25 every single time you get a new Disney movie, and believe me, $25 can break you when you have less than what Disney charges for a movie.


Remedy for me? I'll just keep sending those movies back. Maybe eventually, when Disney gets tired of paying for all the postage, the Disney Club will cancel my membership (PLEASE)!

Best bet for you? Purchase your movies through Walmart or Target. They're sometimes cheaper anyway.