I understand that I am prone to the tiniest amount of over-dramatization. I recognize that by announcing how a writing program has saved my life, it just might be misconstrued by some as perhaps overstating my case…but they’d be wrong.
Scrivener has saved my life.
I have known about Scrivener for quite a while. I discovered it one night when I was randomly searching the internet in hopes that there was something that would tell me how, and what to write, and then possibly doing it all for me.
This is the same kind of behaviour as trying to diagnose myself by going to online self-help medical forums. I can scroll down all the symptoms, muttering, yes, yes, that’s me too, only to find that the ultimate prognosis is for Elephant-Manitis, or something equally non-applicable to my situation.
Plus when I read the users describing their Scrivener epiphanies, it really did sound a bit too good to be true. And you know what they say about that little axiom. Also, it was only available for Mac users, and at the time, I did not see a Mac in my future.
Flash forward to 2012, where a), I am now a Mac convert, and b), Scrivener Saved My Life.
How you may ask? I’m so glad you did.
I have chunks of text and writing and random bits of everything stuffed in to various files and folders. It is NOT cohesive. It follows no rhyme nor reason but it is all part of this project that I’ve been working on. It includes everything I did last year on the Humber course, memoir writing, fiction writing, stuff written from a ten-year old point of view, other chunks from an adult’s point of view, but all of it related to this overall idea I have about the aforementioned “project”. There is sturm and drang, yin and yang and probably there is even peanut butter and jam.
How, pray tell, was I supposed to organize this into some semi-cohesive whole? I seriously considered printing absolutely everything, throwing it on the floor, highlighting bits, cutting chunks and moving it around, but there isn’t a floor big enough and the thought of all those trees dying on my behalf made me cringe.
Enter Scrivener. I can import my documents, compare and revise them, ‘stick’ little post-it notes on the side with to-do instructions for the next steps, ‘pin’ index cards to tops of piles of text to summarize what’s in the pile and generally sort and visualize what I’ve got.
This is only the start.
I am just beginning to figure out the program. In spite of how I’d really rather not learn another bunch of icons, commands and buttons, it’s already helped me make more sense of what I’ve got and what to work on next.
Now if it would just write the damned thing. Clearly, it’s not perfect.
Welcome to the world of Mac! I’ve never used anything but (except for a few forgettable jobs) and can’t imagine why anyone would want another kind of computer. No need for Scrivener – hassling with Adobe InDesign, which was CLEARLY not designed by Apple.
And that was a very fun to read blog post, Colleen!
Jana, glad you enjoyed that post 🙂
As far as this whole apple thing? I feel like I’ve been given the secret decoder ring with this Mac. When I sometimes go back to my PC, the keys feel like I’m working on a Flintstones version of a computer. However. I don’t want to get into the whole PC vs Mac thing. Suffice it to say that the Mac feels like it’s set more for my way of working in the world…though I still have moments where I do the wrong finger configurations and suddenly everything goes bye-bye. I’m getting better but there are still lots of tricks to learn.
First, I think I’m going to have to get Scrivner. It looks like a fantastic program that I will force myself to find a need for – it’s time to get some of these ideas out of my head where far too many things are getting lost lately. Thanks for sharing it.
Second, I see that, contrary to your pre-2012 predictions, the Humber course has not kept you from traveling. The States, Mexico, France…. I don’t think you’re capable of giving up traveling for more than a week or two at a time 🙂
Hey Sharry, glad to hear you’re going to get those things out of your head and wrestled on to the page. It’s a bit of a mess, but worth the flying mud and sweat!
If you decide to purchase, do an internet search using ‘coupon for Scrivener’ or words to that effect, I got just over $9.00 off that way 🙂
And yes, I start to get a little twitchy if I don’t need my passport on a regular basis. Busted!