Books -- reading and writing.
Home, cooking, the weather.
And whatever connections I can make between these chapters of my life.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

I Love Scrivener, Pt. 1

My critique group must tire of my ravings about Scrivener. I think I'm such an admirer of this writing software because the first time I tried it, I gave up in failure. This time I was more persistent. And considerably more motivated. Now I'm Scrivener's biggest fan.

I am revising historical fiction and there's just not a better way to keep track of all the photos, web pages, lists, books-- you name it-- than Scrivener. Not to mention your entire manuscript, and all those note cards.

Today I vaguely remembered notes from a hymnal of very old songs, a book I'd seen during a faraway summer but not one I'd owned. I'd carefully printed titles I loved, but where was that notebook? Where was my hymn list? When you've been writing at a story for almost ten years, off and on, you have way too many notebooks.

But I found it. And now I wanted to be sure it was someplace handy for reference. I took a picture, saved it to my computer and imported it right into my "research" notes in the binder.



Never to be lost again! By the way, I chose #5, Rock of Ages, from the list. Now I know all my hymn-ish stuff may not make this revision cut, but for now, I can't get the words out of my head, or the tune.

For my next novel, I will begin with Scrivener. I will transcribe into Scrivener as soon as I write a note on the back of a recipe card, scribble reminders with my grocery lists, or photocopy something from a book. Yes, I do love Scrivener.

Related post: Click here for a cool picture of my corkboard with note cards, from a previous posting.

2 comments:

Joyce Moyer Hostetter said...

I stepped out of Scrivener (temporarily at least) because I needed something more familiar to use while working on a deadline.

I am actually thinking of going with One Note instead of Scrivener.

Any experience with One Note? (The newest version?)

Augusta Scattergood said...

Joyce, I have not tried One Note but I seem to recall some postings about it on FB. Maybe that was you?

I do understand about giving up while on a deadline though. I gave up when I got a new computer because there were just too many things to learn! But I'm so glad I tried again. I think re: scrivener, if you just use it for word processing at first, you'd be fine. Forget all the bells and whistles. You can add them later.
My 2-cents worth!