One more post for now, in the spirit of posts that catch up on things I’ve been meaning to note here: Via one of the blogs I read listed below (I can’t remember which one), Merlin Mann at 43 Folders (a blog I haven’t read for a while now, but that perhaps I’ll get back to one of these days) has a favorable review of the writing software Scrivener. This post lead to this one, “NYT Magazine covers Scrivener, other OS X writing apps.” I haven’t read it yet, but will after I finish here.
You know, I’ve had a demo copy on both my desktop and laptop computers for over a month now and it has been on my “to do” list for quite a while to finish the tutorial/figure this thing out, and for whatever reason, I haven’t done so yet. Perhaps my writerly head is resisting new techniques; or perhaps that’s just evidence that I haven’t been writing enough lately. In any event, since we are entering winter break and this is going to be a chance for me to catch up on all sorts of things, maybe I’ll have some of my own thoughts to share on this by next weekend. But I do have probably 100 items on my current to do list, so….
I found the tutorial (under the Help menu) to be the key. Before I did the tutorial, I didn’t get it. Afterwards, it clicked, and I realized exactly how cool it is.
Thanks to your reminder, I downloaded Scrivener yesterday. I had always thought it would help the larger writing projects I’m juggling, and it did. I, too, did the tutorial, which has to be a first for me, but it was not annoying and really did carefully walk me through the possibilities. Anyway, thanks. I blogged about it on Techsophist for those who want to know more.
I’ve been using Scrivener Gold for some time now and I have to say that I love it. In addition to the cool organizational features like note cards and research storage, but I love being able to go old school full screen black and amber! It really helps me to focus by blocking out email, IMs, and Twitter messages for a while. It puts me back in the zone.