Scrivener
I’m writing up this review in Scrivener! I am addicted to this writing software. When I was writing my first book (read up on the entire process here) a buddy told me – hey you should be using Scrivener!
Glad I took his advice!
So how do I use Scrivener?
Basically – its a separate application you need to install on your computer (I use a Mac). Once its installed, you create a new project – I just use a blank template.
Now, here’s the magic. You don’t just write in 1 massive document – you write in sections. By writing in these sections – you can drag and drop them, put them into folders, and re-order a million and one times.
This is primarily built for authors writing out a book- because it makes the editing and re-ordering process so simple. Most people who write books (I’ve written a few) start with an outline, which is recommended. Well, in Scrivener you simply start the outline process and don’t stress about re-ordering things / adding chapters and sections later.
Then, once you’re comfortable with the outline, start writing. Later on, you will most likely still think of new sections, chapters, even new book ideas! No problem – you can drag and drop these blocks of text for each section you outlined and move forward. If this was in Microsoft Word for example, you would have to copy/paste and then hope you didn’t miss something or put in the wrong place, etc. Nightmare!
Basically, I love Scrivener for that simple fact – each morning I am writing blogs and even SOPs and other emails – I simply make all these different sections with a name of what each one is. Then I just jump in to each section and start writing – for example this is in the Mike’s blog directory Scrivener folder and then in a Scrivener section (block of text) and if I want to take a break and hop to another item, I can just do it and come back to this one no problem.
For me, it drops the stress of writing and organizing all your files to close to zero.
And the added bonus is there is a quick shortcut key to track how many words I have written on a daily and total basis. That way after my 30 minutes of writing for that day I can see how many words I hit in it and update my writing journal google spreadsheet.
While it may not be for everyone, I think once you start writing – especially books – you will be better off investing a bit of time upfront to get familiar with this amazing software Scrivener – it will pay in dividends in the long term.
There is also a free trial so why not try it out?