I'm working on a number of books right now. Lately, I've been channeling all my energy into that. I continue to do so.
But today, Ev Bogue inspired me to write this post, which has been sitting in my drafts folder forever and a day. It was written initially in response to a post on Ev's blog. Like Ev Bogue, and many other writers, I too use Scrivener. I downloaded the 30 day trial and was hooked long before it expired. Recent updates just take it from strength to strength. I tried Ulysses, but couldn't get on with it. I run Scrivener with everything possible hidden, toolbars etc, using keystrokes for control. I love the full screen mode for composing.
Where the work starts.
I work on the go much of the time. My process goes something like this:
1. Ideas and inspiration. This gets noted with anything to hand, from pen or pencil and paper, to iPhone, iPad or Mac. In the most basic text format available at the time. Anything goes. It will sync to something more advanced later. The usual first line is my iPhone if out and about, the iPad if I'm chilling out, or the MacBook if I'm working on something. All synced via DropBox.
2. Ideas, incubated for a while, with additional notes putting flesh on the bones, become drafts. At this point, I paste or sync them into Scrivener.
3. Publishing comes either via Scrivener, or for more styled up PDFs, may port over to InDesign for the layout work. Otherwise, Scrivener for all the editing and bulk of the writing. Publishing too.
Tools.
For simple focused outlining, drafting and note making, I write in nvALT, synced with Notesy on my iPhone and iPad. For a plain text scratch pad, I use a file in nvALT that I can type in at the hit of just two keys. For an RTF scratch pad, I exclusively use an open file in TextEdit. I love TextEdit. Simple and powerful. For RTF editing, I used to use WriteRoom for beautiful fast full screen writing. I now take my work straight from nvALT to Scrivener. I also keep a collection of personal work in my WriteRoom folders, which sync, via DropBox, across all my working platforms, iPhone, iPad and MacBook.
Scrivener. Scrivener's real power for me is:
1. The ability to organize the books I am writing by page and by chapter, along with supporting etc.
2. The ability to publish to Kindle format.
3. The power of DropBox and other sync options, enabling me to sync with my iPad and iPhone, and therefore to edit on the trot, which is great, as I'm not much of a desk jockey, nor a cafe table jockey.
I've tried OmmWriter and all the others. If it's been made for Mac, iPad or iPhone, then I will have tried it. But this simple system is the one that has gelled. I may toy around in OmmWriter for a fresh angle, or poetry writing, same with WriteRoom. I even tried writing in MarkDown, but I just prefer simple text, with a little formatting. I keep it plain text for notes and drafts, then take it to RTF in Scrivener. Scrivener syncs nicely with Index Card on my iPad.
Organizing files.
I keep a simple folder structure in my DropBox:
/words
/images
Under /words, I have separate folders for completed drafts:
/notes
/drafts
/published
Each folder has the following subfolders:
/books
/editorial
/essays
/letters
/poems
/stories
Other aspects.
I'm interested to see what software others are writing in, and how they are writing with those tools. Writing workflow fascinates me. Scrivener has the most complex set of preferences I have ever come across in a writing app. Books have been written about it. I would like to retain it's power, but lose many of the preferences, in favour of a simpler interface. Or at least, some preferences sharing, at prefs.org for example. This would be useful. I'm prepared to share my own, but setting up Scrivener prefs is a mammoth task.
For those interested, there's a great post on Scrivener over at Book Baby.
Screen grabs of my Scrivener setup:
Notebook workspace
Book project
Last word.
With all this talk of software, apps and other digital tools, I must not forget my humble Moleskine journal. I try to have one with me at all times. It's battery never fails. I have to be honest though. It's more often my iPhone that I have with me at all times.
Posted by Ando Perez at http://evbogue.com/ on 11 August 2011