Scrivener

I've been looking (procrastinating?) for a good text processor for a while on my ipad. If found several nice ones, but the never seem to be able to handle files properly. It has to handle Dropbox as easily as a local file, work offline half the time, and sync automatically. Not too much to ask, eh? ;-)

I tried Storyist, but it handles files weirdly, and a format/system that puzzles me. Scrivener's not out on ipad yet, so we'll see later.

So, I have about 15 different programs to work with.

As of now, though, I think I'll use iawriter. Handles files ok. Has a few extra keys I like, and not too much extra crap.



Jeff

I have a nice Mac, but I've pretty much stopped using anything but the ipad. Except for some extra heavy processing on photos, there's nothing on the Mac that I don't have better on the ipad.

Now, I admit that it took some time to get there. I've downloaded and tried hundreds of apps. (Hence my over abundance of text processors.) But the end product is complete portability - for the last few years.

I have lots of time between clients at work, and the ipad comes in pretty handy for writing and reading then. Unfortunately, since I work in a hospital, I have zero connection to anything. No network or Internet or data access. So, I won't be saying much online during the weekday. So, I settled on iA Writer. I can write during the day, offline, and sync with Dropbox after work. It's not as complicated as Storyist or Scrivener, and doesn't have a "system" involved but, frankly, I am still such a newbie that I feel Leary of wedding myself to any particular system yet. When I finally get past Chapter 2, instead of my endless collection of Page Ones, I'll find something that fits my newly discovered process :-)

Now, if I could just find an apt that automatically plots my novel ;-)



Jeff

I'm using Scrivener, though I have to say I'm only using a portion of its capabilities. Still learning but want to spend time writing rather than learning software.

If you are interested in Scrivener, I suggest to anyone doing July NaNo that you wait to buy it (which is actually inexpensive) until after you win CampNaNo. They usually have a big discount for winners of NaNo & Camp. If you want to try it, you can start their month long trial a day or two after camp starts. It also only counts the days you use it, not calendar days.

Gitchel - not being able to get on the internet is probably a blessing. I know that lots of writers disconnect the internet when writing because of the distractions. Remember, plenty of writing was done before the internet lol. Don't tell the NaNo teenagers that, though. They'll never believe you anyway. It does leave you out of the cabin until later in the day, but, hey, we're all in different time zones anyway.

Ya, I'm a bit worried about how compile and all that will work. What limitations have you found, Elena?

I'm a minimalist. I use Notepad for most drafting, and after a day's work copy it into Word for spellcheck. Otherwise I bog down in details, and features. For me, the fewer features, the better. I've actually toyed with the idea of writing in Excel, because one tab could be a chapter, and I love the tabs for organizing things. But how to get Excel to carry text in cells? Hmmm, somewhere in my pile is an Excel spreadsheet of the entire King James Bible, I found it years ago on the web, each book on one tab. I should dig it out and have a look at how they did paragraphs. Now that would be an outrageous thing, to write it in Excel. Talk about inappropriate. I like it.
*time passes*
www.dropbox.com/s/h3k02ozrmi9fcor/king-james-bible.xls

In March 2013 I purchased my first laptop (Dell) after 14 years working with a desk top computer. I was an illiterate concerning workings of a computer and in 2000 took out books from the county library to get educated with a computer I bought real cheap.

Along the way I purchased both Dramatica Pro and Movie Magic Screenwriter for assistance in writing short stories and novels.

storymind.com

I just wanted to post the very generous offer the folks over at Literature and Latte are extending on Scrivener - the trial version and also a discount on the full version. Their trial is usually 30 days, but they are letting you use it until December 7th. You can also snag a 20% discount through November and December by inputting NANOWRIMO as a promotion code. If you win Nanowrimo in November, you can get 50% off.

Here's the link to the post on the Nano forum. It's written by Keith, the developer of Scrivener. And here is the link where you can download the Nanowrimo trial version of Scrivener and also a Nanowrimo template for those who already have Scrivener. The Nano template is already included with the Nano trial version. 

I have Scrivener and I really like it.

I just found a nice new (to me) scrivener template: for documentaries. It has columns for images, text, etc. Used it to script my first little YouTube video.

Elena, where is the template? In Scrivener itself? Perhaps I should look, instead of asking.