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Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Writing In a Digital Age

Things have changed SO much, so fast, from when I first started writing.

If I was really clever I would be posting some cute meme here that shows a timeline of a notebook, to a typewriter, to a wordprocessor to a computer. But I'm not. No idea how to do that.

I think the changes are Great! I, like a poster yesterday, get hand cramps if I write long hand for too long so the computers really opened up the world of writing for me!

The trouble is...the Choices! #firstworldproblems

Which word processing software to use?

Now I know. Probably a good 80% of you are going, Word, It's the only way! (Or the Apple equivalent....)

But I can't trust that program after it devoured all my writing back two years ago. ALL. of my writing. Yes. I had backed it up. But there was a 'glitch' in the Word program that I had that didn't allow it to talk to my external hard drive...so no...it wasn't really backing things up, even though it went through all the motions like a good little program. Then, when I turned my computer on one day and Word was just simply NOT THERE?! (uh?) The computer guy I have informed me of the known issueS (plural) that version of Word has with things.

I'm sure Microsoft has fixed it. As Word has a pretty high rating. But I just can't do it....Not without lots of therapy. Therapy and whiskey.

But I did find Scrivener! Which kicks ASS! Anybody else out there use Scrivener? It's amazing. It basically looks like the inside of my brain when I'm writing. It's a program developed BY writers, FOR writers. It's Cheap. I got the whole shebang (Well...my husband bought it for me for our anniversary :D ) It included a disk with the program, so I can put it on another computer, the download, and the manual. $60! It does take some time to Learn. But once you realize this ISN'T Word, doesn't work anything Like Word. It's pretty intuitive. It's a Huge program. Check it out! Scrivener Website!

I also found this website in my wanderings trying to find info about word processing software. Software Review Site! My first thought when I saw it was, holy crap! Wordperfect is still around??

SO!  What do you all use!? And how do you like your choice? Would you change it if you could or are you happy with it and it's working for the way you write?







7 comments:

1000th.monkey said...

Reasons like that are exactly why I purged every scrap of Microsoft from my life about a year ago, and I haven't looked back once ;)

The Mac equivalent is Pages, which I have never once had a problem with, and have been using it in its different incarnations for about 6 or 7 years now.

Charity Bradford said...

I love Scrivener for the drafting part of writing. For some reason I end up going back to word for revising. It doesn't make sense really, but that's how my brain works I guess.

Huntress said...

I don't want to be contrary...oh, wait. Yeah I do. I *love* contrary don't I?

Anyway, love Word and all its derivatives. I've heard that Scrivener is superb but why switch canoes in midstream. Still I might give it a try just to discover why it is held in such high regard.

Since agents/publishers seem to want doc or rtf fairly exclusively, I assume there is a way to format it to Word's specifications.

Lastly, I wish to comment on WordPerfect: *spit* Okay. that's it.

blankenship.louise said...

Scrivener all the way, from brainstorming to final draft.

Yes, Huntress, it can output to DOC, RTF, and many other formats.

Aldrea Alien said...

I use a mixture of Word and yWriter, along with an array of spread sheets.

Tried Scrivener once. Might try it again some time, but for now, I'm keeping to my familiar methods.

Liz A. said...

I've heard good things about Scrivener. I'm used to Word, so that's what I have. Someday I'll switch over (but that day's not today).

mshatch said...

I use word because it's what I have and what I'm used to. I back up onto CDs so not too worried about losing stuff. Another way to make sure you don't lose stuff is to email it to yourself (better if you have a second email address) or someone else.

But if that had happened to me I might have kicked word out of my life too.