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?