Now it Might Make Sense...

So, yesterday I wrote this entry, and now I will get to what I really wanted to write, but I just had to tell you that back story in order for this to make the most impact. (Or not, I might just be insane.)

While I do not understand Twitter or use it to its full extent, I still do enjoy it and do follow quite a few people. Recently, I renewed my interest in actually doing something with my writing, so I started following authors and people who write blogs about writing and publishing and....aghast, an agent. 

Anyways, one of the authors I follow is Marueen Johnson, who writes YA fiction. I enjoy her tweets because...well, she's funny and I seem to "understand" them for what they are. And even if I don't, I'm amused. Anyways, she said something about this software geared towards writers. Because I was curious, I checked it out.

Now, what was this software? Scrivener.

OMG, you guys, I think I am going to DIE.

After surfing around the page for awhile, I downloaded the trial version. Within five minutes I was like, "WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE?!"

The next day I thought my head was going to explode just because the program did everything I had always wanted. For years I have been losing documents that just have random notes, lists of cars, list of songs, list of places, character developments, and various other research. Sometimes I get massively organized and put it all in one folder, but there is still things that go MIA. The Epic Novel has this problem a lot. I seriously remember making a new list of colleges and major for the characters and have NO CLUE where it went. I did a whole night of research on what high school classes they were all in only to discover six months later, it was totally GONE.

HOWEVER, with Scrivener, you can get it all in once place, in one program and not have to have a million different word documents open at once! So far I stuck the Student/Professor story into the program and IT WAS THE BEST 8 HOURS OF MY LIFE (well, in my life of writing).

The other thing I liked was I DIDN'T READ ANY DIRECTIONS on how to use it. I just USED it. It was that intuitive that I just opened it and 8 hours later, I had my novel in the program. Also, I like the fact its got this feature where you can write scene by scene, make outlines and has a section to aid in character development. When I rewrote the Epic Novel the first time, I actually made summary of each chapter and what I wanted out of the chapter and I felt that allowed for the whole thing to be BETTER. Of course, this was when I still carried around notebooks and pens, so I had it written down and didn't have to have yet another window on Jess open.

I digress though, this program does ANOTHER wonderful thing. I have ALWAYS wondered how long my stories/novels would be if they were in book form (and by book form I mean, that it is laid out in how it would be printed out if it was a REAL BOOK). All I had to do was hit the compile button, then choose what format I wanted, and BAM. I had a Word document that was a REAL LIFE BOOK. Not simply pages of 8 by 11 virtual paper. But how it would be laid out if it were a book! The feature to do this through word NEVER impressed me, but OMG, after I complied it the first time, I was like, hey, I wrote a pretty long book! (I honestly did not think the Student/Professor story would be long enough to be an actual novel, but it is!)

The trial for Scrivener is good for 30 days from the first time you open it and I will be spending the 45 bucks to buy it. Because it is totally wroth it, as I will more than likely be using it a lot over my life.

Note for you Windows users, I am not sure if you can get a Windows version, as I have a Mac and it seems very Mac like and when I went to the BUY section just now, it as only available in Mac....

UPDATE: They do "do" Windows:  http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivenerforwindows/