Road Trip Wednesday is a weekly blog carnival hosted by YA Highway. This week's topic is: What word processing program do you use to write you manuscript, and can you share one handy trick you've learned in that program that has helped you while you write?
I'm nothing if not attached to the familiar, and that means I write only in Microsoft Word. Except for times when I'm not near my laptop and inspiration strikes--then I scribble in a notebook or Gmail passages to myself, and incorporate that text in my current Word draft later on. I know--I could use Google Docs or keep my crap in the cloud, so I could access it anywhere anytime--but I don't want my things co-mingling in the cloud. Clouds disperse. Clouds are ephemeral. They are not the sort of places you want to put Very Important Things like unfinished manuscripts.
Tangent over. I'm a Word writer; the quirks of the program have become part of my process. Scrivener has tempted me, but I'm sticking with the Office suite for the foreseeable future. I do have one tip for MS Word, in the form of a PSA I wrote for Blog Me MAYbe last spring: Find and Replace: A PSA.
So, writer friends: Convince me why I should be using Scrivener! Share your tips about how to maximize MS Word! Impress me with your commitment to writing all your stories longhand! Share pictures of your nifty typewriters!
9 comments:
I'm a Word Nerd too, but I do want to give Scrivener a try. Also, I love the "cloud" reference! I don't want my stuff in a cloud either!
I tried writing in scrivner and went straight back to word....
I'm with you on Word!
I have a thing for using tables in Word. I use them for planning, for organizing, and for revising. My brain thinks in bullet lists and tables, so Word works well for me. I bought Scrivener, but I feel like there's just too much to learn there, and too many features that I would just never use. It's a great idea in theory, but in practice, I'll be sticking with Word.
Yes, I've had a few people try to convince me to use Google docs, but it makes me very antsy. I guess I wouldn't mind using it as a back-up, but my home computer and stack of flash drives will always come first.
I second Jaime's use of tables-- I love a good table! But I use them more for weekly "to do" lists than in writing. I love Word and i have yet to try scrivener. I don't feel the need at this stage... but I must confess that I do use the cloud. I have dropbox and I keep all my stuffs up in there. I love it. Sometimes it is useful for sharing work with colleagues... but mainly I feel good that if anything happened to my machine I could access everything important to me.
I used Scrivener to write the first few drafts, and now I'm using Word to revise as I'm nearing the end. I loved Scrivener for first drafting and planning because it's so easy to write scenes in separate documents within the program, and reorder them. Scrivener has so many awesome features. You should try it!
I'm quite basic too. Just word and notebooks but everyone always goes on about scrivener. I'm starting to be intrigued. :)
I use Word for the same reason: It's familiar. Also, it works for my outlining/drafting style. Why reinvent the wheel when it's working just fine?
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