If you ask a writer what their greatest writing wish is, I think most writers would say: I want to write more . For some people, that might simply be a wish for more time at their desk. For others, the ability to write faster. For still others, the ability to stare less, procastinate less, waste time less, stumble to start less, and type more…just literally produce more words. If you fall into…
Every year, many writers set themselves to the task of writing a novel in a month. If you’ve never attempted writing a novel, it might not sound too bad; if you have, it may sound impossible. A more common timeline for a full-time writer (i.e. no dayjob to work around or children begging you for snacks while you work) would be three months to knock out a draft for a full length work; plenty of…
There is nothing worse than opening a project file and discovering hours, days, or even weeks worth of writing gone; or worse, not being able to find the file at all! It’s a gut punch that leaves you shaky, sweaty, and panicky. An instant day ruiner. Let me start with some good news: with Scrivener , the work is rarely truly lost. But it’s not uncommon for work to appear to be lost, say after…
Notion is a uniquely powerful and versatile tool. Part documents, part databases, part calendar, and part website builder, it’s almost like the entire Google Suite rolled into one nifty, web-based platform. It’s not perfect—nothing is, of course—but it’s a really great platform available at the unbeatable starting price point of free. And while it’s definitely a tool with a learning curve, luckily…
Many writers put off creating a website. It’s another thing on an ever-growing task list and can feel overwhelming to get started with. Creating a website is such an important step for establishing yourself and your author brand, however, and it doesn’t have to be overly complicated or time-consuming. In fact, unless you have a passion for web design, I recommend keeping it simple so you can keep…
If you’ve spent any time looking into website options, you’ve probably heard of Squarespace. It’s been around for over 20 years now and has been a popular choice for creators, small businesses, and bloggers for much of that time, generating loyalty as a no-code way to create beautiful, professional, SEO-optimized, mobile-friendly websites that you don’t need a web design degree to create entirely…
Split Editor, Copyholders, Inspector Bookmarks, and Quick Reference panels are four ways you can view your reference materials (imported web archives, PDFs, media files, notes, and more) while writing in Scrivener --no need to click around and lose your place in the binder. In this deep dive, we cover what these tools are, how they work, and the pros and cons of each.
Sometimes you work on a writing project for a while, get stuck, and realize you need to re-group and start over. Sometimes, you’re just completely at a loss for how to get started! In both cases, I recommend this exercise for getting a basic plot for your novel down in a mindmapping tool like Scapple. In this post, I go over what I did to get unstuck in my current novel-in-progress, steps for you…
Many writers and other creatives are looking at the rise of AI with a critical eye, scoffing at a computer’s ability to write well or worrying about the impact this might have on their businesses or future. And I totally get that—changing times are uncertain (What direction will this go? How will this shape the future?) and uncertainty can be scary—but for me, for now at least, I say glory…
This post has been updated to reflect new features as of February 2024. Scrivener is an amazing tool for writing novels, screenplays, nonfiction, poems, and short stories (among other things!), but with so many advanced editing tools out there, Scrivener users may be wondering if they can use their favorite editing tool directly within Scrivener while drafting and editing their work. For writers…
I went to college for creative writing (a very practical degree) and spent those years writing poems and short stories because that’s what my writing workshops required of me, but my heart was secretly with the novel. Since I was small, I’d been taking stabs at novel writing, pantsing my way through story after story, usually giving up somewhere around the murky middle or when I’d figured out the…
Buying a thoughtful, creative gift can be incredibly satisfying (and also incredibly challenging!). A book is always good if you know the reader’s taste, but if you aren’t familiar with what the recipient already owns or what they like to read, that can be an iffy way to go. So, what else is there? If you’re looking to purchase something special for the writers and/or readers in your life, whether…
If you’ve been here a while, you know that I am a big fan of Scrivener , and in case the title of this post had you wondering, that hasn’t changed! But Scrivener isn’t for everyone for a variety of reasons, so if you fall in that camp, I want to present Notion for your consideration. Notion largely markets itself as a collaborative tool for businesses, and when you follow the money, it’s easy to…
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After the amazing reception for The Complete Novel Writing Template for Scrivener , I decided to offer this template on two other platforms currently popular with my writing friends— Google Docs and Notion . Each platform is unique, and my goal was to lean into each platform’s features and strengths to provide the best writing experience possible on that platform while also including the same core…
After the amazing reception for The Complete Novel Writing Template for Scrivener , I decided to offer this template on two other platforms currently popular with my writing friends— Google Docs and Notion . Each platform is unique, and my goal was to lean into each platform’s features and strengths to provide the best writing experience possible on that platform while also including the same core…
Getting Started Template Instructions This template comes with in-depth documentation to not only give you an overview of the template’s features, but also explain how to use Scrivener features to get the best functionality and user experience. Manuscript Corkboard View Manuscript Outline View The Outline View gives a great overview of the entire manuscript, including information like word count,…
This post has been updated as of February 2024 to reflect new features. Like pretty much all writing programs on the market, Scrivener comes with a spellcheck tool. However, some writers may want more advanced automated proofreading than Scrivener has to offer, and to get that, you’ll need to use a third-party tool like Grammarly or ProWritingAid . Both are fantastic tools, and both can be used…
Scrivener does a fantastic job of managing text documents, be it short stories, long-form writing projects, or other groupings of text-based information. And it includes some really fantastic tools like the Outliner and Corkboard group views that help view and organize this information easily. But if you’re looking for heavy-duty data tools like spreadsheets and databases, Scrivener does not have…
Scrivener treats text a bit differently than standard word processors. This, at least in part, is to enable the Compiler to do its formatting voodoo—change the font, font size, line spacing, and other formatting for you all at once with the click of a button so you don’t have to write your novel in Times New Roman double-spaced or reformat the whole dang thing by hand when you’re ready to send…