Sharing the Scrivener Love

    Two of my favorite writing tools — Scrivener and writing podcasts — came together in the podcast this week by The Shared Desk. Fun!
    Tee Morris and Philippa Ballantine discussed their favorite writing software, Scrivener. That’s my favorite writing software, too! I completely agreed with all the reasons they gave for their devotion to Scrivener — the organization tools, the corkboard feature, the ability to import web pages and photos and other research into your binder, and all the many ways to customize the tool to suit your own needs. But my two favorite features didn’t get mentioned — not that I blame them. There are so many features, how could you talk about all of them?

    First, I love the name generator. You can pick a gender, click on the types of names (German? Catalan? Hindi? Polish? Popular London Surnames?), and then dial up the obscurity level. Viola! Your heroine will be Innocenta Rathmell. Hmm, maybe too far on the obscurity level.

Or Pasqualina Riddle. She sounds feisty

    But my favorite Scrivener feature is the Project Target tool. You can set your goals for the manuscript and it shows you how close you are to your goal. But that’s not all! You can also set a goal for each time you sit down to write. Mine is set to 1,000 words/day. When I hit my daily goal, I get a Growl notification. Yay! 

    And now that I’ve revealed that my wordcount for today is a big fat zero, I think I’ll see if I still have the energy to write a few hundred words toward my goal.
    PS — If you're not listening to The Shared Desk, you should be. Published professional writers discussing craft, business, and much more. Entertaining and educational! What more could you want?