I like reading the Feature Requests forum on this site, and have contributed frequently myself. I like the way we’re all trying to find ways to circumvent those tedious tasks that make writing such a chore. Keith, can we import this outline into Scrivener? Keith, is there a way for Scrivener to help me figure out where I am in my script at any given moment? Keith, can you incorporate a First Line Of Prose generator that can help us get started? (I made that last one up. But can you, Keith?)
I find myself in a constant search for that seamless, integrated methodology. The killer-app-cocktail that will take me from notecards to outline to draft to finished work to production to professional admiration to fly fishing in Wyoming, famous and content, with ample walking-around money. I admit, I want that. It’s what drew me to Scrivener in the first place.
Thing is, I’m starting to reconnect with tedium of late. Of handwriting on notecards, of generating long, color-coded outlines, of inputting those outlines into Scrivener by hand, one beat at a time. It’s boring. It’s time-consuming. It feels a lot like work. Last week, I got caught up in an outline and missed Weeds and had to watch it at three in the morning on TiVo, damn it.
I feel more connected to my stories, though. I feel like I’m living with them, wrestling with them, breathing their air. They’re annoying me, and they’re never, ever as good as they seemed in my head. But they’re better now, and I’m better for it, although I’m crankier.
I am not (NOT!) dismissing the desires of those who seek to harness the power of their Macs to make their lives more productive. I get that. But I have to say, there’s something rewarding in the tedious life of the solitary writer.
Am I right? Or am I masochistic? Or both?