Please accept my apologies if this is too controversial for a first post.
Although I have owned Scrivener on the Mac for some considerable time, it is rarely used. There is nothing wrong with it, but little of the work I do is long enough or complex enough to warrant it.
Who would have imagined that writing a post exploding some myths on gender inequality on a forum, whilst at home one night, would see me receiving an unofficial complaint against me at work.
There was a lot wrong with the action by my HR department but I still needed to get a good case together to fight my corner.
The plan was to knock up a few notes on the iPad then put the content somewhere else to flesh out the individual subjects and have a well organised layout for a coherent defence. I am not short of tools on the iPad for rough work: iA Writer, Outliner, Omnifocus and Drafts would have been the first four I would consider. In a rare and blinding flash of inspiration I suddenly realised that Scrivener would be the perfect tool for creation and editing to final draft, especially as I also have the app on my Mac. I haven’t done anything clever, just used the app as designed - a drafts folder with a dozen texts in it.
I skipped the corkboard and had no need for the synopsis functionality. I just needed to get down some subjects that I wanted to speak about, then build them up from there. When I was really unhappy with something it went in the trash. When I had a passage of text that I wanted to say, but might not be career-improving I moved the words into a new text in Research. As I had already contacted the union with an outline of what was happening to me there was an existing text document which I pulled into Research. Another text in research contains the nuclear option in case the interview doesn’t go the right way. There is 2,500 words in the main document, so vey short by any standard.
My memory is not great so the Mac will be attending the interview with me. By clicking on the Draft folder in Scrivener I will be able to see the document as a whole with scrolling, with lines drawn across the page to remind me to pause for the new section. Although I hope to use as an aide memoire, if I get flustered I can just read the text off the page. It won’t be great for the audience, but putting the facts across regarding my responsibilities and theirs is more important than presentation.
I never imagined that I would be using Scrivener for this when I bought the app, but it has made me realise that there are many other times that it would prove useful.
Spog