Thank you KB for Scrivener, the wonderful app that pretty much stopped me quitting my doctorate by making me realise I could write a thesis, I was just using the wrong tools for the way I think. And thank you to all the forum users at lit & lat for making these forums such a wonderful mine of knowledge with a rich seam of humour. I like the climate here, everyone just wants to help and share experiences.
I’ve been a Scrivener user and lurker for a couple of years, yet I have only made a couple of posts (no doubt a good thing) - because I read a lot and followed ‘the rules’. I did the tutorial (several times as per the advice on these forums, and I will do it again), I read the help file (ditto), and I’ve trawled the forums for every quibble and query I’ve had with Scrivener, and always found either the answer to my questions, an alternative (often better) way to do something, or a good explanation of why it couldn’t be done. And then I started reading topics out of interest and found answers to questions I didn’t know I had. It’s exciting (yes, I’m either sad or have a low threshold for these things. Probably both). I still have a lot to learn (my next self-teaching adventure will be with MMD and TeXShop - v. scary indeed ).
You never know, once the thesis is out the way I might even find the time to read and write purely for pleasure - something that six years in academia has nearly knocked out of me. Nearly, but not quite
Dear Sarah,
Fret not my child, for you are blessed, as indeed, are all, who crew the Good Ship Scrivener, that doughty plougher of the the High-seas of scribal endeavour. Notwithstanding the fact that the developer is a teacher (homo sapien obtusus), the vessel is as sound if not sounder than any other afloat.
Of course, Capn Grumpy Blounty, will claim the status of ex-teacher, but dont be fooled by that! Once a teacher, always a teacher . Society`s obtuse, as it were.
Get that old thesis flirted off, and out of the way, and then you can settle down and dedicate yourself (with the invaluable help of Scriv.), to the art of Twaddle n Waffle.
Thank you, Sarah! I notice you’ve already been making some helpful contributions around these parts, helping other users, which is much appreciated (note to self: must not use the passive voice; I mean I appreciate it…).
Thank you gents, for the official boarding ceremony - flags whistles and grog!
Vic - I’ve done a little teaching myself, but not pursued it as a profession (does this redeem me?). Twaddle and waffle ahoy, just 3 more chapters to go.
Meanwhile I trudge, fueled by gin, coffee and the desperate wish for it all to be over soon.
Hang in there, Sarah. It took my husband 12 years to do his doctorate–if only we had had Scrivener back in the Pleistocene era, he could have finished the whole thing in weeks.
I share your enthusiasm for this wonderful app; I’ve retained the remaining fractions of my mind almost intact since I started using it. It’s a true life and sanity saver.
Stick to it, sweetheart, you’ll get there! (And stick to the gin. Any martini’s vic-k mixes up are MINE.)
Thanks Zoe, for your encouraging words and for making me smile so hard I got a headache! Sanity is subjective anyway, even on a good day I’m as mad as a box of frogs. And if I’m honest, I could probably credit Scrivener (at least in part) for the facts 1) I’m still married*, and 2) I sleep in a room without bars on the windows I promise not to swipe your martinis, but do leave some olives for me?
Sarah
correct at time of writing: I haven’t checked the postbox yet this morning
I LOVE that image. I am going to steal it for a future novel, pending your permission, Sarah. I can just imagine a box of hoppers all scrambling over each other, popping up and down, digging their little toes into each other’s unsuspecting eyeballs. It’s absolutely perfect.
It reminds me of my living room, when the kids were little.
Thank you thank you, Sarah. For that, you may have one of my martinis.
Jaysen: fist-sized muddy-green common frogs over here: scatty and unpredictable, especially around spawning season when they throw themselves under cars by the hundred when crossing roads to get to ponds. Presumably the urge to spawn is so great it overrides any horrors experienced while watching 30 of your best friends get turned into road-burgers. Quite possible that had we not build roads, frogs could have been the dominant species in these fair isles.
Zoe: please fill your boots, but I can’t take the credit - I got the phrase a long time ago from something I read (I forget where). I also quite like ‘mad as a goat’ but that obviously describes a completely different type of crazy, bordering on psychosis. Then of course we have ‘mad as a bag of badgers’ which I think refers to an angry kind of crazy with lots of teeth
Vic: Sir, you are a charmer indeed, though… that bottle looks faintly familiar… some neurons I had long thought dead are jangling and for some reason I think it might be a good idea to chain myself to something solid and swallow the key before taking a drink… No olives is no problem, but I bet you’ve got some spicy pickled onions tucked away in that workshop, that will go perfectly with that booze - am I right?
“Mad as a box of frogs” I like a lot. Could be the nice croaky assonance. Turns out there was an 80s band of that name, so as these things go it must be quite old.
“Mad as a bag of badgers” I’d not heard, but again interesting alliteration.
“Crazy (or clever) as a bag of ferrets” is another used now and again - less ferocious than the angry badgers, but still formidable and with (peculiarly English?) comic echoes.
Does that exhaust the metaphorical possibilities of insane fauna (preferably enclosed)?
H
P.S. I have actually carried a badger in a bag. The badger wasn’t mad, but it’s possible the bag-carrier was. The bag was surprisingly awkward and heavy.
Actually, that makes perfect sense. I have been to NJ and it woudl not surprise me to find out the eyeball stomping is a common pastime in the Secsaucus/Newark/Oranges area. Luckily for me DC is closer to any place in NJ than I am. That “upstate” adjective covers quite a bit of real estate.
Please don’t encourage hi to tell us what is in the larder. If we needed a horror story we have other sources. Like the US tax code.
).
. Society`s obtuse, as it were.
I notice you’ve already been making some helpful contributions around these parts, helping other users, which is much appreciated (note to self: must not use the passive voice; I mean 
Sanity is subjective anyway, even on a good day I’m as mad as a box of frogs. And if I’m honest, I could probably credit Scrivener (at least in part) for the facts 1) I’m still married*, and 2) I sleep in a room without bars on the windows 
