weary writer thanks you

I bought Scrivener a few months ago and started using it right away. Or at least, I tried to.

Writing to deadline is not a novelty for me. I have more than a million words in print (the biggest part of that number comes from novels – five published with Bantam, one with HarperCollins, one with Putnam – and two forthcoming). So I’m always at the computer staring at the screen.

I’m just coming out of a major block that has put me way behind deadline on my next book. Part of the reason the block is finally breaking up is Scrivener. I don’t dread opening a project file, and once I’m in there, I don’t have to stop to go check a character’s year of birth or eye color – all that information is right there. Some writers keep a big binder filled with bits of paper in order to keep track of details – Stephen King calls this keeping a bible – but that approach has never worked for me.

Scrivener does work, and it works beautifully. My favorite features: full screen mode, the statistics/targets feature, and the flexibility of the layout. Now when I’m working the only open applications are Scrivener and Curio. I use Curio because I can create maps and collages that I refer to often.

So thank you. This is a truly wonderful product. If I tried really hard I could probably come up with features that would be useful, but I am also superstitious enough not to want to fiddle with a good thing.

best

Thank you - it’s fantastic to hear that Scrivener is working for established, published novelists, as well as those of us still trying. :slight_smile:
All the best,
Keith

Hi greenery,

Curio is getting a bit of space on the Scrivener forum. Several people are now curious about it - including me.

You say:

I was wondering if these can be stored and used in Scrivener itself, or is the attraction of Curio something more direct, such as being able to actually draw the maps in the application?

Here’s a little challenge. Could you post a Curio sample so that we can eyeball the way a real writer uses it? (Post in Add an Attachment)

You can’t bring Curio documents into Scrivener. They are packages just like Scrivener files. You can easily export Curio Ideaspaces as PDFs or jpegs and bring those into Scrivener.

I’ve been using Curio for a couple years, now, moving to it from Tinderbox. If you set aside the feature lists, what distinguishes Curio is the ease of assembling all sorts of stuff into a collage—a spatial organization. It is aimed squarely at the graphic design and advertising markets and that should be your cue for its “viewpoint.â€

Well, you could export an idea space as an image or PDF, and then import that into Scrivener–read only of course–but your thoughts would be transferred.