Attention Writers on Macs:
Along with Woot, another site I check daily is the MacZot, which is a daily deal on Mac OSX software.
Since I am a Mac person, I am always giddy to learn more about what cool-moe-dee software is out there for my laptop, even though it is seriously, SERIOUSLY time for an upgrade, like damn.
Today’s special, which is 45% off the retail price, is a text editor for creative writers called “Ulysses,” which attempts to take writing projects contained in many separate documents and enable the writer to view all the pieces in one convenient clickable project window. Formatting and whatall are part of the deal as well.
From the site:
Typically a creative work, such as a book, a play or screenplay is not written in a single document. A book that ends up being 200+ pages results from fractions, starting points, discarded ideas and many more—all neatly distributed along a total of about 800 pages, most likely with over 100 different documents, combined with notes, Post-Its, scribblings on the margins of numerous daily papers, beer covers, napkins and the back sides of photos.
What this looks like on your computer is (in the worst case) several hundred documents from a bunch of different applications that were put into different folders on your hard disk. The organization of these pieces requires the writer to be extremely disciplined (or hire someone who is)—a mind job that could better be spent on writing itself….
Ulysses combines single documents or texts into so called projects. Imagine a project as a folder with your work, which contains all relevant text parts, chapters, ideas, notes, etc.
Ulysses only sports one single window, divided into project and document part. The project part features a so called Document Browser, a Document Preview and a Filter. The document part offers an Editor, a Note Pad, a Control Panel and tabs to switch between the currently open documents.
Now, the ZOT price is still $60, which is a good hunk of change, but, should any of you writerly folks out there be in the market for such a deal, 45% off ain’t bad at all. I’m trying to figure out if I want to make the plunge myself.
Check out Google Document suite.
Keep it all online and shareable and it all works with Microsoft Office when you go to do the final layout.
Oh, I want this. Don’t have a Mac, though.
My entire book is in chapter documents and putting it together is so fun. Not.
My word is firm54—one can always hope.
yWriter from SpaceJock Software is a similar program for Windows. Looks like this has a few more features.
I tried Ulysses, but I like Scrivener a lot better, and not just because of the price.
I don’t suppose it has a feature which would enable it to wander around my house finding the ideas and scraps in the various notebooks I keep. *sigh*
Wow. I feel incredibly organized now.
Must be that said computerized mess is to those who compose on the computer what the notebooks and file folders full of scraps are to those who compose with pen and paper.
By the time I get the story to the computer, it’s one tidy file. I’ll stick with my paper prelims, thanks.
Wow, all this time I’ve been doing it wrong—in one document. I back up versions in emails, but it’s all just one doc (okay, tell a lie. I keep a “rewritable” file too, for stuff I cut out, in case I can use it later.)
Bummer that Scrivener is only available for 10.4! Woe is me.
I want the same feature spinsterwitch wants.
I dunno, I just keep everything in folders. It starts out as one document, and then when I start with multiple versions (short stories) or different sections (novels), I make a folder and throw it all in there.
Maybe because I’m such a clutterful person, I’m used to remembering where everything is in the clutter.
I’m always fascinated by how many different work arrangements writers have. Everyone thinks in such different ways!
I still use WordPerfect and find it organizes things the way I want them. Or maybe I’m just used to it. I use OpenOffice as my Word alternative, and while there’s a bit of a learning curve I still like it better than Word. And it’s free.
Personally, I am praying my husband buys me this software for Mother’s Day:
http://www.storyist.com/index.php
I second the kudos for Scrivener! There’s an outline on the left side of the screen to organize your draft (and your research, useful URLs, .pdf files…). On the right pane you can even do a split screen view to look at two scenes at once. (Can’t remember what color the heroine’s dress was when she put it on four chapters ago? Go back and look, and the scene you’re working on is still visible!) I love, love, love Scrivener and recommend it to all my Mac-based coaching clients. Annotate/make comments, see your drafts in full screen mode, seamless exports to .rtf…it’s a beautifully thought-out program packed with useful features. I was a happy beta tester during NaNoWriMo in 2005 and have been in love with Scriv ever since!
I write in MS Word, and nothing else. For a novel, I have a main file, a discard file that contains everything I cast aside, an occasional planning file in which I list out coming scenes as bullet points.
That’s it. Nothing to organize.
Sherry, I do the same thing. We must be writers separated at birth!
That is why I found Storyist to be closer to what I am looking for in a writing software. I like that I can have each chapter as a tab, for example. Rather than either have to scan through a word document or set up the horrible TOC function or something messy like that.