Three cheers for Scrivener

Michael Kerr — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 15:02:29 +0000

It’s a rare journalist or writer these days who doesn’t use a computer. It’s a rarer one still who doesn’t find himself or herself saying, “Why can’t the people who make programs that we have to use take some account of the way we work?” Well, some of them do. For my last two books, I’ve used a Mac-only program called Scrivener, which was devised by a man named Keith after he had read a piece by Hilary Mantel about the way she works. It’s not flawless — I’ve just had a bit of trouble converting the finished book into a form that a PC at my publishers can read — but it’s by far the best writing program I’ve ever used and I would recommend it to anyone who is working on a book or on on any written project with more than one brief section. I’m nowhere near making the most of its capabilities, but I’m learning more with every book and article I work on. I could wax lyrical here about what you can do with Scrivener and how easy it is to use, but the point of the web, surely, is to save duplication with links, so I will just point you to the Scrivener site so that you can find out for yourself and download it free to have a go. No, I’m not on commission, and I paid for my own copy after playing for a while with the free download. I just think that anything that makes the job easier is worth passing on.

E-readers: perfect for Ryanair?

Michael Kerr — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 13:19:23 +0000

Everyone is predicting that 2010 will be the year of the Kindle, or of whatever easier-to-use device Apple comes up with. John Naughton, in The Observer, reckons that e-readers will be particularly popular among travellers. Why? “Because they offer the only way of taking a reasonable amount of holiday reading on a Ryanair flight.”

Kerraway » Technology

Three cheers for Scrivener

E-readers: perfect for Ryanair?