Thank you, Keith, for creating, developing, maintaining, and updating this terrific program. I read about Scrivener in MacWorld at about the same time that I was in the middle of a historical novel. By then I had written three memoirs, one novel, screenplays, numerous essays and op-eds. I write in English, but most of my work is about Puerto Rican culture and life.
I’ve been writing on computers since 1982. In the mid-80’s I found XyWrite, a program I still miss. Probably because that program allowed me to imagine what was technically possible. When I migrated to the beauty and ease of Macs, around 1988, I wrote using WordPerfect, then, finally hopped to MS Word because it seemed to be the standard. I’ve been using and cursing Word ever since.
I was hooked after five minutes with Scrivener. A writer came up with this program, I could tell, because it allowed me to work the way I’ve always wanted to, with all my materials right there, easy to find, to navigate, to organize. I transferred the work I was working on – a historical trilogy of novels – that had been challenging me for five years. The massive amounts of research in florid, 19th century Spanish, which I had to understand, translate for myself, then use in order to create my characters and situations, had kept me frustrated and annoyed most of the time. My husband thanks you, by the way, because I am much nicer these days since I began to use Scrivener. No more hundreds of files all over the place! No more crashing documents because Word has issues with my using Spanish and English in the same sentence, paragraph, page over the course of an 800 page manuscript.
But my reason for writing, in addition to inflate your ego, is to let you know that Scrivener has saved my writing life. Just two weeks from delivering my manuscript I had a stroke that affected my ability to read and write. I was pretty sure that I would never be able to finish Novel 1 of the trilogy, let alone the series. Encouraged by loved ones, doctors, readers, and friends, I’ve been able to climb back from despair and was able to find a way to write again. When I was able to read and comprehend my own writing, there were my outlines, documents, photographs, links, notes, fragments, notes, chapters, neatly organized in my binder. I could see how much I had done, so clearly and beautifully displayed, easy to navigate.
The stroke has left me with some memory issues, so I use Annotation, Scratch Pad, and the Document Notes to capture phrases, ideas, concepts that I know might disappear if I don’t write them down. Just now I had to do that, and it occurred to me that I should let you know that Scrivener has been not only a program that allows me to do my work, it has also been instrumental in my recovery.
Sorry that this has been so long. I’ve been following the forums, and have learned more about the program from you and the generous, helpful Members. I can’t wait to see what’s in store.
Saludos,
Esmeralda Santiago
