![]() ![]() It can email them, edit them, display them in various formats, from Markdown to Taskpaper (on which more later). It’s powerful stuff, but Drafts’ real hook is that you can also install ‘actions’ that can do things with notes. When I’ve finished with one, I can remove it from the workspace by adding the tag ‘done’. It has ‘workspaces’, where you can list notes according to different searches, so I have an Ideas workspace which lists notes I’ve tagged ‘idea’. It supports Apple’s new widgets, so I have a note permanently displayed on my phone’s homescreen. Its search is excellent, so I can find stuff again. At base it’s a text editor, so I use it write notes and reminders to myself which sit in its inbox across my Mac and iPhone so I can get to them anywhere. I like software that’s outwardly simple and yet incredibly flexible, and Drafts is exactly this. Draftsįor notes and research and a whole raft of day-to-day stuff, I use Drafts. In short, Scrivener is fantastic and sits at the centre of my work. I’ll admit I’ve spent a long time fiddling around with its compile formatting, which gives very powerful control over the way it spits out my words, but the presets are great, so I don’t really need to. Then it can compile the whole thing (or just bits of it) into a single Word doc, or ebook, PDF – or whatever, really. I can display research and interview transcriptions next to my body text, and then pull up further notes beside them. It can be as complex as helping to structure a book of hundreds of discrete chunks of text, tracking the progress of each piece, displaying word counts and letting me add my own metadata to them. It can be as simple as just a window into which I can type, because I can hide away its info panels and file browser. Its value for me is its adaptability – it’s supported the needs of pretty much every project I’ve ever taken on in different ways. My key writing software is Scrivener, which I’ve used for 10 years to write features and books, and lots in between. I sit on a very much second-hand 2 Steelcase Leap, and when my back starts hurting I switch to a Cinius kneeing chair. I use AudioEngine A2+ speakers, Sony MDR-7506 headphones, and it all sits on an Ikea THYGE desk. I use a 2020 MacBook Air 1 on a Rain Design mStand, connected to an Asus PG279Q monitor (good for games on my PC), Logitech MX Vertical mouse (helps with my brooding carpal tunnel) and a Akko 3068 mechanical keyboard (clickety clack). I’ve used Macs for work since, what, 1999? So Mac is where I feel most comfortable, and I know how to tweak them to my preferences. ![]() I like to read about the ways others work, in case their methods and tools also work for me, so here are mine. Scrivener, software that I can’t do withoutĪs a dork and serial procrastinator, I’ve amassed a set of tools and ways of working over my seven years of freelance writing which I’ve fumbled into something like efficiency.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |