Ever since I was young, I’ve enjoyed reading and writing.  I remember being in the final year of primary school and writing a short story which won the annual writing competition.  I was so thrilled and it really ignited my passion for writing.

For years though, people kept telling me that I should write a book about my experiences of living with Cerebral Palsy.  It’s a project that I kept putting on the back burner – always fearing that I wasn’t good enough or that people wouldn’t be that interested.  Later I reasoned that even if it never got published, it would be an enjoyable project and one which I could at least share with family and friends.

As I started making my notes, I began to realise how much material I had – so much in fact that it was difficult to manage.   I had notes everywhere and no idea how to organise them.  My hubby introduced me to OneNote – at first I didn’t quite get it but now I am not sure what I would do without it. I started writing my book using Word and then my hubby introduced me to Scrivener – a programme specifically for writers which enables you to organise notes, sort them into chapters, move text around and compile manuscripts in various formats.  You might think that surely Microsoft Word would suffice for this task but editing and moving text can be very time consuming in 100 page plus document!  Scrivener allows writers to break text down into manageable chunks which can easily be edited and then puts it together, creating a seamless manuscript in seconds.

I’d highly recommend Scrivener to any writer and think it is well worth the small investment – no matter what you’re writing.