There are several stages to writing, that need to be separated out. 1. Outlining. 2. Writing. 3. Layout NO application can do all three well enough for a 100-page doc. I use a web-app called WorkFlowy for all my outlining. It is quite simply brilliant. Possibly the best app I have ever used, for simplicity, features, and utility. Also works brilliantly on mobile. I write in FullScreen No Distractions mode in iaWriter. This is a no-frills writing environment that gives you a white screen, black text, and zero formatting tools. For serious writing, I can't imagine using anything else, any more. It keeps you focused on the WORDS, and not the FORMATTING, and ensures that whatever you write holds up because it is good words, written well, and not because you used fancy italics and listicles to hide the fact you don't know what you are talking about. Finally, once I have all the content written, I put it into ... gasp! ... Microsoft Word. The only way to win any battle with MS Word is to fight on it's own territory; use a simple, built-in template, and use the built-in styles. So select a template. Flow your text in from iaWriter. Then start formatting it, start to finish, using the clickable default formatting options. When inserting images, use a PNG and insert it via the "Insert" menu item. Use the Image Formatting pane to set the location, style, and attributes of the image. I output the Word file to PDF, and print the PDF, because this solves some of the more annoying Word printing issues. But the key with Word is to not try and do anything with it that the programmers haven't already thought of and created a button for. Fancy formatting, inserting a sidebar, and using your own custom stylesheet will ensure failure.
I use Scrivener for everything other than my day job. I utterly love it. But my day job requires me to create and output exquisitely formatted sales proposals of around 100 pages or so. Scrivener is excellent at outputting scripts, books, etc, but it isn't a page-layout application for complex pages.
Interesting, I hadn't thought of breaking it up like that. What I do wonder is how you handle the back-and-forth that inevitably occurs, e.g. when you're writing and your outline changes because of it. Maybe it's my writing style but I often rearrange stuff. I totally agree about being able to focus. I did all my writing for The Correspondent in Google Docs. Plain text really helped me focus on the text and nothing else. Markdown has also been on my radar, do you use that as syntax for iaWriter? I've also been considering using InDesign for the layout, which I have learned the bare basics of this year. Supposedly one can link .md files to ID...
Well, technically, if you are going back and forth between your outline and your first draft, then you haven't outlined it properly, or you have started writing too soon. You need to re-think the purpose and content of your outline. GoogleDocs was my second-best writing environment, and I loved it when I worked at a tech-savvy company that had standardized on the full GoogleApps suite. But Google's apps fall down as soon as you need to use them with ANYTHING else. I find any sort of markdown notation a distraction. It is, once again, confusing CONTENT with LAYOUT. Stick with writing excellent content, and then worry about the layout later. That way you will ensure that your content is good, before you dive into the distraction and bottomless pit of layout. ... which brings me to ... InDesign. It really is amazing. Brilliant app. But it is a bottomless black hole pit of despair unless you get professional training on it. I use it pretty much weekly, and I massively destroy things with ID pretty much weekly. At this point, if I can get a page to look right in ID, then I output it to PDF. Then I assemble the individual PDF pages in Apple's "Preview" app, into a full, multi-page PDF, and print it out. Sometimes I hand-type page numbers into Preview, as well. (shrug) Writing is religion. I know kb is going to have a lot to say on the topic too, and I look forward to reading his excoriation of my technique! :-) Markdown has also been on my radar, do you use that as syntax for iaWriter?
If we're talking about the same Markdown, I find your assertion of its nature to be false. Markdown and its derivatives serve to enhance your content, not add new features to it. Content itself is important, but being able mark the most important ideas as well as present data that is otherwise unreadable - say, tables - is no less so; sometimes it even is your content.I find any sort of markdown notation a distraction. It is, once again, confusing CONTENT with LAYOUT.
Honestly? You have nothing but my sympathy. If I were forced into a workflow where I had to take words and run them through a four-step workflow that involved hand-typing shit into Preview after getting Word to play nicey-nicey with my images, I'd have a heart-to-heart with my employer about the amount of effort being wasted on layout and how they could probably hire a community college intern just to prettify the writing and still come out ahead. I have never been forced into a corner where people who need InDesign-level tweakatude don't have a couple InDesign galley slaves for that specific purpose.
Yeah. We have had that talk, and the InDesign/Writer grunt employee for me is on the plan... but then we got purchased by a big company, and are doing the "right-sizing transition" thing, as the new company figures out where to throw money at us for the biggest wins. I expect that by this time next year, most of my current work will be an assembly process for a recent-graduate level InDesign geek with a penchant for writing. I will write the "interesting" bits and focus on my Competitive Intel research and analysis, and manage the production of sales proposals and case studies. InDesign is cool... but I used PageMaker and Quark and Illustrator for far too many years to fit another iteration of those design tools into my whisky-addled brain!
Outlines serve two purposes: a way of formatting my arguments (not unlike in philosophy with premises P1, P2, P3 leading to conclusion C, etc) and as a jumping-off point. But there's a thousand ways to write a certain statement, tell a part of my story or explain a concept. I usually figure those out during the writing process and can't imagine knowing that beforehand. It's like guessing where to put your furniture when you haven't built a house yet - the details matter, but they are dependent on the larger structure that it's very hard to get right so early on. Plus, I often think of new arguments or points of view during my writing, necessitating restructuring or rewriting of parts. Do you not have those issues, or are they not significant for you? InDesign so far has been me attempting to cobble together a few booklets. If I embed all the assets, I don't break everything. Its logic is kinda weird and I don't know whether that's because of my low skill level, because I confuse concepts with Illustrator and Photoshop, because it's just weird or all of the above.Well, technically, if you are going back and forth between your outline and your first draft, then you haven't outlined it properly, or you have started writing too soon. You need to re-think the purpose and content of your outline.
But it is a bottomless black hole pit of despair unless you get professional training on it.
I agree with everything you said... ten years ago. Nowadays, writing is a system for me. It is a woodworkers shop. The logs come in over here, they get shaped into planks, the planks get honed here, individual pieces get made here, the pieces get fit together over there, and at the end, the piece is sanded and finished at that last table near the door. When I moved from a "creative" writing mindset to a "production-writing" mindset, I realized that there is no "magic" in writing. You don't need candles burning, and the lighting just so, and quiet, and all that. Now, I align the tools and the steps, and the writing happens. I think I have reached a state like Stephen King talks about in "On Writing" where you get all the mechanical bits lined up, and then you let the creativity flow via those tools. The "system" is in place to produce great work... you just insert the creativity. This is why I don't return to my outlines. Because when I write my outline I am thinking about how I am going to consume that outline at the next step. So when I get to the next step, I consume the outline, and out comes the first draft. When I get to the second draft, I consume the first draft, and output the second draft. It's a linear process for me. And it works for me. (Clearly doesn't work for KB, though!)