Jaye Marie and Anita Dawes

 So, my book is now on Scrivener. Smoothly and efficiently transferred, and split into chapters too, would you believe it?

 All well and good, but what do I do now?

Not wanting to attempt anything too adventurous, I chose a chapter and began the second edit. I had a long list of things to check, so I relaxed into edit mode and continued.

Later on, I began to notice that each chapter I worked on, mysteriously became a copy. Soon, the binder (that’s the part of Scrivener that stores all the aspects of your work. Chapters, back matter, research and all manner of things) became full of chapter copies, so something was wrong. What had I done?

 Turns out I hadn’t chosen the right format for my book and somehow, the chapters were all wrong.  Files and not folders or something like that. Something about the end of the road when Scrivener prepares your book for publication.

 Back to the learning curve, as there is obviously more to this game than I thought. I spent an hour checking out Scrivener videos on YouTube, and the problem seems easy to fix.

Well, easy for someone who isn’t called Jaye, I think.

After an hour of trying everything I could think of and probably making it more of a mess, I was forced to admit that I just didn’t know enough yet, and at this rate, I never would!

After more YouTube videos, I tried again.

It would seem that there are specific ways of doing things on Scrivener, and leaving any detail out will ruin everything.

My fail-safe in these circumstances is to delete everything and start again. Only deleting didn’t work, at least not when I tried it.

 My second fail-safe is to start again with a new title. And after a while, I had successfully installed the entire book, all in proper folders this time. Strangely enough, it looked safe on there. It should be because Scrivener isn’t in the habit of updating and changing things.

I can say this with confidence, because over the years and all my struggles to learn Scrivener, there have been numerous pieces of my work on there. Some of them have been on there for a long time!

 I can now finish the second edit, and when it’s ready, I can actually publish it straight from Scrivener.

Although I suspect I have a lot more to learn before then!

Am I getting somewhere? Only time will tell…