Favoring the Competition

[marguerite]

In today's New York Times Magazine, Virginia Heffernan reviews several writing programs available for the Mac and doesn't mention Storyist! I added a comment on the Times website (it has to be approved by the powers-that-be before you can see it).

 

The article itself will be available till Sat. 1/12 or thereabouts on the Times website; after that, you can expect it to be accessible only to subscribers.

 

Steve, time for a letter to the editor?

Marguerite

[Steve]

In today's New York Times Magazine, Virginia Heffernan reviews several writing programs available for the Mac and doesn't mention Storyist! I added a comment on the Times website (it has to be approved by the powers-that-be before you can see it).

 

The article itself will be available till Sat. 1/12 or thereabouts on the Times website; after that, you can expect it to be accessible only to subscribers.

 

Steve, time for a letter to the editor?

Marguerite

 

Thanks Marguerite. You can be sure I'll let them know about Storyist.

 

-Steve

[Steve E]

In today's New York Times Magazine, Virginia Heffernan reviews several writing programs available for the Mac and doesn't mention Storyist! I added a comment on the Times website (it has to be approved by the powers-that-be before you can see it).

 

The article itself will be available till Sat. 1/12 or thereabouts on the Times website; after that, you can expect it to be accessible only to subscribers.

 

Steve, time for a letter to the editor?

Marguerite

Thanks for the link, M. I missed this.

 

I noticed a pro-Storyist comment "Posted by Carolyn" (comment #20, posted on January 6th, 2008 at 10:31 am) and much preferred it to Ms Heffernan's waxing poetic on the evil convolutions of the Dark Processor. We understand the need for minimal distractions "whilst" in the book, and Scrivener certainly does that, but Storyist does it better. But to my ears her whining need for absolute simplicity ("...with WriteRoom, your sentences unfurl in prehistoric murk...") sounds more like a writer's fetish akin to Hemingway's "facing the white bull" (i.e., the blank page) than a valuable feature. But to each his/her own.

 

Would you believe that the Kaypro II (from 1982, pre-Mac) was considered a portable? Actually, they used the term "lugable computer". I noticed several comments sang its praises. Such is the power of nostalgia.

 

(Last Thursday, single digits in NYC. Next Tuesday it's expected to hit 61F. Weird.)

-Thoth.

[marguerite]

Thanks for the link, M. I missed this.

 

I noticed a pro-Storyist comment "Posted by Carolyn" (comment #20, posted on January 6th, 2008 at 10:31 am) and much preferred it to Ms Heffernan's waxing poetic on the evil convolutions of the Dark Processor. We understand the need for minimal distractions "whilst" in the book, and Scrivener certainly does that, but Storyist does it better. But to my ears her whining need for absolute simplicity ("...with WriteRoom, your sentences unfurl in prehistoric murk...") sounds more like a writer's fetish akin to Hemingway's "facing the white bull" (i.e., the blank page) than a valuable feature. But to each his/her own.

 

Would you believe that the Kaypro II (from 1982, pre-Mac) was considered a portable? Actually, they used the term "lugable computer". I noticed several comments sang its praises. Such is the power of nostalgia.

 

(Last Thursday, single digits in NYC. Next Tuesday it's expected to hit 61F. Weird.)

-Thoth.

Carolyn, c'est moi, when I'm not pretending to be Lady Blakeney or immersed in my pseudonym, C.P. Lesley--still unpublished (if not, I hope, for long; the C. stands for Carolyn). Glad you liked the post--and that the NYT posted it.

 

I didn't think much of Ms. Heffernan's article, to tell the truth. If all she wants is a blank page, what's wrong with Word? You can hide all the toolbars in Mac Word if you're so inclined (at least I think you can).

 

I'm not much impressed with Scrivener either, for that matter. It imports and exports files very nicely, and I like the flexibility of its "compile to printer" option (you can set up multiple documents in Scrivener and print just the ones you want, in a font quite different from the one used inside the program; and since you can have multiple folder levels you can keep several volumes of a series in the same data base and print just one, or parts of one, at a time). But it lacks the various types of sheets, which I find really useful, so its advantages over a straight word processor are limited, IMHO.

 

My goal in adding a comment was to let people know of Storyist's existence--otherwise, people will buy Scrivener not merely because they prefer it (an entirely legitimate reason) but because they don't know what else is out there (much more problematic, both for them and for Steve!).

Marguerite

[Steve]

My goal in adding a comment was to let people know of Storyist's existence--otherwise, people will buy Scrivener not merely because they prefer it (an entirely legitimate reason) but because they don't know what else is out there (much more problematic, both for them and for Steve!).

Marguerite

 

Thank you Marguerite. It was discouraging not to see Storyist mentioned in the article (I obviously have some PR work to do), and I really appreciated your comment.

 

-Steve

[codemer]

I didn't think much of Ms. Heffernan's article, to tell the truth. If all she wants is a blank page, what's wrong with Word? You can hide all the toolbars in Mac Word if you're so inclined (at least I think you can).

 

It's been a while since I've used Word, but if I recall, there was an options like "Full Screen" under the View menu. Or maybe I'm thinking of Pages. I agree, though, that if all you want is a blank page, then it doesn't much matter which editor you use.

 

IF