When the idea of writing THE LAST ARIA first occurred to me, it was due to the adage, “if you want to be a writer, you should write every day.” That night, Augie O’Connor appeared in my dreams. Just a soldier at the rail of a troop ship. Nothing more. It was as simple as that; I set off on a six-year quest to write my debut novel. But Augie and dreams and writing every day are all fodder for another post. This one is about an indispensable tool to get it done.

I’ve loved writing as long as I can remember. Every fall I’m tempted to go to a big box store and waft the pages of empty notebooks–large and small, lined and unlined–below my nose. The smell of fresh paper! Back to school time: blank pages brimming with the promise of things to come! But a novel? Where on earth did that come from? I haven’t written fiction since the stories I wrote in elementary school. But the urge struck, and there was no stopping once I’d begun.

Other than the thought of my mother suggesting in a very persuasive voice, “finish what you started,” there is one thing that kept me going: Scrivener.

Hands down, I found Scrivener the best writing tool of many I sampled. Up until now, my blogs and novel writing have been a hobby (yes, now I have high hopes!). From graphic design to web design, open source (read: free) programs are my go-to tools. I already have one expensive hobby (golf). I didn’t need another. Scrivener is an exception– and worth the nominal cost many times over.

I wrote THE LAST ARIA entirely out of sequence. It would have been impossible to keep track of my scenes and chapters in Word. Scrivener’s binder not only displays the complete outline, it also offers drag-and-drop capabilities to rearrange chapters and scenes. That’s a drop in the bucket of how it works to keep a writer organized.

Already started a project in Word? Not to worry; I had, too, but easily imported it to Scrivener–and never looked back.

Check Scrivener out for yourself. And start writing.