Scrivener: The Learning Curve is Worth It

I've set my sights on conquering Scrivener.

It's not difficult to use, just takes some time to get to know it. The first time I used it was for a NaNoWriMo novel, and I seemed to muck things up unnecessarily. (Starting with forgetting to get my NaNo participant's 50% discount on purchasing it!) I couldn't keep my folders organized properly, I mislabeled scenes, it was messy. I wanted to use the corkboard view mode feature, but couldn't figure out how to incorporate that into my text-doc style habits.

But, I know the benefits of streamlining later down the road. A writer in my writer's group used Scrivener (at my suggestion, even) to great advantage when self-publishing: the program makes instant Table of Contents, easily accessible Chapter Headings, and publisher-ready formatting for ebooks.

So, as I revise my memoir modules and look to assembling them, I ventured back into the Scrivener world. I chose to use the Non-Fiction Template. I watched a couple of How-To videos on YouTube to refresh my memory and perhaps help me avoid making the same mistakes I made before. Immediately, the difference is noticeable. I keep my chapters as folders, and my modules as scenes. I add more scenes - variations on the modules, notes, etc. - and manage to label them in a logical way.

The only trouble I've run into, so far, has to do with pictures. A tutorial video has espoused the benefit of using photos as the covers of the scene chapter/scene cards, in corkboard view mode. Sounds good to me - I'm a pretty visual person. But, alas, I believe that is not an option in the Non-Fiction Template mode, unfortunately. I manage to learn how to include photos, at least, by opening a new text inside a folder, adding the photos to the text document, and saving it as a scene within the chapters I want them.

Okay, so, now...I'm going to employ the use of "Stamps" - so each folder or virtual index card is stamped with a word of my choosing: Rough/First/Raw, Needs Polish, Needs Research/Editing/Citations/Photos, etc.

Videos I used:

• Scrivener: A Quick Review of How It Works and Some Of Its Cool Features (Karen Price)
  Fifteen minutes long. Good overview, nice pace, but doesn't get into the different templates and modes as much as longer tutorials, obviously. 
• Scrivener Bootcamp (Jason Hough)
  This one is about an hour long, and covers just about every thing you'd want to know how to do. Very well organized, but still slightly overwhelming for me...I had to take pauses, try things out, and go back to the video.
• Scrivener Basics For Windows (Literature & Latte)
  Ten minutes in length, built for beginners, but is six years old, so some features have changed.