Tuesday’s Top Ten: Writing Gadgets
Here are the ten writing gadgets, tools, and software I love.
10. Mr. Coffee…bwahahaha–did you read Saturday’s post…but seriously. How can I turn caffeine into books, without caffeine?
9. My android phone. I may not have the newest, smartest phone, but I can do so much more now than I could with my flip phone. I have many of the apps below on both my computer and my phone, like Kindle, Office, One Note, and Google Drive. While it would be nice to have a full-sized keyboard when I travel, at least I have everything I need.
8. Trello. I may be a procrastinating fool, but I’m an organized procrastinating fool. Besides, who doesn’t love cute little Taco?
7. Wix. I have my own website! No one goes there, and I don’t pay Wix any money for a URL or marketing, so it’s not as great as it could be, but one day, my friends…
6. Blogger. My love/hate relationship with Google is mostly love. I only created my website when I thought Blogger was going to dump me for posting naked Pinocchio. Someday, my book covers will have hot shirtless men holding hands and kissing. I’m not posting pr0n, so I think we’re all safe. It could be worse…
5. Microsoft Office 360 / One Note. Some people spend money on alcohol and cigarettes. I spend money on technology. The next four items cost money, as did my phone (and my coffee pot, if you want to go all the way back). While I refuse to pay money for game apps for my phone, I pay for writing software and the apps that go with them. I’m not the kind of person who plans on writing it off on my tax return, either. I don’t have a clue how any of that works. All I know is, Office 360 gives me access to the cloud. And One Note is where I keep my virtual notebooks of vocabulary words, plot bunnies, and book dissertations. Because nobody wants to carry all this shit on a plane:
4. Kindle. I call it the ultimate space saver. I still have two walls full of books, but my Kindle can hold so many more. Besides, some titles in M/M aren’t available in print, and sometimes you don’t want your mom to know what you’re reading when you’re home for Christmas. (Seriously. I read this book in my parents’ living room one Christmas Eve–2012, if you must know. Every time someone walked by, I covered the title at the top of my Kindle, just in case…)
3. Hemingway App. Hemingway is the fastest, easiest way to see the problems in your manuscript. Green shows you the passive sentences. Blue shows you the adverbs. Purple shows you the stuff that can be removed because it’s unnecessary. The yellow sentences need revising because they’re too hard to understand. The red sentences need revising because they are very difficult. This isn’t the only tool I use to polish my manuscript, but it’s the first, and after I’ve done all my “seek and destroy,” it’s also my last step before hitting “submit.”
2. Write It Now 4. I wanted an all-around tool, and it was rated better than Scrivner. Besides, it’s made in Scotland, and its icon is a raven. What’s not to love? This is one of the program’s coolest tools: the story board. You can move the cards around to fit them where they best belong. All content on the card moves with it.
1. Google Drive. That’s right: a free app. Don’t try to download your whole manuscript at once, or you’ll hate it. I hated it for many, many moons, until I learned the benefits of “comments.” I love seeing my readers interact with the text. Even if it’s something simple, like, “What the hell is ‘sush’?”
These are my favorite writing tools. What are yours?