Saturday, March 13th, 10am MST
What Writing Tools Do You Use?
As writers, we’ve come a long way from rolling a blank sheet of paper into the typewriter and staring at it. Or, for the really old-school, uncapping the fountain pen and poising it over a blank yellow pad.
Today, we have all kinds of writing tools to make us more productive, creative, and polished. What are some of your favorites? Tell us about them, how you use them and what they do for you. You might have tried some of these:
Editing software, such as Autocrit.com.
Line-editing and grammar checkers like Grammarly and Hemingway. Or a a cliché finder like clichefinder.net.
Have you ever wanted to see how your novel will look as a printed book, even as you type the draft? It’s a great motivator! Reedsy Book Editor (reedsy.com/write-a-book) does that.
We could all use more organization as we write. Some word-processors have an outliner built in. Scrivener or Ulysses (an easier-to-understand Scrivener) are well-known writing tools with outliners, corkboards, storyboards, timelines, and other gizmos. Do they help?
If you work with another author, you need a collaborative writing tool such as Google Docs or Draftin.com. How do those work?
What about the problem of the wandering mind? We all have that. You might use a concentration focuser like ommwriter.com, which can make your computer keyboard clack like an old Remington typewriter. Is that a good thing? Some people might find that reassuring. Or how about Noisli.com, which plays soothing nature sounds while you work. Or maybe you prefer a set of noise-canceling headphones. What do you use?
Everyone needs outliners and research organizers, and some of them are fun, colorful, and helpful, such as Windows Ink Workspace, OneNote.com, and Milanote.com. What’s your favorite research organizer?
Do you write on the go? Hard to imagine, but many people write their masterpiece on a phone. Software for doing that includes tools like Evernote.com. It’s also collaborative. Seems like anyone writing on their phone would be working with others (but not driving, hopefully).
Addicted to handwriting? Maybe you have special pens and notebooks you can recommend. Or maybe you’ve tried handwriting-to-text alternatives, such as Rocketbook.com or Livescribe.com. There’s also the latest thing, handwriting directly onto a screen with a special pen, such as with iPads and “two-in-one” computers.
Maybe you’re nostalgic for the old Dictaphone and you’ve tried speech-to-text technology, which is now built into Word. Other speech-to-text includes Dragon software, and even Alexa has a speech-to-text function. Does reciting out loud work for a writer?
If you write on a computer, it goes without saying that you have eyestrain. Have you tried special computer glasses? Some even have flat lenses with blue or yellow coating (such as pixel.com and gray.com). Tell us what you use.
Join a lively discussion about writers’ tools!
The Zoom link for the meeting is in the newsletter. If you want to be added to the newsletter list, send your name and email to amwmembership@gmail.com. See you at the meeting!
