Resource Dump: Writing Tools I Love

Resource Dump: Writing Tools I Love

Occasionally, the muse sings heavenly music and writing comes as easy as breathing. But far more often (for me, anyway), writing feels like what I imagine giving birth might be like: messy and uncomfortable and omg so difficult and I just want it over with already so I can have that beautiful, post-ready final product ready for everyone to coo over.

We've all got our tried-and-true methods for coaxing the muse, so I thought I'd share some of my personal favorite writing tools and resources in the hope that you might find some of them useful.

Some of these I use every time I'm writing and others are reserved for those times when writing block hits hard and I need that extra push to get the creative juices flowing. (And a couple are just-for-fun time wasters writing-related diversions.)


Top 10 Favorite Writing Tools (in no particular order)

1. WriteMonkey (Desktop App): A writing application with an extremely stripped down user interface, leaving you alone with your thoughts and your words.

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This app is really useful for those times when you want to get everything else off your desktop and just write. When you maximize the program, it clears literally everything else off your screen (including operating system footers/headers/what have you) so that all you see is a blank writing box. It's the closest experience I've found to writing by hand on a blank sheet of paper.

I don't use this all the time, but it really gives me that calming, focused experience I need when distractions or writers block is really bothering me.


2. The Most Dangerous Writing App (Online App): Designed to shut down your inner editor and get you into a state of flow. Because 'tis better to have written and lost, than never to have written at all.

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I have a serious love-hate relationship with this sucker. It's another one of your typical "write or die" apps, but this one gives you no leeway at all. If you stop typing for five seconds, everything disappears and is lost forever. It's dangerous and can be pretty stressful: I once lost over a thousands words using this (and nearly threw my computer across the room).

At the same time, it’s amazingly helpful if you (like me) are one of those writers that compulsively/agonizingly edits and re-edits every three words before you can bring yourself to move on. I find it especially useful to start off a longer writing block with a 10-20 minute session on this to get into the writing headspace. (But seriously: use at your own risk.)


3. Thesaurus.com (Online Resource): Find synonyms and antonyms for words you use all the time.

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I know people have different opinions on using a thesaurus, but I personally am an avid fan. Obviously, you have to be very judicious about what words you use (my rule of thumb: don't use a word if it's one you've never said aloud yourself in conversation). But sometimes you just need that list of synonyms so that you're not using the same three descriptors over and over again.

My fic Come Round Full Circle, for example, is 37k (and counting) words of angst, misery and man pain. I cringe to think how it would read if I didn't have a thesaurus to spread out the adjectives a bit.


4. Tip of My Tongue (Online Resource): Find that word that you've been thinking about all day but just can't seem to remember.

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This is another thesaurus-type tool, but more useful when you know exactly what word you're looking for but can't for the life of you remember what it is. It lets you search for words by meaning and what letter it starts with, ends with, contains, etc.

(So the next time you're looking for that perfect descriptor for Tony Stark's behavior and you know it starts with an "i" and means something like antsy or hasty... pop those in there and you get: impetuous. Perfect!)


5. Be Focused (iPhone App): Lets you get things done by breaking up tasks into discrete (and imminently do-able) intervals, separated by short breaks.

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I'm a big fan of the Pomodoro technique for fighting procrastination (which is a huge problem for me). You can do it with any kitchen timer, but I like this app because it lets you create specific timers for different activities and lets you program in breaks for when you want them.

I've got set timers for brainstorming (10 minutes), non-stop flow writing (30 minutes), and longer writing sessions (2-3 hours with 5-minute breaks every 20 minutes so that I can go Tumblr for awhile relatively guilt-free, knowing Be Focused will tell me when I need to get back to writing).


6. Cold Turkey (Desktop App): Block online distractions for set time periods.

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This app will block all kinds of online time-wasters (Tumblr, Facebook, Buzzfeed, or whatever else you program in there) but will still let you access the sites you need to write. Again, a great tool for people like me who have major procrastination problems and a truly tragic lack of self-control.


7. Readability Score (Online Tool): Measure how easy your text is to read and how well it targets certain words and phrases.

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I don't know how useful this really is in terms of writing method, but it's super fun for nerds like me who want to overanalyze their writing style.

Run your text through here and it'll give you some random reading grade levels (so you can check how old your readers have to be in order to understand your syntax, maybe?) but also some more interesting things like: text quality (word/sentence syllables, passive voice count, etc.), reading time, sentiment (hahaha this one's my favorite; I usually get something like: "Neutral--Moderately Negative") and keyword density (so you know if you're seriously overusing a word).


8. Profanely (Online Tool): A creative curse word generator. Not an app for the faint of heart, the easily offended, or those younger than... 13?

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Okay, I admit there's absolutely no redeeming value for this one--but it's just so much fun. I like to use it when I need creative curse words for particularly colorful characters.


9. Writage (MS Word Plugin): Enables Microsoft Word to create editable Markdown files with all markup inserted automatically.

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This is a new discovery for me and it's super useful for turning your Word documents into markup-ready text. (Has anyone else suddenly become a markup expert within a few days of hopping aboard the Imzy bandwagon?)

I save all my stories as Word documents on my desktop, so all I have to do is pull up an existing file and "save as" with a .markdown extension. Then I open up the new file in .txt format and can copy & paste the whole thing directly into Imzy's post box without having to worry about re-editing for Imzy's formatting quirks.


10. Google Docs (Online App): Lets you create, edit, store and share documents online. Files can be accessed from any computer with an Internet connection.

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I know everyone and their mother already knows about Google Docs, but I thought I'd include it here anyway because I've recently re-discovered how awesome it is. I've used MS Word for most of my writing career and it's still (imho) the best document writing/editing software out there, but Google Docs has a couple of advantages that aren't easily available in Word:

a) Sharability--Perfect for interacting with beta-readers without having to email massive docs back and forth a million times, and for interacting with multiple beta readers/cheerleaders at the same time.

b) Accessibility--You can pull up your story and work on it on any computer or tablet, anywhere with an internet connection.


What are some of your favorite writing tools?

Do you use any of the ones that I've listed above? What are some other resources that you just can't write without? Please share in the comments. I'm always on the lookout for useful new writing tools!