Every month, the Insecure Writers Support Group hosts a blog hop with an optional question meant to inspire and encourage other writers. Special thanks to founder Alex Cavanaugh and to this month’s co-hosts, JS Pailly, Rebecca Douglass, Pat Garcia, Louise-Fundy Blue, and Natalie Aguirre.
This month's question:
What are your favorite writing processing (e.g. Word, Scrivener, yWriter, Dabble), writing apps, software, and tools? Why do you recommend them? And which one is your all time favorite that you cannot live without and use daily or at least whenever you write?
This month's question:
What are your favorite writing processing (e.g. Word, Scrivener, yWriter, Dabble), writing apps, software, and tools? Why do you recommend them? And which one is your all time favorite that you cannot live without and use daily or at least whenever you write?
Word has been my go-to word processing tool forever. I've recently started using Word's headings feature to create distinct sections for each chapter. This allows me to more easily jump around within the document and to move scenes around. (If you use control-F to find, and then click headings, a list of all your headings appears to the left.)
If I want to immerse myself in writing, I often use the Forest app. "Forest is an app that helps you stay focused on the important things in life. Whenever you want to stay focused, plant a tree." Your virtual trees will wither if you stop working before the time you specify.
For researching character jobs, I use the Occupational Outlook Handbook. It provides US job descriptions and salary ranges, as well as information about training requirements and work environments.
If I want to immerse myself in writing, I often use the Forest app. "Forest is an app that helps you stay focused on the important things in life. Whenever you want to stay focused, plant a tree." Your virtual trees will wither if you stop working before the time you specify.
For researching character jobs, I use the Occupational Outlook Handbook. It provides US job descriptions and salary ranges, as well as information about training requirements and work environments.
But my favorite tools of all are a notebook and a fun colored pen (sometimes purple, sometimes metallic, sometimes purple metallic). I do most of my early drafting by hand. Writing by hand stimulates different areas of the brain than typing, and through the years, it's become an important part of my process. It's a lot easier to keep self-doubt at bay and convince myself that I'm just jotting down some new ideas—a fun experiment—instead of Seriously Starting A Novel. And there's something satisying about filling a notebook with thoughts and ideas in the early stages of a project.
"The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt." ~Sylvia Plath
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