Last week, my accountability group talked about what we’d like to add to our writer’s toolkit and resources, so this week, we’re going to share our top three tools and resources — what helps us write and keeps us inspired, beyond our accountability group, which we weren’t allowed to list even though it’s the single thing that’s helped me stay on track the past couple of years. Thank you, ladies!
Happy Birthday, Jane!
First off, Happy Birthday to Jane Austen who kicked off this whole modern novel thing and gave Colin Firth a role he was born to play, Mr. Darcy, with Pride and Prejudice. It was 236 years ago today, on 16th December 1775, that the romantic novelist Jane Austen was born at Steventon Rectory in Hampshire. There’s even an Austen Birthday Soiree you can attend with chances to win fabulous Austen-related prizes and books.
Writing Tools I’d Be Lost Without
MS Word & Excel— These are my standard writing apps (ETA: I’ve since added Scrivener to my writer’s toolkit!). Notes, mss, journal entries, plots, outlines — you name it — I probably have it tucked away in a file.
Online-Stopwatch — Sprints! Yes, definitely a tool. They help motivate me and better yet, tell me when I can take a break. Since OSX Lion broke my downloadable version, I’ve been using the online one or my iPhone, but the key here is a timer.
TiddlyWiki — I don’t use this as much as I used to, but it might fall on the line between TOOL & RESOURCE now, since I’m always referring back to the information that I’ve compiled in my local copy. This is basically where my book bible lives.
My Go To Writing Resources
Google — It’s not always the best or the definitive resource, but it can help you find what you’re looking for.
RWA — I think I waited too long to join. My local San Diego chapter and the Beau Monde online chapter are filled with wonderful, supportive and knowledgeable people. MyRWA (members only) with the online classes and forums is also a font of information.
Books! — Big surprise there, huh? Everything from books on the craft of writing to genre fiction to anthropology and psychology books to historical reference books has been known to catch my interest or sit on my desk for months.
YOUR TURN: What are your favorite tools and resources for your creative endeavors or heck, even just to keep your life running smoothly?
And if you’d like to read about what the rest of my group considers essential tools & resources, you can find their blogs here:
This week for our How I Write series, my accountability group is talking about where we write. And I’m sure that the others are going to talk more about physical spaces and where they take their laptops and notebooks for field trips. I’m going to tackle this topic from a slightly different angle. I haven’t…
Ok, not quite alone, but it seems like everyone’s gearing up for the RWA National convention in San Francisco this week. And I’m not actually going to be home all week either. We’re going camping with the Cub Scouts again this weekend — only two left! This is going to be more like “extreme picnicking”…
Once again, I’ve been scrambling to finish a costume for my eldest, an Eliza Hamilton dress and it managed to pull me away from both writing and social media for a while. Long-time readers of the blog may recall the purple widow’s dress I made for a 5th grade presentation using the Simplicity colonial dress…
Week Nine of our 365 Photo Challenge! Spring has definitely sprung here. Which flowers are blooming are changing and I had some wild surprises this week from daffodils I thought were completely dead last year to a lizard taking a dip in the pool. The iceplant is just starting to bloom, soon the hillside will…
The Historical Romance Network, a group of over two hundred historical romance authors, are working to raise the visibility of the genre, to understand & breakdown misconceptions about the genre, to show the relevance of historical romance to the modern reader, and to help readers find the excitement these stories hold. Next weekend when many…
Last week’s post on Regency Marriages & Elopements, outlined the different ways one could get married during the Regency Era. So this week, we’re going to take a closer look at what happens when there wasn’t a Happily Ever After (HEA). The topic of Regency Divorce and Annulments is a much romanticized one in Regency…
The first is
Scrivener: A wonderful tool for writing pretty much anything. I used it to write both screenplays and novels. You set up folders to store research, notes, pics, audio, and links to outside sources. The programs bends to how your writing process. check it out – http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php
2nd:
Final Draft: Screenwriting software. I write my first drafts in Scrivener then export to Final Draft for polish. http://www.finaldraft.com
3rd:
Personal Brain: An information storage and organization program. Another multipurpose tool. http://www.thebrain.com
I’ve played with Scrivener, but never really got into it, not sure why. The Personal Brain sounds interesting. I’ve just started using Evernote on my computer and my phone — they sound similar in premise. I figured that way I could work on notes while I was waiting to pick the kids up! I’ll be over to watch the vlog!
Excel is a new tool I’m using for my writing. Before I only used it to tracking my word count. Now I use it store character info, keep track of scenes and even to storyboard my wip.
Very cool. I keep learning new little tricks with it, but yeah, I mostly use it as an overblown set of electronic index cards.
Through Angela James’ workshop, I was introduced to Dropbox. It’s my handy dandy backup tool for my Word files.
I LOVE Dropbox!! I think the only reason I didn’t think of it above the Online-Stopwatch is that my son (*glares in his direction*) always seems to be using it.
It’s great for back up, but also for working between two different computers! Just have to remember to SAVE before switching. That can be bad.
I don’t know why I didn’t think of this one! I LOVE dropbox! It’s so useful for going back and forth between my desktop and my laptop. As long as I remember to save before walking away. Yup… learned that one the hard way. Great tool!
You know how much I love excel and word. The ironic thing is that I didn’t list them on my list.
I’m going to have to try the online stopwatch. I haven’t used tiddlywiki in years but it was great when I was using it. Now I’m more of a OneNote girl.
I think it’s funny what I took for granted as well. Sometimes the obvious becomes invisible. I haven’t added much to tiddlywiki in a while, but I keep referring back to it often!
. It was 236 years ago today, on 16th December 1775, that the romantic novelist Jane Austen was born at Steventon Rectory in Hampshire. There’s even an Austen Birthday Soiree you can attend with chances to win fabulous Austen-related prizes and books.
There are three programs I use in my writing.
The first is
Scrivener: A wonderful tool for writing pretty much anything. I used it to write both screenplays and novels. You set up folders to store research, notes, pics, audio, and links to outside sources. The programs bends to how your writing process. check it out – http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php
2nd:
Final Draft: Screenwriting software. I write my first drafts in Scrivener then export to Final Draft for polish. http://www.finaldraft.com
3rd:
Personal Brain: An information storage and organization program. Another multipurpose tool. http://www.thebrain.com
I vlogged about them on my site here:
http://scribereglyph.com/2011/05/16/tools-are-but-extensions-of-the-mind/
I’ve played with Scrivener, but never really got into it, not sure why. The Personal Brain sounds interesting. I’ve just started using Evernote on my computer and my phone — they sound similar in premise. I figured that way I could work on notes while I was waiting to pick the kids up! I’ll be over to watch the vlog!
Excel is a new tool I’m using for my writing. Before I only used it to tracking my word count. Now I use it store character info, keep track of scenes and even to storyboard my wip.
Very cool. I keep learning new little tricks with it, but yeah, I mostly use it as an overblown set of electronic index cards.
Through Angela James’ workshop, I was introduced to Dropbox. It’s my handy dandy backup tool for my Word files.
I LOVE Dropbox!! I think the only reason I didn’t think of it above the Online-Stopwatch is that my son (*glares in his direction*) always seems to be using it.
It’s great for back up, but also for working between two different computers! Just have to remember to SAVE before switching. That can be bad.
I don’t know why I didn’t think of this one! I LOVE dropbox! It’s so useful for going back and forth between my desktop and my laptop. As long as I remember to save before walking away. Yup… learned that one the hard way. Great tool!
You know how much I love excel and word. The ironic thing is that I didn’t list them on my list.
I’m going to have to try the online stopwatch. I haven’t used tiddlywiki in years but it was great when I was using it. Now I’m more of a OneNote girl.
I think it’s funny what I took for granted as well. Sometimes the obvious becomes invisible. I haven’t added much to tiddlywiki in a while, but I keep referring back to it often!