Really Neat Writing Tools

[ChrissyQuinn]

All of this crap is free.

Now that's out of the way!

For those of you who didn't know this last week I did a writing sprint with our very own Ayato, where we wrote 50k words in seven days! While looking at neat things to help with focus, ambience and keeping track of things I discovered two really really awesome things that are 100% free to use zero buying, zero signing up just bam you can use it.

The first is A Soft Murmur http://asoftmurmur.com/or on Google Play or the Apple Store

It's ambient noise that you can tweak to make it sound like waves, or a crackling fire, creepy singing bowl thing or white noise. So if you're writing a scene during a storm, you turn everything down except for wind, rain, and thunder. Nice night around a crackling fire? Crickets, Fire and a little wind. It even has a coffee shop slider, for those times you want to know what it feels like you're writing in starbucks. It's my new favorite thing next to Google Music.

Next is Writometer http://writeometer.guavabot.com/or on Google Play (I don't know if it's on the apple store)

I discovered this app a long long time ago and it sat on my phone and I never used it until last week and now I love it. Remember all of that crazy productivity you get during Nanowrimo and those neat graphs that show your progress, how many words you wrote a day, how many you need to write a day to finish your project on time etc. Writometer does that for you It also has a neat timer where you can ear Guavas and you can use these Guavas to purchase time for things like using Facebook or procrastinating otherwise. It also has a little reminder that pops up on your phone if you haven't written by 8 pm.

And that's it. Both are free and both are awesome and they get my endorsement.

(I don't know why stuff is super double spaced)

Edited May 25, 2016 by ChrissyQuinn

[Darkalley_Muse]

Huh, those are pretty nice. Going to give the Soft Murmur a try my next day off, maybe it'll get me out of my funk. 25% Fire/10% Singing Bowl definitely sounds like something that would draw out my muse XD

[CloverReef]

Hell yeah, that soft murmur thing sounds awesome I have so many rainy scenes in my story, why didn't I ever think of listening to a rain track while I write?! I feel like this is some kinda... Oprah moment. Epiphany? I dunno. Just awesome, thanks.

And in the spirit of the thread, there's also a kinda cool processor designed for writers. The files used to get pretty cluttered (they may have changed that since I switched to focuswriter), but it's good for people who like to do a lot of planning and/or tracking of their story. Here's a description from the website itself:

"yWriter is a word processor which breaks your novel into chapters and scenes, helping you keep track of your work while leaving your mind free to create. It will not write your novel for you, suggest plot ideas or perform creative tasks of any kind. yWriter was designed by an author, not a salesman!"

Free to download at http://www.spacejock.com/yWriter5.html