Writing Wednesdays: Free Writing Tools You Should Be Using
Not my typical Writing Wednesdays advice post, I know – but in-keeping with the social media and blogging advice week as well as being advice for writing!
When you’re a writer, you’ll see no end of these articles,
trying to entice you to use products you don’t really need but that are
marketed at you as a writer! to improve your writing! and stuff! And half of
those products – the half that actually look useful – will probably be free
trials for a month to draw you in and then try to charge you ten quid a month.
Well, as a writer, I have fallen subject to nosing around at
these articles. And I’ve tried some different products. Some of these overlap
with everyday use or things I use for blogging, but I also use them for
writing. And I wanted to share them with you, in case you guys are searching
for other products to help you as a writer!
- Evernote – a wonderful platform,
across devices (including desktop!). There’s even formatting on there for
bold/italics, bullet points, etc. I use it a lot for typing things up on my
iPad or phone when I’m on the go, and then accessing those notes via Evernote
on my laptop later. - Bubbl.us – for those of you who need to
just let your ideas run wild before you can really get to grips with your
novel, this one’s for you: a free, online brainstorming website that lets you
be creative even on the go. - Trello – this has become one of
my blogging essentials, but I’ve also found it handy for writing, too. It’s a
virtual whiteboard (again, you can access it via the app as well as your
computer) and I’ve found it really handy for odd scraps of notes and ideas that
I can shuffle about and collect at a later date. - CalmlyWriter – this is not one I like using, but I’ve chosen to include it because some of you might find it a good website and just because I don’t enjoy using it, doesn’t mean you won’t. It’s a fuss-free online writing tool (my issue is that the export is in HTML… So you’d have to copy and paste into Notepad and then into Word…) but it is clear, and it is fuss-free, writing-wise!
- Werdsmith – I really like this
app for writing on my iPad, if I can’t access my laptop. I find it easy to use,
easy to import and export files, and not too fussy and not too plain. - Facebook – surprised to see this
one on the list? (So am I.) There are hundreds of groups for writers on
Facebook – whether it’s for your genre, or writers in your area – to keep you
inspired and motivated. - Pinterest – in a similar vein to
Facebook, it’s a great community and I’d really recommend it for visual
inspiration if you’re looking for writing prompts. - Wattpad – of course! Even if you
don’t want to use it to share your writing (which you should, and you can check
out my Writing Wednesday post on posting your work online), it’ll give you
access to an incredibly supportive community of writers and readers that may
help inspire and motivate you. But, you can also write in the app or on the
website, and save as a draft – so you can, effectively, use it as a way of
saving some writing while you’re on the go to access later on your computer.
Are there any free writing tools that you guys like using? Share them here!
xo
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