Software and Online Services
The website 750words.com is a great way to develop—and stick with—a regular writing habit. It will send you daily reminders and track whether you write each day (and whether you complete 750 words, the equivalent of the three “morning pages” Julia Cameron recommends in The Artist’s Way).
Scrivener is an amazingly powerful (and surprisingly affordable) tool for writers of all stripes. This software helps you organize your writing and keep track of all your ideas and projects. As they say on their website, “Scrivener is a powerful content-generation tool for writers that allows you to concentrate on composing and structuring long and difficult documents. While it gives you complete control of the formatting, its focus is on helping you get to the end of that awkward first draft.”
If you’re looking for a distraction-free way to write on your computer, check out OmmWriter, “a writer’s haven.” OmmWriter creates a full-screen environment—complete with relaxing music, if you want—to help you get in the zone.
Articles
Below are a number of posts I’ve written to help you get more writing done, edit your own writing, and work with an editor more effectively.
Will an Editor Make Me Follow Lots of Rules I Don’t Want to Follow?
I've been thinking a lot lately about rules. Why they exist, why we follow them, why we don't follow them. Editors often get a bad rap for being enforcers of seemingly stupid or arcane rules that (almost) no one cares about, but that's not the way I work, so I wanted...
Feeling Stuck? Just Start.
I've been putting off writing a blog post—any blog post—for far too long, and I finally decided to just address the problem head on and write about why I'm not writing (this is a tip I often give to clients when they get stuck, too). What's stopping me from writing?...
How to Edit Your Own Writing
This is a post I first wrote when I was participating in, and then cohosting, a nonfiction offshoot of NaNoWriMo called Contentpalooza, but it applies to editing any of your own writing. When you edit your writing (or have someone else do it for you), you're doing...
Working with Tracked Changes
After sending your writing off to an editor and waiting anxiously for feedback, you receive the file back with words crossed out, other text added in red, and the margin filled with little balloons containing comments such as, “Is this what you mean?” “How about...
Stop Talking about It and Write Your Book
"Your priorities are the things you do, not the things you say you’ll do." I don't know where I heard that quote, or who said it first, but it makes sense, doesn't it? If you say you want to write a book, but you aren't actually writing it, then it must not be a...
Why I Haven’t Written a Book
It’s funny: Nomad Editorial is all about helping writers finish their books, but I’ve never written a book myself. I don’t blame you if you’re wondering, What’s up with that? Here’s the thing: I believe there is no one way to be a writer, to write a book, to get...
It’s Not about You
You've been talking about writing a book for years. Or you wrote the book (at least most of it) and never did anything with it. Or maybe you just have gobs and gobs of content, overflowing from notebooks and journals and filling up your computer, that you haven't been...
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