I find these kinds of posts helpful, so I thought I would share the tools I use for my writing.

1. Number one. Most important is Scrivener. I would be lost without this tool. I can write scene by scene into separate notes/documents, keep multiple versions, organize them into chapters when I’m ready, and collate a selection of them into a draft manuscript ready for printing or my Kindle. I do my world building and back story creation and cataloging in a section separate from the manuscript. I can describe my characters, one per note/document, and places. I also keep much of my extracted research in a separate Research folder. You can delete things and keep them in a trash folder as well. I use the Windows version, but wish I were a Mac user. Theoretically they will have an iPad version in the future. — $40 US
2. iA writer

When I began writing I was SO SURE agents would be fighting over my manuscript. Yeah. But after almost thirteen years in the industry, a lot of bloody noses, and even more lessons in humility, I hope that these tips will help you. Self-publishing is AWESOME, and it’s a better fit for certain personalities and even content (um, social media?), but we must be educated before we publish.

Mistake #1 Publishing Before We Are Ready

The problem with the ease of self-publishing is that it is, well, too easy. When we are new, frankly, most of us are too dumb to know what we don’t know. Just because we made As in English, does not automatically qualify us to write a work spanning 60,000-100,000 words. I cannot count how many writers I’ve met who refuse to read fiction, refuse to read craft books, and who only go to pitch agents…

Soren Kierkegaard
Image from achipictor.com

(Regarding Søren Kierkegaard)

anger panic and fear
speed from
stranger to stranger
like flames match-lit
race along fuses
of volatile neurons
to leap across gaps of
magnesium mindlessness
horrid with consequence
masses corrupted in
white hot sparked unison
here is impenitent man
irresponsibly fractioned
burned whole
soul reduced and adapted
to feral behaviors
black acts
of a wild
human herd