Five Tools To Use To Help A Writer Out

Writing can be difficult, especially when the ideas just won't go from that far place of your mind and down onto paper or a computer screen. Finding out the tools to best help you write things down can sometimes be a struggle, and while the list below may not apply to every writer, they can give you a place to start while you begin to figure out the way you want to write, save and utilize your work. Starting simple before expanding into specific programs is a good way to go for beginners and even for veteran writers. 

1. Notebooks/Scribblers

The simplest and most physical tools for writing. Just having something physical in front of you that has nothing to do with technology can be immensely helpful. Notebooks can be a tool that can be incredibly versatile. Paper and pen don’t require any charging and are always ready to use. A notebook can be a repository for all the odds and ends you want to remember, You do not even need to use it just for writing. It’s also a great place for your sketches, doodles, and lists. Writing by hand has numerous advantages compared to typing, and keeping a notebook on hand is a great way to keep your script skills sharp. Occasionally jotting down thoughts in a notebook is a handy way to reinvigorate the parts of your brain that don’t get a workout when you type on a computer or a smartphone. One of the best reasons to get a notebook is that they can be incredibly cheap, depending on where you shop it can be less than one dollar! Writing things by hand can help to cement the ideas in your mind before typing them up. This works not only for your own personal writing but also with lecture notes for school. 

2. Grammarly/Spellcheck

Editing can be difficult because no matter how many times you go over your work, it is possible that you may still miss something. The content you put out no matter the format or platform is a representation of you, of your brand of writing, so there's no place for errors.

Grammarly is an app available through Google and it automatically checks spelling and grammar, whether you’re writing a book or an email. It can also check sentence structure, monitors word choice, protects against plagiarism, closely examines the style of your writing and so much more.

While Grammarly and the spellcheck that are very much [art of our daily lives, do not fully rely on it. Make sure that you find a good balance between using the technology and using your own mind to catch those spelling and grammar errors. 

3. Computer Writing Programs

1. Libre Office: LibreOffice is a free and powerful office suite and a successor to OpenOffice.org (commonly known as OpenOffice). Its clean interface and feature-rich tools help you unleash your creativity and enhance your productivity. LibreOffice is one of the friendliest and fastest-growing projects in the free and open-source software world.

2. Google Docs: It’s a free, standard word processor that allows multiple people to work on the same document simultaneously. Google Docs and the other apps in the Google Drive suite serve as a collaborative tool for cooperative editing of documents in real-time. Documents can be shared, opened, and edited by multiple users simultaneously and users are able to see character-by-character changes as other collaborators make edits. Changes are automatically saved to Google's servers, and a revision history is automatically kept so past edits may be viewed and reverted to.

3. Microsoft Office: Perhaps one of the more well-known writing programs for PC users. Office is produced in several versions targeted towards different end-users and computing environments. This program is often paired with Microsoft Excel, a spreadsheet program, and Microsoft PowerPoint, a slideshow presentation program. These programs combined can help to outline and write out your ideas and flesh them out. 

4. yWriter: Designed by a writer for writers, yWriter is a word processor that helps organize your novel into scenes and chapters. It is created by a writer for other writers to use. It is available on both PC and Mac. 

4. Images and Mockups Usable for Writers/Artists

1. Pixabay: Stunning free images & royalty-free stock, Over 2.3 million+ high-quality stock images, videos and music shared by a very talented community.

2. Unsplash: The internet’s source of freely usable images. Powered by creators everywhere.

3. Canva: Templates for absolutely anything. Customize an office template, or design something more personal, like an invitation.

4. GraphicBurger: Tasty design resources made with care for each pixel
Free for both personal & commercial use. 

5. Cloud Saves

Saving your work to the cloud will help to back up the work you have typed up. It would be the worst to lose all of that progress, even if you already wrote things by hand. 

Google Drive: Store, share, and access your files and folders from any mobile device, tablet, or computer—and your first 15GB of storage is free. Drive integrates seamlessly with Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides, cloud-native apps that enable your team to collaborate effectively in real-time. Drive integrates with and complements your team’s existing technology. Collaborate in Microsoft Office files without the need to convert file formats, and edit and store over 100 additional file types, including PDFs, CAD files, images, and more.

OneDrive: OneDrive is online personal storage that you get when you set up a Microsoft account to use services such as Outlook.com or Xbox. Use OneDrive to save documents, photos, and other files in the cloud, share them with friends, and even collaborate on content.

Learning to use these tools can sometimes be a challenge. It is simply a matter of finding what works for you, from using a simple notebook to manually write out your ideas and content, to using various word processor programs, to finding copyright-free images to use and backing up the data. Find what works best for you and create!