Working Things Out in Meatspace

There have to be thousands of tools to help writers out there. I automatically avoid all the ones that are pay-to-play because I'm firkin broke. That's a trap for young players right there. Famous Writer, or self-acclaimed famous writer, claims that Tool X helped them write so many best-selling novels and it's only some amount of dollars to use it too.

Spoilers: no amount of expensive tools are going to help you write a best-seller. None of them. Most of the tools out there are word processors with slightly advanced editing helper algorithms that still chuck a major wobbler at dialect or invented words or even modern vernacular turns of phrase. Sometimes, that's a hinderance.

Forget the living heck out of any editing software that autocorrects everything for you. Those are HELL if you are writing scifi or fantasy. There's others that help you, an easily distracted sack of beans, keep track of who's who and what's what. You can get those for free.

Trello is excellent if you need to easily reference stuff. Same with World Anvil. You don't need to pay for either of those to have the functionality you desire. If you want to go old school, you can have the same results by picking up a large packet of note cards or two and writing out all your specific information by hand.

You can get any number of desktop or phone apps that imitate the same basic function as note cards. Find whichever one suits you best and don't pay for anything until you know it's going to work out for you.

There are LOTS of people who think that 'writer help tools' are going to let you press a button and it writes the story for you. No such luck, friendo. There's nothing like that which exists. Even then, you'd still have to plug in character names, settings, what kind of place the characters are in, journey through, and so forth... by the time you've outlined all of that, you might as well just write the novel yourself.

Speaking of tools, it also helps if you can try them out for free. I've recently started using a web app called 750words. The way you're supposed to use it is (1) Wake up, (2) Open app, (3) Write about whatever's in your noggin until you reach your goal or get it off your chest, whichever happens first.

So far, I am not following directions. Why? I wake up a different way to everyone else. My morning routine usually goes:

1. Awake at some ungodly hour
2. Check time
3. If before 3AM, attempt to go back to sleep
4. Once that fails, check news
5. If after 3AM, might as well get up and get a thing done
6. If can't be bothered, cruise games until alarm

I cannot brain at the ungodly hour that my noggin refuses to keep sleeping. It would be all like, Ugh, I'm so tired why did I agree to do this thing now I'm waking up my Beloved and I hate myself... and so on.

Not the best when the goal is to clear your head of any negativity still lurking in there. The idea is a fresh brain so you can think of your creative stuff. The unfortunate side-effect, for me, is that I can't do my daily blog entry as well as I would have.

That, and I start obsessing about reaching 750 words. I have pasted in some of my self-indulgent claptrap in order to reach that goal because I had nothing else to say. I have actually referenced how many words I've yet to go before I reach the end of that exercise.

I have definitely found it harder to write literally anything since I started trying this app. It might not be for me, but I'm still going to try it for the entire month of the free trial just to see if the initial struggle remains consistent.

That's part of the fun of trying new (free) tools. See if they work. If they don't, you're free to try another thing. If they do, then that's wonderful. None of them will write your book for you. That's your job.