Tools to Get the Job Done

I've learned to write effectively one needs the proper tools. Here are some of the ones I've found that are essential for me to be productive.

The first and maybe most important is a stable, solid, patched and malware free computer. I'm an IT/Network Admin by day and I know from experience if your computer crashes constantly, is dog slow and is malware ridden, then wipe it and start over or buy a new one. If you work mostly at home get a modern desktop computer and a large monitor, 24 inch or larger. Two screens is even better for multitasking. Need to be mobile get notebook, or even better yet a clam-shell device with touchscreen tablet and detachable keyboard. I have a Dell Inspiron desktop for home and Asus Transformer T100 for when I need to be mobile. Whether Windows, Mac or Linux you can't get the job done if the machine can't handle what you need to throw at it. And this can't be a computer you share with the kids or you'll never be able to use it as they'll be playing Minecraft on it it constantly.

Next is MS Word. Microsoft gets a lot of grief about it's products, but Word, at least in the Windows world is the gold standard. It used to be flaky and unstable, Word 95 and 97 crashed frequently making for lost work. But I've found since Word 2007, up to the current version 2013, that it is pretty rock solid. The easy to create Styles makes for custom formatting you can easily save as custom templates. It's review tools for Spell Checking and Thesaurus help correct mistakes, though I find the Grammar functions to be annoying. And don't for forget to turn on the Show/Hide function  (¶ icon). And if you use Beta Readers Track Changes is a must.

Scrivener is the next software package I use. It can be used for all of your Word Processing if you'd like, but it's not as full featured as Word in many ways. What Scrivener does that is light years better than Word and what I use it for is creating outlines for your stories and allowing you to organize your thoughts. Create Chapter Synopsis, Character and Places descriptions, a Corkboard to post cards to type out ideas when they come to you. Stuck on what name to use for a character, there is a Name Generator with variables to help you come up with the perfect character name. Many other features as well that I'm still learning. But the best part is it's really inexpensive for what all it does. You can buy it for $40 or less, has very flexible licensing that allows you to install it on any computer in your household and comes in Windows or Mac versions.

To help with editing and cleaning up my work I use a web tool called Autocrit. This is a paid web service, though they have free options as well with limits, where you can copy your text and it will analyze it and create reports looking at key areas to point out potential problems or mistakes. The most important reports I use are the Overused Words, and Repeated Words and Phrases. I can't tell you how often I overuse the same words in my writing and don't even realize it. I don't take everything the report says as gospel, as there are certain reasons to overuse or repeat certain words or phrases. But it is an effective tool clean up some of the clutter.

To store your files and give you access from anywhere, use a cloud service to save your documents. Whether it's Dropbox, OneDrive (formally called Skydrive), Google Drive, Box or any other cloud storage service, you need one so you can get to your files from any computer. Many give you gigabits of space for free. But be sure you keep local backups as well, either on your PC or Notebook, or on a external device hard drive or flash device, as Cloud Services can fail and lose data too. Be sure you have backups of your backups so you don't lose any work.

Now I'm a Windows user, so many of these are Windows based tools, though some cross over into other platforms. Mac and Linux have great tools too, so if you use those operating systems find what works for you. None of these will do the work for you, but you can't do your writing efficiently without them. I'm interested if you have other tools you use to help you get that manuscript finished?