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Writing Tools: Cool Finds

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Check out my favorite writing tools for the week—websites to inspire, encourage, and help you on your writing journey. Enjoy!

Written? Kitten! Type in your target word count (100? 200? 500?) and receive an oh-so-cuteee reward (to quote my 13-year-old). And big thanks to Lori Oster for reminding me of this fun site!

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Autocrit Editing Wizard: Thanks for this great suggestion from Angelica Jackson, who says this software “analyzes your work for overused/unnecessary words, cliches, and so on. Won’t take the place of a crit group imo, but makes those passes for your tell words like “that” and “just” a lot easier. You can use the wizard on the site for free with some limitations”.

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And the Plutchik-wheel, just because it’s so darned amazing—and I’ve never thought about emotions in this way before:

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Finally, I posted earlier this week about ways writers can use Microsoft Word more efficiently—and I neglected to mention the time-saving advantage of learning those keyboard shortcuts. I have a friend who’s a wizard with Adobe Photoshop, and I swear he barely touches his mouse. He does most of his graphic editing via keyboard shortcuts. If he can do that in Photoshop, we should definitely be doing the same in our word processing programs! At least, if we’re professionals, right?

Thanks muchly to Russel V J Ward for this terrific link of Microsoft Word shortcut keys:

 

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How about you? Any more amazing sites or writing tools to recommend?

The hidden price of "productivity" every writer needs to know - www.cherylreif.com

You’ve probably read the same tips I have: Have a smart phone? Check Facebook while standing in line at the post office! Respond to Twitter messages while waiting for your dentist! Catch up on your news feed while sitting on the pot! For years, I thought the path to increased productivity was to squeeze in MORE–more […]

Comments

  1. says

    Autocrit looks really useful! Thanks!

    • says

      Hi Andrea–and thank YOU for your great update on MG agents. It’s encouraging to hear that people are still excited for middle grade fictions!

  2. says

    I’ve used written-kitten before, it’s pretty cute. And keyboard shortcuts are the bomb! I use them for most programs.

    • says

      Hi Angelica–It seems like it takes a little bit of activation energy to learn those shortcuts, but the time investment pays off quickly. Thanks for stopping by!

  3. says

    Happy to help, Cheryl – glad you liked the link. And this stuff works!

    Thanks again.

  4. says

    Ooooh! Thanks for the shortcut keys. I knew about half these, but will enjoy adding several more of these to my repertoire. Very useful.