As I’ve been doing events, I’ve had several teens and few adults asking me about resources as well as what I use to write. As teacher, I am more than willing to share what I have learned and what I use, especially with A.I. fights on social media making hard to find any information that is helpful.
Note: I am doing this as I can, so this page will be under construction for a bit until I can sort all my notes out.
What do you use to write?
I was trained of course to use Word. But Microsoft is getting more greedy, I have gone to other writing tools to use. I still use Word for editing, mostly using the Read aloud feature. It is useful to either read it aloud yourself or have a program read it back to you. It is amazing how many issues I missed until it was read aloud.
To type up drafts, I’m using Calmly writer. I used the free online version for a while until I bought it. It’s $19, and it’s worth it. It’s a basic writing program, it even has typewriter noises (main reason I bought it I won’t lie). Calmly writer is a basic app, for more distraction free writing. It even has a setting to help those with Dyslexia. I’ll link the FAQ page for Calmly Writer here. Paired with Prowriting aid, it’s great for first drafts as well as back up.
Google Docs
I use Google docs for sharing as well as back up. I’m not found a better app yet. Still looking for one.
Editing Tools
I use ProwritingAid. There is a free version then of course there’s a subscription and a lifetime license. They have a new “Pro” lifetime license. I use the original Lifetime license because that was what was around at the time, plus I had a huge discount coupon. ProwritingAid is made for authors vs some of the other A.I. editors. I used my one credit for the Beta reader and it was okay. It did catch somethings that I wondered about for Destiny. Thing is that it’s not made for series, so it was complaining about certain characters that have more development in other books of the series (Cetus mostly). To have to pay for those reports is rather stupid, so I won’t bother probably with them again. If you can save up for a lifetime subscription, I recommend it. It will save you money in the long run. But even using just the free one is useful. It will catch things that Word won’t. It’s not prefect though. It loves adding commons. It’s best to read up on grammer yourself so you can double make sure that Prowritingaid isn’t giving you a suggestion that is going to make your writing clunky, etc.
In the end it’s best to use it ALONG with Beta readers and human editors. It makes the jobs for them easier, but it’s not a replacement.
Books about Writing
I have collected a few over the years. Some I’ve used, some I read but didn’t really work for me, but still were good writing books. My favorites are the following:
Save the cat! writes a novel
Jane Austen Writer’s Club by Rebecca Smith
Noble’s Book of Writing Blunders and how to avoid them by William Noble
The Plot Whisperer’s Workbook: Step-by-step exercises to help you create complling stories by Martha Alderson
Story Fix: Transform your novel from broken to brilliant by Larry Brooks
Reference books and Websites:
The Well-spoken thesaurus
Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus
The emotion thesaurus: a writer’s guide to character expression by Angela Ackerman & Becca Puglisi -(There is several books in this series, and they are very useful).
The element encyclopedia of magical creatures by John & Caitlin Matthews – (Also a series of books, very useful for fantasy writers).
Character names:
This is great for fantasy names. A large chuck of names of characters from all my series have come from here.
Book covers and ads
I use a combination of Canva, Adobe Express, and Photoscape X.
I simply use the stock images they carry because most of the “free” stock image websites are super questionable. It’s best to avoid them. I also have a photographer friend who helps me once in a while. She takes all my author photos and she helped me take photos for the trailer for Never alone. (That is my arm covered in fake blood).
Video and Audio editing
I have been using Corel Video studio for several years but I think I will look for a new video editor. It was a bit hard to use for the Destiny trailer so yeah. I have also a free version of DaVinci which I am looking to move to in the future. It’s pricey so I use the free version. I also use Canva for animations.
For audio recording, I use Audacity. Most indies use this to record thier audio books. I use it for voice overs for the trailers.
For music and sound effects, I use what is in Youtube Creator’s studio. There are some also with Corel so I use some of those as well. FatRat also allows people to use his music so I used the collab song with Lindsey Stirling for the Destiny trailer.
Streaming/recording videos
I use a nice webcam I picked up at a second hand store. It’s hard to fine one and that’s one I can’t really recommend because I’ve had mix results myself. I dug through Amazon and bought one, only to have mixed results with it when I recorded with it for the Destiny trailer. TIP: Always turn off all the auto adjust features with mess with your footage.
OBS is the program you want to use to record. The built in ones with laptops are not good at all trust me, even the expensive laptops. It’s the best to use. All the Youtubers I follow (the gamers at least) use it.
Kathleen L Shay 