Every author will have their own techniques, best practices and sources of inspiration. As well as this they will utilize their own tools. In an effort to share the best elements from my own writing journey I have decided to spend a week posting about the tools and resources that I have found to be most useful.

I will aim to cover a mix of the common tools that would be beneficial to all writers and also the more unusual which I have found helpful in writing in the Fantasy genre.

Where better to begin than the most basic of tools – The writing platform.

To begin with, I should mention that when I began to write I utilised microsoft word for all of my physical word processing. For a while it was satisfactory, but as my first novel grew larger I found word to be cumbersome and problematic in terms of its functionality. I then did some research and found Writeway Pro. It had received some pretty good online ratings and was considered an affordable writing program. Being a poor student at the time, I was happy to know that it offered a free demo, which had almost full functionality. Once I began using it I didn’t look back and purchased a full copy. At the low one-off price I consider it one of my best investments to date.

Its strengths lie in keeping all of my writing together in one easy to use program, which performs the majority of things that I need to with simplicity. Writing in itself is not dissimilar to Word. However splitting chapters and sections of your books is easier. Having your character profiles, notes and your research within a buttons reach from your main page is priceless, particularly when you are ‘in the zone’ with your writing.

Even better, exporting your work into a manuscript or draft format is done with one click. For those of you who have struggled with creating a manuscript in Word, this feature is worth the $35 price in itself.

Everything has its issues, and I have to admit that I find the spell checker to be a little basic compared to others in the market. In addition to this there are minor things like limited tab indent sizes that can be an annoyance. But when you are considering the price of the software, you can get over these little things.

If you are looking for something other than Word, which provides a more ‘full suite’ writing solution, for a low price, I recommend you hop on to http://www.writewaypro.com/ and try out the free demo.

Inspiration

We all write because we have a passion for it. Yet at times we all need to find some motivation. Here is a speech by Neil Gaiman that drives me to my keyboard every time I am feeling unmotivated. I thoroughly recommend it to all people with creative minds. I hope you enjoy it and share it with your friends and colleagues.