Top 5 Apps for Writers That Help You Increase Your Productivity

by Tiffany Porter

The life of a writer is complex and exciting at the same time. On the one hand, you get paid for what you love to do more than anything, but on the other hand, being a creative creature, you never know when inspiration will evaporate. When writing is work, downtime is unacceptable. And downtime occurs when we feel insufficiently productive, inspired, and motivated because we did not properly plan the process of the project as a whole, this day or this week.

In this article, we propose fixing this situation with apps for productivity. We have compiled a list of the top five solutions that will help you always stay in the working rhythm with a huge supply of inspiration inside.

Trello

Trello is one of the leading applications in the project and workflow management market. Your success also largely depends on the organization of the workflow, so try this app. You can list all your current projects, set tasks, and write notes in one panel.  What is significant is that you can take notes for co-authors if you work in a team. Most likely your clients are also working with this application, so think about learning this tool.

Prompt! This app is also great for managing your personal tasks, and increase productivity in personal matters too. No one obliges you to use Trello only as a working tool. Plan all aspects of your life with this application and you will feel the clarity in your head. And clarity in the head means more inspiration and creative ideas for work!

FreshBooks

If you are a beginner freelancer, you have only one customer and you work through UpWork, for example, you don’t need any accounting software for now. Firstly, it’s quite realistic to keep in mind your mutual settlements with one customer, and secondly, UpWork already has a built-in billing function.

However, if you are a bird of free flight, you have ten customers, for each of whom you discussed individual conditions for cooperation, then congratulations, now you are not only a writer but also an accountant. Fortunately, Fresh Books will help our creative and humanitarian brains cope with numbers and not make mistakes.

This accounting program will help you bill your customers simply and correctly. Most freelancers use this accounting software, as it is easy to use and effective in terms of accounting. Sooner or later you will have to deal with accounting, but it is better to start preparing for this in time. By the way, all packages have an affordable price, which makes the application so attractive.

WordCounter

This is a must-have app for all newbies! Everyone who works with text often encounters the involuntary repetition of words. This online writing tools for authors will help you quickly identify words that are repeated and make your text diverse. You just need to insert your text in a special block and the app will show all the words that are most often used in the text. Accordingly, you need to replace them.

By the way, this application can also successfully work as a determinant of keyword density. If you work with texts in order to increase the position of pages in search results, it is necessary to understand which word or phrases are most often used in your text.

In addition, excessive use of a particular phrase can be rated as spam by search engines. Therefore, the golden mean between the readability and beauty of your text, SEO fullness, usefulness, and sense is important here. This application helps to balance and improve your intuitive skills in using the right linguistic constructs in the right places.

Calming Soft Music

Do you know this feeling when you know what you are going to write about, but you just can’t catch the necessary wave and get to work? This is especially true for those who voluntarily (or involuntarily, as the last few months) work from home, surrounded by family, children, pets, and pots rattling in the kitchen. At such moments, the ability to concentrate and gather all your thoughts (and strength) into a fist is critical.

We recommend using the Calming Soft Music application to disconnect from external noise, calm down, feel for a foothold, focus on the task, and feel how thoughts begin to fill your head.

You can ask a reasonable question - why not use iTunes or YouTube in the background? Well, of course, the choice is yours. Calming Soft Music has already collected melodies that will help you concentrate and start writing.

Prompt! Use these melodies for yoga, Pilates, and spiritual practices. This is the perfect two-in-one app for anyone looking for writer's inspiration within themselves

The Brainstormer

All that we see around us is an endless space for generating new ideas for your books and articles. All you need to do is just grab one of them by the tail. The Brainstormer article writer tool invites you to generate an idea for your new story with a single click.

This app will let you come up with anything. For example, you can work out ideas for a character, choose the most suitable genre, and even generate unrealistic ideas for a science fiction story. The application is available for iOS and Android, and the prices are just ridiculous - about one or two dollars.

Important note! This is certainly a useful application, but do not let it make too many decisions in your place. Remember that this is just an algorithm that combines data in a random order, and you are a creative person who is able to come up with a lot of original things with your own mind. Use this application if you feel the creative block and you need the first push, and start creating yourself further.

Conclusion

Of course, it is possible to continue the list of useful online writing tools for a very long time. We tried to collect the most useful solutions in the modern technology market. Each of the applications that we have listed is designed to solve your specific problem, but in combination, they can make you a much more successful, organized, and inspired writer. Try it all at once and see for yourself!

Tiffany Porter has been working as a Chief Writer at Online Writers Rating reviewing variety of writing services websites. She is a professional writing expert on such topics as digital marketing, blogging, design.  She also likes traveling and speaks German and French.

A Debut Author Gets Her Cover... And Is Thrilled

Today’s guest for the CRAP is Amanda Sellet, author of By The Book. She has a B.A. in Literature from New College of Florida and an M.A. in Cinema Studies from NYU. After a series of odd jobs (au pair, horse-sitter, barista), I worked as a reporter for 10 years, writing about theater, music, and movies.

Did you have any pre-conceived notions about what you wanted your cover to look like?

I was hoping for an illustrated cover as opposed to a photographic one, partly as a personal preference but also because I felt that would better capture the spirit of the book, which is more about oddball characters and whimsical situations than strict realism. In my secret heart I also hoped it would be “cool” and “artsy” (pretentious, party of one!). Since I knew it would fall within the conventions of YA rom-com covers, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t wind up with the ubiquitous black snake or something in the style of “woman in skin-tight pants looking over her shoulder.”

Mostly I didn’t want the cover to give people false expectations, so no one would shake their fist at the sky and feel duped when they started reading.

How far in advance from your pub date did you start talking covers with your house?

About 18 months pre-publication, which was only a few weeks post-deal. The design team was already working on covers for Spring 2020 at that point (fall of 2018), so my editor wanted to get them a jacket direction form as soon as possible.  

Did you have any input on your cover?

My wonderful editor asked about my general preferences, and whether there were any current covers that were “singing to my soul.” I immediately sent her approximately twenty zillion different examples that had nothing in common except that I liked them all, because I’m helpful like that. 

How was your cover revealed to you?

It was the last day of the school year, and I had been running kids around town and having adventures in drive-through meals for what felt like hours. When I finally got home, I saw the email from my editor with the cover attached, which drove all thoughts of onion rings from my mind! It was extra fun having an audience of tween girls to share it with.

Was there an official "cover reveal" date for your art?

My editor let me know when they would be releasing the cover in-house and asked if I wanted to do a “reveal” that day. I wasn’t sure whether it made sense given my less-than-robust online presence, but my agent and some wise author friends told me to go for it. And I’m very glad they did!

How far in advance of the reveal date were you aware of what your cover would look like?

I saw the cover on May 23 (school gets out early in the Midwest) and did the reveal June 12, so not too long at all.

Was it hard to keep it to yourself before the official release?

Like most introverts, I’m all about my small circle of family and friends … and I may have covertly shared it with certain interested parties before the official reveal. Although my grown-up brothers are probably not the target audience for pastel rom-com covers, they’re still excited for me about every step of the publishing journey.

What surprised you most about the process?

The first thing that surprised me was how much I loved it. I’m a critical person by nature, and prone to second-guessing everything, but somehow seeing my cover short-circuited all those impulses. I was immediately smitten with the art, the lettering, the palette, and the design. Beyond that, it just felt right. And although I can’t draw to save my life, I did spend quite a few years haunting museums and galleries as an art critic, so on a purely aesthetic level I was incredibly pleased by the quality of Monique Aimee’s charming illustration.

The second surprise was how much other people liked it. As someone with a tiny social media following, I didn’t expect anything like the reaction it got on Twitter and Instagram and then Goodreads. It was incredibly fun to get all of those notifications, and feel like people besides my mother, my agent, and my editor were excited about my book!

Any advice to other debut authors about how to handle cover art anxiety?

If you pay attention to cover reveals the way I have over the past year, you’ll notice that pretty much everyone is over-the-moon about their cover. Maybe we’re in the middle of a golden era, or maybe that’s just how it goes: You fall in love with your cover the way a parent does with their child. As an added bonus, you can brag about it without feeling vain, and stare at it without obsessing over the zillion little tweaks you’d like to make, because you didn’t create it … unlike, say, your manuscript.

It doesn’t matter if your publisher is hosting a big fancy reveal or you’re doing it on your own. Embrace the joy of seeing the book that has lived inside you so long translated into visual form for all the world to see.

How To Turn Everyday Things Into Inspiration To Write A Book

by Ana Mayer

Most writers have experienced writer’s block at least once. And if you have never written a book before, then this stupor might be more intimidating to you than ever. However, it’s not that difficult to start writing a book as it may seem. Here are twenty-five tips on how to turn everyday things into inspiration to write your book.

#1 Talk to People

The easiest and most obvious thing you can do is go out and talk to people. Using one brain (your own) is good but having many brains submitting ideas to you is even better. You will be surprised by the things you can catch in the speech of your family, friends, colleagues, or acquaintances.

#2 Watch Television

Television is great! Movies and tv shows too as well as animation. Get a subscription on a platform like Netflix and look for the shows or movies you like. They will help you better understand the genre you want to be writing in and maybe even give you some cool ideas for your book (especially true for news reports).

#3 Recover Old Memories

If you think this might be painful for you, feel free to skip this tip. But remember that recovering old memories can be very useful when you are looking for ideas for a new book. Go through your photo album, read the love letters you wrote as a kid, and do anything else that helps you remember things from the past.

#4 Start Forming Habits

Writing is not just about inspiration or motivation. It is also about habits. As soon as you start forming a habit for yourself to write, you will start learning to get inspired almost instantly at your heart’s desire. By the way, you could use an app like Habitica to help you develop your habits.

#5 Answer Random Questions

Yes, that simple. By answering random questions even complete strangers ask you, you will discover that you have learned a lot about yourself and about the world around you. This will definitely get the gears turning in your head which will give you great ideas.

#6 Meditate Occasionally

Meditation is a practice that can help you clear your mind and make your body relax. All you need to do is sit in a specific pose and perform some exercises. Once your head is clear, you will realize that it is much easier to think in the first place.

#7 Listen to Great Music

Music can be an amazing source of inspiration, especially if it is good music. Open your Spotify app and choose the playlist (or compile one) that best corresponds to the mood you want your book to have. Maybe some songs will help you visualize entire scenes.

#8 Look on the Internet

The World Wide Web is by far one of the best sources of ideas and the best place to look for knowledge. There are anything and everything that your heart or soul may desire. Logically, ideas may come flooding to you even while you are scrolling through your Instagram feed.

#9 Tend A Garden

Gardening is another way to clear your mind and recharge your inner batteries through being closer to nature. Even if you don’t have a garden, you can still get some plants that won’t require a lot of your time such as succulents or cacti.

#10 Clean Up Your Surroundings

In order to sort out what is inside, you must first tidy up your surroundings. Check out The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo or another similar book on organizing and cleaning up to make the process more effective.

#11 Get Inspired by Everyday Heroes

You don’t need fictional characters to inspire you – just read some newspapers or watch the news on your television. There is always a story of some real-life hero who saved a kid from under a car.

#12 Imagine Extreme Situations

How about getting wild with your thoughts? Try to imagine extreme situations. For example, you are stranded on an island. Or you were flying on a plane and suddenly it comes crashing down so you need to survive someway. What would you do?

#13 Learn Languages

As fascinating as it may sound, learning languages can actually give you ideas for writing a book. You can start out by using an online translation service to help you with some of the content you find.

#14 Change Your Medium

Instead of sticking to writing, consider changing things up a bit and doing something else. For example, you could start painting or sewing. Pottery is also a good option.

#15 Write Down Random Things

Everything that comes to mind – write it down. Use an app like Evernote or a physical notebook to jot it down. These could be completely random things but you may discover later that they are actually genius.

#16 Get Inspired by Your Day Job

Many writers start writing their books while still working at their day job and many of them, sadly, hate their jobs. Instead of having negative thoughts try to find some positive things in your day job that might give you ideas for your book.

#17 Turn Normal into Weird

There are different ways you could use reality and one of them is to turn something normal into something weird. Once again, look at your day job for inspiration.

#18 Visit Yard Sales

Yard sales are literal treasuries. This is why going to Yard Sale Search, looking up local yard sales, and then visiting them will give you access to things that might not be found elsewhere.

#19 Set Deadlines

Some people work better when they have a deadline. If you are one of such individuals, setting deadlines for writing your book can stimulate your brain to generate ideas. Just make sure that you create small, achievable goals rather than aiming too high from the start.

#20 Go to Art Galleries

One of the biggest advantages of art pieces is that they can tell a story you never expected. Go to art galleries and look for the stories that you will want to tell in your book.

#21 Visit Museums

Museums are similar to art galleries in a way. You can find yourself in virtually any epoch or time period just by looking through the exhibits.

#22 Switch Your Scenery

Yes, we are talking about travel. Traveling to different places can enrich you with dozens of new stories and ideas! By the way, don’t forget to use different apps such as Google Flights to help you while you are abroad.

#23 Play Dumb

Just for a moment, imagine that you are a child. Imagine that you don’t know how the world works and explore your surroundings. Try to get a completely different look at the world around you.

#24 Take a Shower

You may have noticed that showers are the place where you get so many ideas flashing through your head. This is because your body and mind relax while you are standing under the hot water.

#25 Dump Your Thoughts

This is probably the simplest technique of all. Just sit down and dump your thoughts onto the paper in front of you. Write and write and write until you feel like there is nothing else left inside. And then, read it.

Final Thoughts

In conclusion, it’s worth noting that all of these tips may be helpful while looking for ideas in your everyday life for your next book. Of course, most ideas will come to you out of the blue, so don’t stress too much if you have been thinking for hours but there’s nothing you found. Keep searching and you will find the ultimate fit eventually.

This article was written by Ana Mayer, a project manager with 3+ years of experience. While projects can do without her participation (which means almost never), she likes to read and create expert academic materials for the Best Writers Online  review website. Such work gives her the opportunity to write articles on the most relevant topics of today.