Writing Tip Wednesday: Thankful for Technology

In high school and college, I wrote my papers on a typewriter. No kidding. I even took a YEAR-LONG typing class in ninth grade. As a college freshman and sophomore, I wrote articles for the University of Georgia’s Red & Black newspaper on a typewriter in my dorm room, walked them downtown each week and handed them to the editor. Talk about inconvenient.

When the Athens Banner-Herald hired me as a stringer my junior year, I pecked away on a long-suffering typewriter in the noisy, open newsroom. No cubicles back then. About six months later, the Banner-Herald converted to a computerized system, quieting the decibels to ringing phones and muted conversations, no longer masked by the banging typewriters. I remember standing in the hallway, staring at the massive floor-to-ceiling server behind glass and thinking, “I have arrived.”

I never dreamed that technology would become personal. A few years later, I would purchase a computer, displaying it with pride on my desk at home. Then, I invested in a laptop that I carried outside to work in the sunshine. After that came smartphones and iPads. At this point in my life, I have no idea what I’d do without the Internet and my Apple devices.

I’m especially thankful for writing programs that have simplified my life and pushed me to be a better writer. Here are my favorites:

Top three programs on my desktop:

Scrivener. I write everything with this program. It’s Microsoft Word on steroids. I love my chapter listing running down the side of the page. It’s easy to bounce back and forth between chapters to check consistency. It has a terrific bulletin board for story ideas, templates for character and setting sketches, and a hefty folder for my research. This one-stop-shop has saved me so much time. If I need to send my work to someone for proofing, I’ll convert it to Word in a few clicks.

Kindle. I store all my reference books in a Kindle “Writing” folder. Since the books are hosted on a remote server, I can access them with my laptop anywhere in the world. I recommend you keep these handy in your Kindle account:

• The Bible
• The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide To Character Expression by Angela Ackerman & Becca Puglisi
• The Associated Press Stylebook

WritingPro. After I write a chapter and before I send it to my critique group and/or editor, I run my work through this program. It points out everything from grammar and style errors to redundant words. It pushes me to eschew passive sentences and streamline fluffy ones. It’s like having a stern editor standing behind me saying, “Get rid of all those adverbs!”

What’s your favorite technology?