Are you ready for a month of literary abandon? If you have a novel in you that has been waiting to get out now is the time to get ready and write it. Because November is National Novel Writing Month and during the month you’ll find great resources and a lot of support over at www.nanowrimo.org.
You still have a week to prepare and get your things in order so that you’re able to write that novel so I thought I’d point you in the direction of some great free resources to help you write.
- Evernote is a great way to save and keep track of all those ideas you find and all the research you do on the internet while drafting your novel.
- yWiter is a free word processor that is designed specifically for writing a novel.
- Imagination Prompt is a little tool you can use if you’re feeling stuck.
- JaLingo is a free dictionary that you download and ad to your desktop. Very handy.
- GNU aSpell is for those writers looking for a top notch spell checker.
- Celtx is for those who are drafting a screenplay, comic, or script.
- ASuite is for those who need to work from various computers. It allows you to easily launch applications, files, and web pages from a movable storage device like a USB memory stick or iPod.
- FreeMind is software that maps your mind. Which is very useful at all stages of a project as large as writing a novel.
- Word Count Plus is a simple way to keep track of your work count if you’re writing within the Firefox browser.
- Sonar is a submission tracking program. Now that you’ve written that novel get it published!
Of course there is always the tried and true $.25 lined notepad and $.10 pencil for writing that first draft. Often the simplest solution is the best solution. And the act of transcribing it into your word processor is an automatic second draft. Bonus!
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What a great concept! The more I think about it, the more I’d like to try this. Only problem–no novel ideas (pun intended). Maybe the program would help??
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Daryle Dickens Reply:
October 23rd, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Karen: I am sure you have some novel ideas floating around in your head somewhere. There are many resources out there though that help with this. Basically you start with a character or two and a situation and just start writing to see where it goes. As I am sure you know with writing it can be so good to just start writing anything, get the words flowing and trust the process.
I am planning on going for it this year, in fact I’ve put off starting so that I can go along with NaNo. I am sure I’ll be tweeting about it. Let me know if you do decide to go for it.
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Another free submission tracker worth checking out is The Writer’s Database (www.writersDB.com). In addition to submission tracking, it has the ability to graph your word count over time—a great feature for NaNo writers.
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Daryl,
I saw your post on FR Bloggers and clicked over here! Wow! Just was I needed. My first novel and hundreds of short story ideas are making their way onto the page. I’ve checked some of these sites and found them very helpful. OMG, there’s so much to know.
Again, thank you! I’ll be back
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