There are some amazing tools available today to help you create and edit your work — if you know where to look. In this two-part series we will gather some of the best of the many choices for your review.

D. Offer writes for Write4Kids. Offer manages the popular Facebook emoticons and Facebook smiley website Emoinstaller.com. Emoinstaller can add hundreds of additional Facebook chat emoticons into your Facebook account in just a few clicks.

Word Processing Software

There are still writers who use electric typewriters and even pen-and-paper, but today the word processor has become the norm for most writers. A good word processing program is the first, best tool in the writer’s toolbox, and fortunately there are some great alternatives available. The flexibility and productivity that a word processing program can bring to editing and revising your work is a nothing short of amazing, making it a must-have app for any writer who is serious about their work.

Microsoft Word  (Windows / Mac)  $102 to $120

Still the most popular word processing software on the market since it stole first place from Word Perfect way back in the 1990’s, Microsoft Word is clearly one of the best word processing programs available. Word offers some amazing tools that go way past simple word processing, including the ability to manage longer documents, apply styles and themes to your work, and is even capable of creating a self-updating Table of Contents and a detailed Index.

For most writers, however, most of the features are over-kill and are not really needed. Your publisher doesn’t need you to submit with the degree of formatting that is available in Word, in fact most discourage the practice. Also there is the problem of the price. The standalone version of Word is going for about $102 while you can pick up a copy of the Microsoft Office Home & Students edition for about $120 if you do a little shopping. The Home & Students edition includes the popular Microsoft programs Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote (we’ll talk about OneNote later), and if you have a use for them the package deal offers more bang for the buck.

You can also test drive the suite for free if you want to see if you think it’s worth the money through the Office website. We’ve included it here because despite the cost, no list of word processing programs would be complete without an entry for Word.

LibreOffice  (Windows / Mac / Linux)  Free

LibreOffice Writer is a free, open-source Office application that offers an entire suite of productivity programs designed to compete directly with Microsoft Office. Just like the Professional version of Office, LibreOffice offers programs that can handle word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, databases, etc.

Writer, the word processor that comes with LibreOffice, is a full-featured program that offers almost everything a writer could want in a word processor. It does take slightly longer to load than maybe we’d like, but if you’re looking for an alternative to Microsoft Office without spending your hard-earned money, then Writer is an excellent choice.

FocusWriter  (Windows/Mac/Linux)  Free

One of the problems many writers have with programs like Word and Writer is that they are cluttered with features that are completely unnecessary. In response, the developers of FocusWriter have developed a distraction-free, word processing program that lets you stay focused on the writing. They do, however, provide you with the core set of features most writers will find handy.

You can set FocusWriter to fill your whole screen so that only thing you can see is the page, with options to change the appearance to one that works for you. The features it does offer have been developed with the writer in mind. You can open a number of documents at once utilizing a tabbed interface that makes the documents available without cluttering up your screen.

One feature unique to FocusWriter is the ability to set and track a daily goal for how much writing you want to accomplish each day. You can define your goal in terms of time spent writing or word count, depending on which works best for you, and FocusWriter will track your progress for you. It works even when you spread your writing out over the course of an entire day, and the software saves your results so you can review your progress against your goal at any time.

Second runner up to the Daily Goal tool in terms of its overall coolness is the ability to add typewriter sounds that give the user the illusion that they are working on an old Royal typewriter, complete with the familiar ding as you pounded each key as well as that wonderful sound that marked each time you hit enter to return the ribbon at the end of each line. The sound-effects are so amazingly realistic that you’ll have a hard time remembering you’re not using a real typewriter. It adds no real value, but it is fun to use.

BONUS APP:

DropBox  (Windows/Mac/Linux)  Free

One way to make sure you have copies of your work for years to come is to make you have a place to back-up your documents, and DropBox is a great cloud-based solution for document storage. A free download installs a DropBox folder that you can access just like any other folder. The DropBox folder is then synced with your DropBox account on the web and your files are stored on the DropBox servers. The free account gets you 2GB worth of document storage with more available for lease each month.

The app is so popular blogs are posting new ways to use DropBox to trick out your desktop, and there is a music player under development. A website login also lets you access your files from anywhere with an internet connection, meaning you can write anywhere without missing a beat.

Internet-based companies continue to appear by the dozens, and many of them are offering excellent tools and apps that can help you create, and edit your work. We’ll continue to keep our eye out for the best, and report back soon.

There are some amazing tools available today to help you create and edit your own work  if you know where to look. In this two-part series we will gather some of the best of the many choices for your review.

D. Offer writes for Write4Kids. Offer manages the popular Facebook emoticons and Facebook smiley website Emoinstaller.com. Emoinstaller can add hundreds of additional Facebook chat emoticons into your Facebook account in just a few clicks.

Even the most successful authors will agree there is a lot more to the writing business than just the writing. Sites like Write4Kids can be a great way to learn about the world of query letters, agents, publishing houses, and proposals. To be successful you’ll have to learn to master this strange, new world.

And yet, the writing is still the main thing – and the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.

To help improve your work we’ve searched the internet to bring you some amazing tools that can be had for little or nothing – if you know where to look. In this post, we’ll review some tools to help make researching your work a little easier and discuss Google and Microsoft’s attempts to bring word processing to the Cloud.

Research Tools

Today’s readers are increasingly more sophisticated, and they demand a high level of realism and authenticity in their fiction. Being true to the facts is critical, and errors can derail the credibility of your story with the reader. A careful attention to the details is necessary regardless of the genre  and that means doing the necessary research.

We’ve gathered the best tools available that will make research as painless, and productive as possible. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses and as with any tool it is important you pick the one that fits you best.

Microsoft OneNote  (Windows/Mac)  $64 to $120

Although we’ve mostly eliminated commercial applications from our list, OneNote by Microsoft offers amazing flexibility and a rich set of features, making it simply too good to ignore. Microsoft describes OneNote as “a digital notebook that provides a single place where you can gather all of your notes and information, with the added benefits of powerful search capabilities” and this handy little program easily lives up to the hype.

First it can store almost every type of file imaginable, including electronic copies of your handwritten notes, emails, text messages, photos, music, videos, and even audio recordings from your cell phone’s voice notes function. The search capability includes being able to recognize words within pictures as well as in audio and video files, making finding what you need even easier.

Keeping your notes organized in notebooks can save countless hours looking for lost documents and files. A “Send to OneNote” option is added to your right mouse click buttons that makes sending anything to your notebook incredibly simple. And a feature called a Side Note can open a blank notebook page that can be used to jot down ideas as the come to you, minimizing the interruption to your work flow. You can find OneNote for around $64 or get is as part of Microsoft Office Home & Student addition which will also give you Word, Excel and PowerPoint for less than $120 if you do a little shopping. If you’re on a budget you may want to consider some of the other programs listed, but OneNote is an incredibly powerful program and the clear category leader.

EverNote  (Windows/Mac/Linux)  Free

With many of the features, EverNote is a good alternative to OneNote and the basic version is offered at no charge. A free download gives you a powerful note-taking app for your desktop that integrates easily with a web-based version, allowing you to take notes on any computer and sync them to your home machine later. The basic version offers most users everything they will ever need to easily do research and take notes for later use.

The interface is well designed and makes organization easy and intuitive. Multiple notebooks can be created and you can easily switch between them. EverNote excels at capturing entire webpages for later reference but you can also access a feature that allows you to “clip” the section of the page you want and leave the rest.

EverNote offers a premium edition that costs $5/month to access. It allows you the ability to store Office documents that is not offered in the free edition as well as greater file size. While EverNote continues to add features and is closing in on OneNote in value, if you are going to invest in a program OneNote offers the best value.

Zootool  (Window/Mac/Linux)  Free

Although not designed with research specifically in mind, an internet bookmarking app call Zootool will let users capture and organize information from across the internet. According to its developers: “Zootool is about collecting, organizing and sharing your favorite images, videos, documents, and links from all over the internet.”

Zootool is really more of a social networking site than a digital notebook, but it will allow you to easily capture and store the information you find across the web. For many writers this is all they really need, and sometimes simple is best.

Quick Note  (Windows/Mac/Linux)  Free

If you favor a no-frills approach, Quick Note may be for you. It does require you to use either the Google Chrome or Firefox internet browser, but if you want a quick way to store links to pages and a great way to take notes as you are working Quick Note may be the choice for you. In fact, even if you choose one of the other apps featured, you may want to consider adding Quick Note to your toolbox anyway. The cloud-based app makes taking notes and outlining ideas quick and simple.

Installation also adds a Quick Note link to your right-mouse key that lets you open a new note easily, jot down your idea, and quickly get back to work.

Word Processing – Cloud Edition

A good word processing application is without a doubt the most important tool in a writer’s toolbox. In Part II of this series we’ll examine some desktop applications that will meet the needs of almost every writer. We’ve started by listing two of the major cloud-based apps that are being offered by Google and Microsoft that are worth taking a few moments to review.

Microsoft Word  (Windows/Mac/Linux)  Free

Microsoft is offering a stripped down version of Word as part its recent Web Apps initiative. Known as Office Web, users are given access to versions of the popular Microsoft Office suite of productivity programs with reduced functionality, but which are probably more than adequate for most writers. You will need to sign-up for a free Windows Live account that includes free email and access to a SkyDrive account that is used to store your work. You want to consider the wisdom of keeping all of your work on any single, Cloud-based site however.

Google Docs  (Windows/Mac/Linus)  Free

Like Microsoft, Google is offering a word processor as part of its cloud-based challenge to Microsoft Office called Google Docs. You’ll also need to sign up for a free Google account that will also give you access to a free email account, a calendar for scheduling, a YouTube account, and generally any and all things Google. The features are more than most writers will ever need, and like Web Apps your documents are stored in your account on the cloud. You’ll want to make a back-up of your work though, just-in-case.

That does it for tools to help you with doing research on the web and a quick look at the new cloud-based, web processing options from Google and Microsoft. Next time we’ll take a look at desktop word processing programs – the most important tool in the Writer’s Toolbox.

From November 15-19, 2010, Amazon is offering a free download of the Kindle edition of Writing Fiction for Dummies. And if you don't have the Kindle e-book reader, you can download a free app to read the book on your Mac or PC here.

This offer is only good for Amazon customers in the United States.

Of course they're doing this to offer you other products (such as Dummies' author Randy Ingermanson's Snowflake Pro novel-writing software). I've not read Writing Fiction for Dummies (though I was Technical Editor on Writing Children's Books for Dummies), but a deal's a deal, and you never know when that one piece of advice will put your writing over the top.

Wordle is a free online tool that takes any text and creates a “word cloud”.  The more a word shows up in the text, the larger it appears in a cloud.  Here’s a Wordle cloud I created using the text of Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address.

I can think of a few  interesting uses for children’s book writers (or any writer, for that matter):

• Run your manuscript through it to see if you’re overusing certain adjectives.  If a word that has nothing to do with the theme of your story is larger than those that do, perhaps it’s time to take out the thesaurus and vary your word choices a bit.

• Need to write a plot synopsis, but you’re not certain what to say?  Let Wordle show you what the overriding themes of your story are.  It’s pretty clear what President Lincoln had on his mind while crafting his speech by examining the Worldle above.

• Perhaps you can find a novel way to use one of these for storytelling purposes.  Maybe providing a Wordle of each chapter throughout a manuscript would be a memorable way of summing things up?  Or take the dialogue from each character and create their own Wordles and run them back-to-back.  I leave the possibilities to your own creative minds.

Have a look for yourself at http://wordle.net

Interested in learning how to write a book and send it to children’s book publishers? Come on over to The CBI Clubhouse for audios, videos, insider writing tips and much, much more!

The new edition of the Children’s Writing Update e-zine is now available for your viewing pleasure. This issue features:

* resources for “mom writers”

* news about two major contests

* links to a slew of “how-to” videos for children’s writers

* an article by Laura Backes called “Writing Without a Map”…and much more.

It’s free!

Have a look at http://write4kids.com/update.html

It’s the time of year when “Best of” lists start making their appearance, and, in the world of children’s literature, few such lists are more prestigious than The Kirkus Reviews’.

If you want a crash course in what’s happening in kids lit, head over to Kirkus now and grab the just-released list.

Here’s the link:

http://www.kirkusreviews.com/kirkusreviews/images/pdf/BestChildrens.pdf

We’re offering a great little ebook called Getting Started Writing Picture Books as a bonus for signing up for our free eZine, The Children’s Writing Update.

To claim your copy, just click here

We just stumbled across this:  Until midnight tonight, you can grap a free copy of Liquid Story Binder XE, a “uniquely designed word processor for professional and aspiring authors, poets, and novelists.”   It’s being given away at http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/

Enjoy!

One of the great things about being a writer is that you can do it pretty much anywhere. 

Charge up the laptop battery and you’re ready to go.  But to really go mobile, a “wi-fi” connection to the internet is the only way to travel.

These days, scores of coffee shops, bookstores and even fast food joints offer wi-fi service to their customers.  The tricky part?  Finding them.  I’ve looked at a bunch of directories, and I’ve found this one to be very comprehensive and reliable:

http://www.jiwire.com/search-hotspot-locations.htm

And here’s one that shows locations on a map:

http://hotspotr.com/wifi

Happy wi-fying!

Sure, YouTube is filled with great stuff for kids to view.  It’s also packed with videos that, well, aren’t too great for them to view.  How to keep a young surfer on a safe path?  Try TotLOL, a monitored front-end to YouTube that offers only G-rated videos for the young ‘uns.  It’s free!

TotLOL

Interested in writing stories and sending them to children’s book publishers? Come on over to The CBI Clubhouse for audios, videos, insider writing tips and much, much more!