Writers Weekly Challenge:

The writers tools are almost as important as a healthy imagination.

This weeks challenge is to make a list of your tools.

Mine are:

Chicago Manual of Style, 16th Edition.

Voice and Style, by Johnny Payne.

Smithsonian Nature Guides

The Zodiac Encyclopedia (for personality traits)

The Desk Encyclopedia

The Old Farmers Almanac

Plotto, by William Wallace Cook.

Editor software by Serenity Software

https://www.autocrit.com

https://www.onestopforwriters.com/

https://app.grammarly.com/

http://www.thesaurus.com/

Scrivener (desktop and mobile)

Microsoft Word

Airtable (desktop and mobile)

Index cards (I buy them by the crate, might have to switch to pallets)

Manuscript boxes

Printer paper

And most important: a box of Blackwing pencils:

http://palominobrands.com/blackwing/

Oh, Wolfenshire, I am shamed. Such an impressive list. I've been googling some of those to see what they are. Do you think Serenety Editor is worth getting? Perhaps I should try the 10-day free trial version.

My list is much shorter.

Coffee maker, corkscrew. (priorities)

LibreOffice—the word processing module mainly. (Well, it's free and I think it's better than MicroSoft Word)

Been trying Scrivener, but not too successfully.

yWriter 6. This is similar program to Scrivener, but has the addition of text to speech conversion. (Yes, I let the computer read back what I've written for editing purposes. And it's free!)

FreeMind An excellent mind mapping program I find useful for plotting the structure of a novel. (And it's free!)

The internet for all research. (Thesaurus, dictionary, etc.)

Several notebooks and pens.

I hate typing: I've tried several dictation programs, but not found one that works efficiently. One tool I would like—a mind to computer interface that could convert my abstract thoughts into grammatically correct and formatted text.

@Mysteral I find that not one of any grammar checker is sufficient, they all look for something different. I do very much like Editor as it zooms in on troubled sentences and helps me refine them. Autocrit helps me find over-used words, mis-used adverbs, bad dialogue tags, and past tense usage. Grammarly is great for those troublesome comma splices and mis-used semi-colons. Word is good for spelling. Once I run through all of them, then my work is ready for the human touch and I listen to it read back to me. Then I read, re-read, re-read again, and again... and again. Then let it cool off for a couple weeks, and do it all over again. And still mistakes slip through. But, without having an agent and copy/line editor, I have to take great care to put out a quality product. (my work on rendo is just a very rough draft)

p.s. I love the coffee maker and corkscrew.

You all have me beat by several miles. I have MS Word 360, I just received Chicago Manual of Style, 16th Edition, I user the paid version of Ginger, and thinking about getting Grammarly. MS Word works for 90% of my spelling and a large number of grammar issues. My stories have a tendency to write themselves. Since my present story is pure fantasy, so not a of of research is required. But I do see it coming.

@Idgilman In the Chicago Manual of Style, start with Chapters 2, 5, 6, and 7. Then when you run grammarly or Words grammar checker, even though it's a pain at first, look up the reason it wants you to make a correction. In time, the more you memorize chapter 5, 6, and 7, the more you'll become adept at seeing the errors. And in time, you'll start to smack yourself on the side of the head and say, 'wow, I can't believe I used to violate such a simple grammar rule'. But anyway, I can't stress enough to make that book an everyday reading goal.

And remember, you can't break the rules (which is normal in writing) until you know the rules.

I will make an effort to read those chapters. I will time, after all I'm wasting time sleeping between midnight and 6:00a. (ROTFL)

My tools so far are pen(s), paper (I always hand write my first draft I carry it around with me always), word, and dragon naturally speaking (I can read and fix the errors faster than I can type and fix errors), the internet . I'm thinking about adding some of the grammar checking software you all have recommended once I get to that point. And with as much as Wolfenshire recommends the Chicago Manuel of Style, I'm going to have to look into that. (Do you get royalties? ;) )

Since we're talking about tools, I was wondering how do the various grammar checking programs handle made up words. My story has a myriad of names, words from languages that don't exist, and spells. The last one I tried had quite a bit of trouble.

@Redphantom All grammar checking programs are the same when it comes to made-up words, you have to click the 'learn word' button. As for the Chicago Manual of Style, 16th Edition... it is the standard for publication, and rightfully so. Grammar exists in order to provide a common standard so the reader may understand what is written. And the Chicago Manual of Style is the standard rule book used. Not having read and learned the standard rules expected for publication is like attempting to drive a vehicle on the road without ever having read the driver's handbook; you're going to crash. Your manuscript won't be understandable and end up on the slush pile. There are a few other style guides available worth reading (like Strunk and White), but nothing as complete and comprehensible as the Chicago Manual of Style, 16th Edition. You could get away with using the 15th Edition at a fraction of cost, There are some on amazon for around $3.00, mainly because everyone is ditching their 15th Edition for the 16th Edition. But, it would be better to use the 15th Edition instead of using nothing. I originally bought the 15th Edition and after two days using it became a believer and sucked down the cost and got the 16th Edition.

My tools:

• Insanity

• An iPad.

• Paper and crayons.

• One medium size squirrel pounded to an even paper thinness with a planishing hammer.

• Hands (two).

• Fermented beverages (any).

• Complete and total disregard for coherent sentence structure, grammar, punctuation and spelling... And proper hygiene too sometimes.

• An ill fitting Viking helmet.

I have been told that my attitude towards writing is flippant, and one day I'm going to look that word up... I believe it has something to do with dolphins, and being that dolphins tend to ignore rules and can be quite arrogant jerks, I tend to disagree with that assessment.

I believe writing is a noble endeavor, meant to lift the spirt and feed the imagination... And writers are the coustodians of that concept...

But I am not a writer... I merely play with words much the same way a small child plays with blocks or dynamite. I believe somewhere I once read someone ponder if a thousand smelly monkeys with a thousand typewriters, typing day and night and on holidays and weekends and only taking 5 minute bathroom breaks, could over the course of a hundred years, accidentally write a random novel... Probably not, because at best most monkeys live only twenty or thirty years, and it depends on what kind of monkeys and whether or not they actually meant apes... specifically chimpanzees, which many people think of as monkeys... Regardless of that, I think of myself as the mostly human embodiment of those thousand monkeys... Especially when I sweat... If I write anything, it is purely by coincidence and not by design.

So you see, silk chicken tambourine was yeti cucumber moat kangaroo in at hopscotch refrigerator washboard nothing more than random chance should any of it be readable or pickle chutney.

Pop tarts.

@McGyver13 A novel approach to the art of writing, thank you for your most humorous post. Hope to see you join in more often.

Thank yaks, you are too iguana!

Spleens!

@McGyver13. I laugh - someone who's got the art off even better than I been seeing it.

@Redphantom Perhaps these links might help. The top ten http://writing-enhancement-software-review.toptenreviews.com/ and http://creative-writing-software-review.toptenreviews.com/