IWSG: Tools of the Trade

It's Insecure Writers Support Group Day! If you'd like to participate in this monthly blogging event, GO HERE to sign up. 

Thanks to our host Alex Cavanaugh and this month's co-hosts, JS Pailly, Rebecca Douglass, Pat Garcia, Louise-Fundy Blue, and Natalie Aguirre! for their many efforts on our behalf. 

This month's optional question is: What are your favorite writing processing (e.g. Word, Scrivener, yWriter, Dabble), writing apps, software, and tools? Why do you recommend them? And which one is your all time favorite that you cannot live without and use daily or at least whenever you write?

I write in Word, use ProWritingAid for editing, and Atticus for formatting. 

Word: This program is universal and integrates well with these programs in my experience. Plus, my daughter put me on their family sharing program so it's free to me. As an aside, I used to do my formatting of both digital and print books in Word when I first started. I don't recommend it. LOL. Diane Wolfe at Spunk on a Stick does a great job and is very affordable if you need formatting but don't want to buy the software. 

ProWritingAid: PWA is downloaded onto my laptop and is linked to Word. It automatically underlines potential problem areas with a handy note in the sidebar as to why they've highlighted the word or sentence. I can run reports for things such as glue/sticky words (if, had, the, with, went, just, could, for, etc.), grammar, overused words, readability, sentence length, etc. It also offers suggestions for passive sentences. There really isn't a learning curve with this program. Just download and go. 

Atticus: I have the ability to format both digital and print books in both Windows and Mac. I can upload my Word document directly into Atticus, and it makes the table of contents, title page, copyright page, and front and back matter pages, etc. There is a bit of a learning curve. I just (see that glue word there? LOL) went (another glue word) to YouTube and watched their how-to videos. The Atticus video people are very thorough and organized. 

Plottr: I have it but haven't used it yet. 

For ProWritingAid and Atticus I bought the lifetime membership because I really dislike having an automatic withdrawal from my bank account every month. You can watch for specials (especially ProWritingAid) and they both have a free trial period if you want to test them first. 

What software programs and 

tools do you use?