I haven’t been game to check how many apps I have on my iPhone. A lot. I have a lot of apps. But I don’t have many that enable me to write on-the-go. Which is silly really because there are a growing number of apps that will let you capture your imagination in digital form as a draft, a blog post, a novel-in-progress and more. So, there really are no excuse for “I haven’t got time to write”. With an app at your fingertips you can jot down 100 words while in the queue at the supermarket checkout, flesh out a novel idea while waiting in the doctor’s surgery, or even while flying at 50,000 feet using airplane mode.
Never lose a bit of creative juice again. Organise your ideas anytime, anywhere. Inspire yourself with daily writing. There’s an app to cover all bases. Here is just a sample, in no particular order.
Brainsparker ignites your creative self with daily notifications using phrases, images, questions, quotes etc that will get your writing. Who knows whether one of these may turn into a short story or a full length novel?
Bear lets you take notes, map out a character, outline a story, write wherever you are. You can tag entries to make searching for earlier content easily. Bear saves your work as you go and you can export it into doc or pdf files.
Story Planner for Writers lets you work on projects anywhere. Keep track of characters, settings, plot lines, scenes for each writing project.
Oxford Dictionary is a cool app to have despite its archaic history. Learn or write to a new word every day. Have thousands of words at your fingertips to make your writing more elegant and efficient.
Grammarly is less of an app – it’s a keyboard that sits alongside you while you write and helps to improve your writing accuracy, efficiency and context. It’s a must have tool even if you don’t agree with some of ts suggestions.
Scrivener was one of the first dedicated writing tools and I use on my laptop. As an app it lets you set targets and tracks them as you write. Set targets for an entire project too.
Ulysses is a test editor that looks simple but is packed with features. It keeps all your working documents in the order you choose and you can group them eg novel or blog or journal. On of the best is the option to set goals – word count, pages, sentences, paragraphs – your choice. Add a due date and number of days to write and you’re good to go. Ulysses will track your progress and let you know how you’re going. Remove distractions by writing in focus mod. Your work is saved on the fly and a backup is created which you can restore if ever needed. Ulysses syncs across devices.
iA Writer is another writing tool with some great tools built in. You can operate it in Focus mode which helps to remove distractions and let you concentrate on just getting words down. From there, once you’ve written and formatted, you can export to doc or pdf files or even publish to WordPress or Medium.
Hanx Writer is practical and fun.
Wordsmith
Writing Space
Hemingway
And so many more. Let’s see if we can add to this list to find just the right app for you. Personally I tend to use Pages or Notes on my iPhone but I have toyed with a few apps above. I’ll keep looking for the perfect solution without letting the search get in the way of my writing.
melanie wass 