Blogger: Michelle Ule
Sitting in for Wendy who is traveling.
Every trade has its tools.
The writing world is no different.
Here are the tools I use to craft my writing.
Computer of my own
For many years, I shared the family computer.
We only had one, they were expensive and the children are all math-science oriented.
I don’t know how many times those clever children tried to load a new game only to discover memory problems.
They would delete what they figured superfluous.
Do you know how many times they deleted my writing?
I still love them.
But everyone was happy when we bought a second computer–and all the memory possible.
Phone
I would not have listed a phone ten years ago, but I use mine now to take photos.
Sometimes I make videos and occasionally record people’s voices.
Recording has been helpful when I conduct lengthy interviews–even if I’m typing the answers at the same time on my nearby computer.
I listen to podcasts (see below) and send myself emails while out on a walk and a brilliant idea strikes.
Website
Every professional writer needs a place on the Internet they call home.
My blog appears on my website twice a week and readers can learn other information about me.
It serves as a “business card” on-line and provides media information, photos, examples of my writing and a calendar of coming events.
If you’re serious about being a writer, you need a website.
Webmistress
Given that I’m not a math-science person (I was merely an incubator for those aforementioned children) and the back end functions of my website often confound me, I have a webmistress.
Fortunately for me, she’s an electrical engineer with a flare for design.
She fixes everything, advises me and creates Pinterest pins for my personal blog posts.
Facebook Account
I get many referrals to my blog posts from Facebook.
Occasionally information I can use (particularly historical with photos) appears on my Facebook Feed.
My Facebook author page acts as another place where people can find me on the Internet.
Silence
I think and write better now that the [traitor] children have grown up and left home. My house is quiet.
I use to write to classical music, but now, it’s quiet.
IPad
I’ve used my Ipad for research ever since I bought my first one in 2012.
I take photos with it, carry photos of things I’m examining, read Google docs and books on it from the comfort of a real chair and of course access the Internet.
The IBook or Kindle apps are perfect for reading my own manuscripts in book format–which helps me in the editing process.
Hootsuite
As I’m on Twitter (@michelleule), I use Hootsuite to pre-schedule tweets.
It enables me to tweet even when I’m not home, and to publicize my blog posts.
The Library
I love my local library, an easy 20 minute walk from home. I’m there at least once a week and have checked out innumerable books for research.
Writing Books
I use The Flip Dictionary more than any other.
Podcasts
To make sure I don’t waste time, I listen to podcasts on the way to the gym.
My current favorite is Kathi Lipp’s Communicator Academy.
My family
There’s no point in having these tools, a writing career, or even a life if I don’t have all my family members to share it.
Besides, my husband and sons fix the computer, my daughter travels with me, and they’re all happy to suggest going out to dinner!
What tool do you use or appreciate the most in your writer tool chest?
Tweetables
Tools of the trade for writers. Click to Tweet
Favorite tools for the writing craft. Click to Tweet
Michelle, you list some great tools. 🙂 My most important tool is my laptop, but I think second would be my phone. I record ideas when I’m walking, send myself voice texts when ideas come to mind and I’m driving, and yes, pictures. I love taking pictures, and my phone does a decent job taking nice photos. 🙂
I love my phone’s capabilities!! I record conversations on it, and email myself all kinds of stuff.
And I love that you didn’t take a picture at the side of the highway one night…Bacon Double Cheeseburger…and all that…
Yeah, well . . . 😉 THat’s the sort of thing that stays between friends, right? 😉
Time … time alone. It’s so rare here lately, and I have to be intentional to grasp an hour to myself. It’s just a hard season. But seasons change, so I’m trying to soak in these moments all I can with my girls. By the way, I love your Pinterest board.
Oh honey, soak it all, as much as you can!!
You have a lovely spot, your house is so quiet and peaceful.
Thank you, Jennifer. My house told me to tell you hello and that it misses you. 🙂 And I want a picture of a bacon double cheeseburger. 🙂
I’m with Shelli – time alone. As soon as we can afford it we will be building an office in the attic to provide that separation. I cannot write when I know my best friend is just down the hall. It’s too distracting.
I’ll add another one, and that is a critique group. I find tremendous value in having others critique my writing. What worked? What did not? What was confusing? How does it flow? And more…
Silence. Yes!
And that’s all I’m gonna say. God, on the other hand . . .
I wrote in the middle of our family room for years–because that’s where we kept the computers when we had children at home. That’s probably why I played classical music all the time–to distract me from, “do we have any more peanut butter?” or “what’s for dinner?”
Some of those concepts, of course, made it into my writing. 🙂
I’m embarrassed at how much I use my phone, but it sure is handy!
A walkman is a great tool. I believe they are called ipods now a days, but I still call mine a walkman. I enjoy listening to music while I write. The genres I listen to are as scattered as my brain but I will often pick a few songs from different artists and continously loop them. It helps drown out the disturbances of this world and gives me the oportunity to listen to the noises I choose and not the ones this world throws at me. 🙂
The most important tools I have are:
– Strong drink
– Exotic women
– Manly adventures
– Cuban cigars
OK, now that I’ve got my obligatory daily channeling of Hemingway finished, here are the real tools:
– This community
– The readers of my blog and books
* I’ve learned that defiance, denial, and attitude can take you only so far; now I am being carried, upheld the love and prayers of people I will likely never meet. Pride goeth, and it’s a good thing, for it leaves a space into which Love can enter.
* The only way I can honour the the esteem and affection is to write my heart, and to try to show the light and hope in a situation that is daily, now, becoming darker and bereft of any reasons for optimism.
* I think I see clearly now, that a writer can work without love given and returned, but what would be the point?
> “Pride goeth, and it’s a good thing, for it leaves a space into which Love can enter.” – Andrew Budek-Schmeisser
I am SO adding this to my quotes list.
Damon, you just brought me the gift of a smile on what is shaping as rather a challenging day. Thank you for this.
🙂
Just returning a favor you have done many times yourself, brother!
I have a collection of Andrew quotes, and I just added that one to it as well.
*Small laptop: My 11” Dell weighs less than 3 pounds and fits in a large purse. It holds a >6 hour charge, so I can take it in the car and work while we travel.
*Kindle Fire 7”: I find I proof better for small details reading something that looks like a book. I convert my latest manuscript version to PDF, email it to myself, and download the file on my Fire. When I open the document, it’s in the Kindle app and looks like a real book. It’s small enough to carry in a regular purse to let me use the odd moments waiting somewhere to edit, writing anything I see in a 3×5 notebook.
*The Fire also lets me read and comment on blogs, do social media, respond to comments at my website, and satisfy my curiosity about who’s visiting the Roman site and sales activity from anywhere I have cell service for my iPhone hotspot. All for 70 Roman history books, many only available used. Doing so much research let me create the Roman history site that is bringing a significant fraction of my sales from outside the US.
*Dummies for WordPress: Invaluable training and then reference book for being my own webmaster. You don’t have to be a tech specialist to do it yourself if you follow the directions in this book.
*Free webinars taught by industry professionals on marketing, social media presence, website design, SEO, etc.
*My husband: He’s the model for the better parts of several of my heroes and the one I consult to make sure my male characters are responding like a real man would. He also designed and built the laptop tray for the exercise bike.
Oops. Operator error: triggered submit during copy/paste. Here’s the fixed version:
Good list, Michelle. I’d like to add a couple more
*Small laptop: My 11” Dell weighs less than 3 pounds and fits in a large purse. It holds a >6 hour charge, so I can take it in the car and work while we travel.
*Kindle Fire 7”: I find I proof better for small details reading something that looks like a book. I convert my latest manuscript version to PDF, email it to myself, and download the file on my Fire. When I open the document it’s in the Kindle app and looks like a real book. It’s small enough to carry in a regular purse to let me use the odd moments waiting somewhere to edit, writing anything I see in a 3×5 notebook.
*The Fire also lets me read and comment on blogs, do social media, respond to comments at my website, and satisfy my curiosity about who’s visiting the Roman site and sales activity from anywhere I have cell service for my iPhone hotspot. All for 70 Roman history and Latin books, many only available used. Doing so much research let me create the Roman history site that is bringing a significant fraction of my sales from outside the US.
*Dummies for WordPress: Invaluable training and then reference book for being my own webmaster. You don’t have to be a tech specialist to do it yourself if you follow the directions in this book.
*Free webinars taught by industry professionals on marketing, social media presence, website design, SEO, etc.
*My husband: He’s the model for the better parts of several of my heroes and the one I consult to make sure my male characters are responding like a real man would. He also designed and built the laptop tray for the exercise bike.
I KNOW the missing lines were displaying in the box here when I hit submit the second time. Is your website deliberately blocking any mention of Amazon used books? (just kidding, but that line vanished twice.)
*Amazon used books: I have >70 Roman history and Latin books, many only available used. Doing so much research let me create the Roman history site that is bringing a significant fraction of my sales from outside the US.
LOL Carol, on your comment below. When I return from teaching Bible study (should have mentioned prayers of friends!), I’ll check on our recalcitrant WP to see how it’s responding to Amazon!
Silence is a must. 🙂 I use Flip Dictionary more than any other book.
-Quiet. I’m usually home alone most of the day. Just me and my ancient dog. Thank goodness he guards our castle from things like cars, people, and squirrels.
-Copious amounts of Earl Grey tea. At least 40-60 ounces per day. Don’t even suggest coffee! (spits and gags) I NEED my Earl Grey!!
-My electric heating pad. I have chronic pain from a few truly epic injuries and I NEED heat on my spine in order to sit and write. Actually merely in order to sit. No, I don’t use ice. Ice is agony.
I would say I need sand and sun, but we live in a small provincial town, but I’m sure there’s adventure in the great, wide somewhere…oops, wrong movie. 😉
If you’ve never tried Darjeeling, do! It’s called the “champagne of teas,” and rightly so. I think it’s superior to any of the flavored teas when brewed properly.
*I should have added dark or semisweet chocolate to melt slowly away in my mouth as I type. It’s a proven health food (reference to scientific article in Nature available upon request). It’s also good when encased in sugar in the form of dark-chocolate M&Ms, but maybe then it isn’t as much of a health food.
HA! It’s funny you mention Darjeeling! The MC in my second book LOVES his Darjeeling.
I ran a tea and coffee store in Vancouver, waaaay back, and we had 165 different kinds of teas and infusions, plus the personal blends of 100’s of clients. I have tried a LOT of tea. But I always come back to The Earl.
He’s obviously a man of refined taste! What a COOL job! It’s so hard to find loose tea these days. Everything’s in a tea bag now.
Wonderful list, Michelle. The one that is on my wish list is I seem to do write best when peace is my companion. During periods of stress I push myself to overcome until I can center my soul in peace. It’s not always easy but it is always welcome. Like others, I need quiet space. It gives me inner strength and energy. God meets me there. The one that is on my wish list is a webassistant. I know there are much better ways to do what I attempt to do on my blog.
Hope today treats everyone well. Andrew, I’m praying for you.
Beg pardon. My words got jumbled somehow. :0)
Insightful, Norma. Today’s been a stressful day already and I’d decided I’d just edit and do routine matters rather than anything requiring intense concentration.
Perhaps that’s another tool? The self awareness to know when to focus and when to not?
I blogged faithfully twice a week for about seven years, but lately I can’t access my own blog or anything else from Blogger. I’ve talked to the tech people, but they keep sending everything to gmail accounts I can’t access. I guess I’ll have to switch my blog to another provider. At least my website on GoDaddy is still okay. Modern technology is wonderful, most of the time. But when it stinks the stench is overwhelming.
Sincerest sympathy, Janet! Tech support is wonderful, most of the time. I switched my 3 websites from http to https. I had to buy the certs myself and have my host do a manual install because I had to purchase my carolashby.com domain from GoDaddy, which isn’t my host. Two worked perfectly, the other kept switching back to http. Turns out the redirect wasn’t done right for that 3rd one, but I spent a lot of time talking with very nice tech support people until I noticed myself that the 3rd wasn’t doing the same type of redirect in the URL line at the top of my browser. Would another support person have seen that? Don’t know, but I’d say keep trying because you might get that different person who knows how to fix your problem.
If not, I’d say get the WordPress for Dummies book and switch to WordPress.
Good insight, Carol.
Janet–I’m hopeless with technical information, which is why I hired my daughter-in-law to handle my website (and bought her a copy of WordPress for Dummies that year for Christmas). You might consider hiring someone just to solve this problem for you if you can manage everything else.
Best wishes–and I’m sorry I don’t have anything more insightful to add to Carol’s advice.
Great post, Michelle! I would add a Kindle or ereader. It’s helpful for proofreading and for the final read through. Seeing the manuscript in a different format helps me catch things.
Interestingly enough, I learned something new from this. From myself, I would like to add that a good tool for writing is writing services. If you read the review of paperial com you can understand this. Services help me a lot when I study at university, but they can be used for other purposes too.