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A Writer's Thanksgiving: The Five Writing Tools I'm Most Thankful For

November 22, 2010, by TC 3 comments

As a freelancer, I’m thankful for my supportive family, my unbelievably adorable two year-old daughter, a roster of very cool clients, and continued good health.

Yet, like any writer with a tech fetish, I’m thankful for a few other things – including the tools that help me write (and communicate and function) in the online age.

In the spirit of a Writer’s Thanksgiving, I present The Top Five Writer’s Tools I’m Most Thankful For:

WordPress

WordPress has become the dominant web CMS for a reason...

This blogging-software-turning-small-biz-CMS is at the heart of my emerging consulting business; it quickly (and affordably) becomes the online marketing hub my small biz and nonprofit clients need.

WordPress also runs my top fly fishing blog, this writing blog, and several other sites (including my almost-ready marketing site).

In fact, choose the right web host, and you can deploy a powerful CMS site in literally minutes – one that almost any client can update, and costs as much to maintain as your average doorstop.

In simple terms, WordPress is the digital publishing platform writers have needed for years.

Google Reader

I know RSS feeds never really caught on with the web masses, but Google Reader allows me to stay on top of more than 400 RSS-enabled sites without carving away most of my morning.

Occasionally I’m forced to cut away the RSS deadwood, but if I limit myself to the truly thought-provoking “big think” blogs and those offering useful advice (sans an untrustworthy profit motive), Google Reader can translate 15 minutes of my morning into straight-to-my-brain, thought-provoking goodness.

TabCorral Pro

You almost certainly haven’t heard of this great little tool (it just went beta, and hasn’t generated much buzz yet), but it’s a Firefox browser add-on that lets me save all those tabs cluttering my Firefox browser into groups – which I can organize and recall as a group, or one at a time.

Small but useful - TabCorral is a part of my everyday web life.

For any kind of research, TabCorral is too handy to live without; In literally three clicks, I can add tabs to Corrals (groups of web pages) I’ve got Corrals for WordPress themes, handy writing and marketing resources, client research (including my clients’ competitors) and so on.

TabCorral remains a little rough around the edges (it’s still in early beta), but it’s so useful I could care less. According to the developers, a Chrome version is coming soon (the “Pro” version will sync your Corrals across multiple computers).

(Full disclosure: I liked TabCorral enough that I’ll be writing some paid blog posts for them. Even if I wasn’t a vendor, TabCorral would still make this list.)

HootSuite

A web-based social media client, HootSuite.com offers one-stop access to my twitter feeds, and – more importantly – those of a handful of clients.

It even offers access to Facebook pages, so you can update a whole truckload of social media from one screen – even as you also monitor feeds, keyword searches and other goodies.

Organizations will find it useful as it greatly simplifies multi-author access to social media streams. I wish it accessed ident.ca accounts, but at the low, low price point of “Free” (Pro version costs $5.99/month), it’s hard to complain too much.

Ubuntu Linux

Surprise! The Ubuntu Linux operating system offered me a welcome escape from the clutches of Windows Vista (the OS that was such a turkey it should have fed my family instead of clogging my hard drive).

Ubuntu Linux runs my online world, and nicely too.

Long dismissed as being for techies only, twice-a-year upgrades have rendered Ubuntu Linux as friendly as a stuffed animal, and not much harder to use.

Fast, streamlined and created for adults who don’t need nannying, the various forms of Linux let you simply get things done – but also provide a gateway to the engine room should you want to get your hands dirty.

Want a fast, lightweight version for an older PC? A “studio” version for multimedia creation? One oriented towards educational use? All are available (and all are free).

Linux computers don’t slow down over time (unlike Windows), are rarely targeted by viruses, and yes – because they’re open source – they’re largely free.

I haven’t booted the Windows partitions on my laptops in months (my desktop machine doesn’t even have a Windows partition).

With software concerns growing more trivial every day (courtesy open source apps, cross-platform apps, web apps & the cloud), your average writer pays little penalty if Linux pops up on their screen in the morning – yet the speed and streamlined interface pay dividends.

Fast, Powerful Text Editors

Given the realities of today’s online writer – who is likely creating the vast majority of their text for use on the web – I’ve largely blown off the piece-of-paper-oriented word processors in favor of programmer’s text editors, which are very fast, highly configurable and hugely productive.

Very powerful (and simpler than other heavyweights), Komodo Edit is my fave for online writing.

Because programmers spend more time typing than most writers – and face much tougher file management issues – it’s hardly surprising programmer’s editors feature productivity on the hoof (like abbreviations, snippets, macros, split screens, file comparisons, version cotnrol, ftp and other toys).

They lack formatting controls (akin to the new crop of clean-screen editors), so you’re freed from formatting distractions, though for the same reason, you wouldn’t create a proposal in one.

The Real Problem with programmer’s editors? They assume you’re a programmer too; some implement word count and spellcheckers as an afterthought, and while you can make them do almost anything, it’s not always easy.

I wish someone would create the online writer’s text editor; a powerful, configurable text editor that clothed a powerful editor like Komodo Edit, gVIM or Emacs in soft, fluffy fleece.

Komodo Edit has come the closest so far, though I’m experimenting with the bizarrely powerful Emacs editor (gVIM, Emacs and Komodo Edit are all available free on PC, Mac & Linux platforms).

Until then, I’m happy – and more productive – using a text editor instead of a word processor for online writing.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all the Undergrounders.

Keep writing, Tom Chandler.

The Modern Online Copywriter: Why a Programmer's Editor Might Be In Your Future

October 31, 2008, by TC 18 comments

Sometimes the world shifts imperceptibly underneath you, and though you notice something has changed, the difficult part is figuring out what to do about it.

For years, almost every commercial project I wrote was typed into in a heavy-duty word processor. But today finds me writing more blogs, landing pages, emails, and other “live” Web content.

And all the formatting applied in those word processors – and the sizable overhead needed for all the features I don’t need – get in the way of a good workflow.

And yes, after my switch from Vista to the more streamlined Linux OS (Ubuntu), I took a hard look at my workflow.

In the past, I typically wrote a few large projects simultaneously. Today, I’m more likely to juggle a lot of small projects.

Then there’s my list of blog article ideas for the multiple blogs I write. How do I keep track of those?

Simple. Steal From Programmers.

The simple text editor is a thing of wonder; little comes between you and your words, and the software pops up almost eagerly.

Still, after playing with several editors, I realized I needed more than a text editor – and turned a programmer’s editor into my online copy word processor.

Bluefish text editor in Ubuntu Linux
My Trout Underground blog project – the tabs at the bottom represent four of the 14+ files in the project.

“A programmer’s tool,” you say? It’s perfect (almost).

Programmer’s editors are fast and streamlined. They’re simple text editors on steroids – my two candidates also offer word count, spell checkers, very advanced search, and HTML cheat sheets – though many of the programmer’s features simply don’t apply to your average copywriter.

The key feature? It’s the – the “project” or “session” function.

Save Time With Projects

Different editors call it different things, but a “project” function allows you to save multiple files in a single project, so opening that project opens all those files.

For the blog/article/engagement marketing part of my business, that’s a godsend.

I created separate projects in my editor for each of my blog/engagement marketing projects (one for the Trout Underground, one for the Copywriter Underground, one for… you get the picture).

I start each day by opening each project in its own tabbed window (each file is a tab). When a new article idea rears its head, I simply open a new tab, type the headline, add any thoughts or links, and then “save” the project.

Next time I open the project, all my article ideas for that project pop up.

Throughout the day, all my projects windows are open, so I can steal a few minutes and work on an article – with little time lost to overhead.

Of course, that’s a blessing and a curse; I’m also confronted by my half-finished articles, unstarted articles, and the articles-with-promise-but-require-too-much-research. The universe, it seems, is yin and yang.

I Name Names

In the Linux world, I’ve settled on the Bluefish editor (actually a Web development editor). Gedit is the Gnome editor that does largely the same thing once you add a couple plugins (it’s a little slower adding HTML code, but a little better actually writing).

In truth, a lot of programming editors will do the job.

On Windows, I believe Notepad++ is free, fast, and does everything needed. I’m less familiar with Mac editors, but BBedit and TextMate are likely characters.

I can’t say I’ve fully entered Valhalla – Bluefish would be better if it offered inline spell checking and a running word/character count instead of modal versions of the same thing – but fewer ideas are being lost to a busy workday, and I’m managing a lot of small projects far better.

What’s Next for Writers?

The trend towards online copy is obviously not going away, but few tools have developed in response to that change.

Blog editors help make blogging easier, and a programmer’s editor makes simply online writing easier, but we have yet to see a single “online writer’s editor” that offers everything today’s largely online copywriter needs.

That includes things like speed, toggled HTML markup, file and project management, running word/character counts, the ability to post to blogs (including all the category/keyword/SEO stuff) — and all with enough formatting to send prettified documents to clients (including sample landing/Web pages with graphics represented).

Some word processors do act as virtual databases for the files, notes and links related to a single project, though they seem better suited to longer works (like novels or white papers) than short online articles.

Of course, no writer thinks their word processor/editor/pen is ever exactly right, which is part of the fun of this whole odd career.

The “online word worker” is a relatively new category, and I expect we’ll see the tools we like tailored to the job.

Keep writing (in whatever software suits you), Tom Chandler.

writing, writer’s tools, online copywriter, copywriter, freelance copywriter