Nigeria is blessed with a lot of freelance writers. Despite the situation of the country, I have heard numerous stories of authors and writers writing throughout the night with candles and lamps. They will never give up – That is the Positive Nigerian spirit.
In addition to the tools you already possess, you may also add the following to your desk:
- A small, efficient, and good laptop or notebook: This is 2021 already. Although you might be in love with your pen and paper, working on your local machine gives you the advantage to backup your writings and easily store them too.
- Hardcopy of a dictionary: As you might be disappointed by the PHCN, having a hardcopy dictionary will help you a lot in keeping on working even if there’s no light.
- Hemingway App: Anyone is liable to make mistakes or typos during writing. You can use this app to correct your errors by simply pasting your writing into the app, and it will automatically highlight errors such as spelling and grammar mistakes. It also picks up on things spell check can’t, such as run-on sentences and overly used words. It makes them instantly obvious, allowing you to fix them quickly.
- Thesaurus.com: One of the original and best online tools, Thesaurus.com allows you to expand your vocabulary if you find yourself using the same words over and over in your work. It also offers fun facts about words every day, and information about the origin of certain words. This site will help you widen your vocabulary, and find the right word for just about every occasion.
- Headline Analyzer: A top-quality headline is key in hooking your readers. If your headline doesn’t grab them, there’s no way they’re going to read the rest of your work. This handy tool lets you paste in your current headline, and gives you a score on how successful it would be. You can then use the information to tweak it to your heart’s content.
- Poynter: If you’re looking to pick a professional’s brains about how they write, Poynter is the site for you. They offer ‘coffee break classes’, where you can read some short, succinct advice on how to make your writing pop, or you can jump into more sustained classes and seminars. Whatever you’re looking for, and no matter how much time you have to spare, there’s probably a class for you.
- Calmly Writer Online: The Calmly writer is the simplest yet most effective tool on this list. It offers a blank page in your web browser in which to write. That’s it. There’s nothing else on the screen to distract you, so all you have to do is fill that page with words. Pop open a neatly hidden sidebar, and you can download your work, insert media, or run it through a grammar check. There really aren’t any other writing apps that are cleaner than this.
Every writer is different, and some of these tools will work better for you than others. However, it’s worth playing around with each of them and seeing what you can get from them. Once you’ve picked out your favorites, you’ll find that your writing skills and habits will improve. After that, well, the sky’s the limit.
source-FreelanceUnion
