5 Free Scrivener Templates

If you’ve been following this blog for a while you might have seen some of my free Scrivener templates. Unfortunately those are a bit scattered throughout the blog, and I’ve had a couple of folks this week email me trying to find one of my blogging templates and another reader asked for recommendations about mystery templates without realizing I’d released one here. So I thought

Free Goal & Task Tracker Worksheet

It’s August. Seriously. When did that happen? Normally by now I’ve completed a detailed mid-year evaluation and posted my quarterly check-in on the blog. Whoops! Actually, it was less a simple oversight and more an issue of reorganization. By mid-July, I knew a few things weren’t working out as planned, so I decided to make some changes. The usual mid-year check-in was scrapped. It was a dud

Is Grammarly a Good Tool for Professional Writers?

Not long ago I published a review of AutoCrit, a self-editing tool designed for authors of fiction. I also found it helpful for nonfiction work such as blog posts. Shortly after reviewing AutoCrit, I was contacted by a rep for Grammarly, another online editing tool for writers which serves as both a spelling and grammar checker. The kind folks at Grammarly set up a test

5 Useful Scrivener Keyboard Shortcuts for Writers

Scrivener is a wonderful tool for writers. You can use it to write a novel or nonfiction book. You can use it to format your writing as an e-book. You can even use Scrivener for blogging. That said, Scrivener can also be a complicated tool to use. I doubt I even know half of what it can do. It’s one of those tools that you

Relax Melodies – An Awesome Audio App for Writers

This might sound strange. But today I want to recommend an audio app — more specifically a sleep audio app — to writers. It’s called Relax Melodies, and it’s available on both Android and iOS devices. I’ve been struggling with insomnia recently, working and sleeping rather odd hours. Sleep has been difficult to come by lately, but when I do sleep, this app usually plays a

Free Scrivener Template: Murder Mystery Novel

My next Scrivener template is now available for download: a murder mystery novel template. This one is based on my own template that I’ve been using for my upcoming mystery series. It allows you to plan, outline, and draft your next murder mystery all in one project file. Plus, there’s a place to write up some of your promotional copy, like your book launch press

Weekend Reading: Books for Authors

This week we’re going to do something a little bit different for the Weekend Reading series. Instead of pointing you to a few blog posts, I’d like to share a few recommended books for authors. Some of these are specific to either fiction or nonfiction authors. Others are beneficial no matter what kinds of books you write. These are just five examples, pulled from some

The History of the English Language [Infographic]

I’ve been meaning to kick off a new, light, post series here for a while — one where I share a bite-sized bit of actionable information, or even something that’s simply entertaining. Most of these posts will be infographics — some which I’ll create and some from third party sources that I found interesting or helpful. Here is the first I wanted to share —

What do You Want From a Scrivener Mystery Novel Template?

I’ve been working this week on the next Scrivener template in my writers’ resource collection — a mystery novel template. While it won’t be ready for release this week, I want to give you a chance to weigh in. Tell me what you want from a template. What would help you write your next mystery novel? When I was moving the first draft of a mystery novel

Weekend Reading: Writing Goals and Progress Reports

As a follow up to yesterday’s post where I shared my first quarter check-in for my 2015 writing goals, for this week’s “Weekend Reading” post I’d like to share some other examples, plus one blogger’s free goal-tracking tool that might help you stay on track. Enjoy! First Quarter Wrap-Up By Jennette Marie Powell at JenPowell.com This post is simply another example of one writer’s quarterly check-in. I’m