It seems these days I do more writing than coding. Along with this blog, I do a fair bit of ghostwriting freelance for tech and tech adjacent concerns. But mostly, I am slowly but surely, pushing up the word count on my novel. So I thought this might be a good opportunity to blog a bit about some of the tools I am using.

To begin with, no, I am not using any fancy editor. Maybe I should be, but for now, I am mostly using good old Microsoft Word or Google Docs. I might regret it later, but hey, I managed to write my thesis on Microsoft Word, I am sure I can write my novel on Google Docs. But one tool I have been using, not only with Microsoft Word but with almost all my writing, is Grammarly.

Grammarly has a lot of detractors, and I can see why. If you follow all its suggestions badly, you are likely to end up with mangled writing. But that's just it; you aren't supposed to follow Grammarly's suggestions blindly. It certainly helped me by catching some common issues with my writing that I cannot seem to iron out. I certainly don't think Grammarly deserves the vitriol that Gizmodo directed at it. I mean, it solves a real problem that maybe isn't apparent to the writer, who I presume speaks English as a first language. Well, technically English is my second language, and I never quite mastered flawless spelling and grammar. To me, Grammarly is very useful, and I certainly recommend people check out the free chrome extension for themselves. I mean, there is a reason why they have 22 million users.

Getting back to my novel, while I made a fair bit of progress this month. There was a period when I wasn't as productive on that front as I would have liked. So tried a few things to motivate me and that included trying writing plan sites like Pacemaker. Pacemaker didn't work for me, and frankly, I don't get the point of it. But I think it could be useful for people who get motivated by setting milestones and meeting them.

Once I produced some sections, obviously I wanted some feedback. I was using my brother as a beta reader but he's pretty busy. But a bit of googling yielded Scribophile and Critique Circle. Both of them require you to participate on the site before you can post something. Basically, you trade critique for critique. Scribophile has a more modern look and feel. Also, it is faster in the sense that you can quickly amass the necessary "karma" to post something. What you post also goes up immediately and so you can get feedback on it quickly.

Critique Circle is much slower, releasing submitted work in batches. It also took me a long time to get my first critique after my writing was published. I was ready to write off Critique Circle but then I got a very extensive critique from the platform that made the waiting worth it! So I think, going forward, as time-consuming as it is, I'll probably keep posting on both. But maybe I'll do something like rough drafts to Scribophile but more polished drafts to Critique Circle. I don't know, I am still working it out.

All that said and done, I am just glad that I am starting to get my novel out in black and white. To keep up the momentum,