The Top 5 FREE Software Programs Every Writer Should Have

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**Welcome everyone from ProBlogger!**

If you’ve been using the Internet for longer than, say, ten minutes, you’ve definitely seen these sorts of Top 5 lists at least fifty thousand times. They almost always over-promise and under-deliver—big time.

Well, my faithful… this one isn’t much different!

The fact is, there isn’t anything I can pass along to you that you haven’t used yourself or read about somewhere else already.

It’s just that headlines like these are super-magnetic. And the content that follows them is perfect for the Web: short, digestible chunklets you can skim through while you’re busy avoiding work.

The other reason I’m posting this is that I’m giving ProBlogger Darren Rowse’s latest group writing project a go and the rules of the game dictate the format.

So enough of my blather already… here’re are the Top 5 FREE Software Programs Every Writer Should Have.

1. Simon Haynes’s yWriter
   This brilliant little proggie is everything you need to outline, plot and write your Great American Novel. (You can use it for non-fiction, too.)

   Simon’s the brainchild behind the Hal Spacejock sci-fi novel series and he developed this software for his own use. He just continued to add on the program to suit his own needs and it’s become a rather nice piece of software as a result.

   I’ve tried lots of trial versions of novel writing software and most of them are clunky, cumbersome and require a lot of learning to use the feature sets to their fullest.

   yWriter is so sleek and simple you can begin using right from the moment it finishes installing. No steep learning curve here.

   It even keeps track of daily word count targets, offers drag-and-drop scene splicing, and has a built-in dictionary and spell checker. Download yWriter3 BETA or yWriter2.

2. Jeremy James’s NovelProgress Deadline Tracker
   I met Jeremy online at Newbie’s Guide a number of months ago and spent the better part of an afternoon exploring his various and sundry Web sites. The guy’s a Renaissance man, really.

   After exploring a while, I spent another couple of hours working with his NovelProgress, an Excel spreadsheet that tracks your novel progress from soup-to-nuts. (I wrote about it previously here.)

   Before long, I’d added some formatting and fixed a calculation, and sent it back it back to him. I’ve been using it ever since.

   Just plug in your start date, your words–per–day goal, and the target word count for your novel.

   Then, as you write, fill in the time you spent writing and your total word count for the day. The spreadsheet automatically calculates your cumulative time spent writing, cumulative word count, pages completed, the date you’re on track to finish, and a bevy of other stuff.

   Download the spreadsheet here. And while you’re there, be sure to check out his serialized supernatural thriller, THE VEINGEL. It’s fantastic!

(I know… it’s not exactly software. But to use it you need software that’s probably already installed on your machine. Samey same.)

3. Notepad++
   The chances are good you’ve used Notepad, the simple text editor that Microsoft has been supplying to PC users for years now. And you know, it’s underpowered and just a little too simple.

   In my day job as a technical writer, I’m working with all sorts of text-based snippets: HTML, XML, SQL scripts, CSS, simple text, CSV, and on and on. Notepad just doesn’t cut it.

   Instead, I use Notepad++. To be honest, it’s a little too powerful for what I use it for, if only because it works seamlessly with more programming languages than I know or even care to know.

   But it’s got a lot of things I love, like a tabbed interface, macro recording, customizable shortcut mapping, collapsible views, an awesome global find-and-replace feature, and a ton of editing, conversion and cleanup tools. What’s more is, with a click or two, it completely replaces the native Microsoft Notepad.

   I use this program every day… in fact, I composed this post using it!

   Download Notepadd++.

4. FreeMind
   Mindmapping is one of those tools that I was skeptical about. My biggest question? How in the world do you use these little bubbles with words inside them to get anything done?

   I was pleasantly surprised by how well this process works. Start with an idea, let your mind open up and branch off other to other ideas. It’s visual brainstorming with logical groupings.

   How simple is that?

   I have to admit, though, I’m not big on using software for this process now. I usually do it on paper or a whiteboard because I like the tactile nature of working with a pen of some sort.

   Plus, I sometimes get bogged down with trying to open a new bubble in the software. It’s easier to just write something down and draw a circle around it. But I give FreeMind a lot of credit for introducing me to the concept.

   Download FreeMind here.

5. Rapid Backup
   Well over a year ago I was looking for something that would make transferring my mp3s from one hard drive to another easy and fast. The built-in Windows tool sucked… they’re so slow and bloaty.

   I didn’t really want to pay for something that’d make this process go faster and cleaner. So to the Web I went.

   That’s when I found Mike Lin’s great site, chock full o’utilities he’s made for his own use. Among the offerings was Rapid Backup.

   It was perfect. It lived up to its name, handling more than 80 gigs of music in less than 30 minutes. I was shocked. I’d set the backup scheduler to run over night because I figured it would take hours, if not the better part of a day.

   Use this one with caution. Mike stopped developing the software before it was fully finished. It’s not even technically a BETA product. I don’t wnat to scare you off… I’ve used it many times and haven’t had any problems with it.

   Download it here (scroll to the bottom of the page).

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