Writing tools

I've recently discovered some new writing tools I'm enjoying.

The first is a website called 750 words. If you've ever read The Artist's Way, you're probably familiar with morning pages. It's basically a writing exercise designed to help you clear your mind in the morning before beginning your daily creative work. In the book, Julia Cameron recommends you write three pages long-hand on paper, but in this day and age many people prefer to type their morning pages. 750 words is a private place to write and track your daily morning pages. It's clean and simple, but has some fun features like animal badges you receive for hitting certain milestones. Who doesn't love a little penguin for writing five days in a row? :) I think it's helping me stay more focused and creative when I write. The freewriting helps me clear my head and the accountability of the tracking helps me stick with it.

The other tool I discovered is Ommwriter. You download Ommwriter from the web to your computer. Basically it's a super stripped down word processing program with a calming background and soothing music playing. Scrivener is still the main program I use for writing, but when I'm doing word sprints, Ommwriter has proven to be a good tool for changing the scenery and minimizing distractions.

Best of all, both of these tools are free (or have a free version) and are easy to sign up for.

If getting words written faster is your goal, here are a few more fun writing sites to try out:

Write or Die
Written Kitten

What writing tools do you use?