The Traveling Writer: Best Mobile Apps

I'm going on a cross-country trip next week and will be gone for more than two weeks, which means I'm thinking about the best ways to keep up the momentum on my current draft.

Here are some mobile apps that come highly recommended by other writers. I'm going to check out at least a few of these!

1. Scrivener for iOS
If you've been following this blog for a while, you've probably learned that I puffy-heart love the computer program Scrivener, the best drafting and organization tool around. They recently released a much-anticipated mobile version that syncs seamlessly with the desktop program. It looks like a great way to get a few hundred words in here and there in airports or before bed.

2. Evernote
Because I'm still in the ideas phase of my draft, you can bet I'm going to be using this mobile note-taking application frequently. Evernote saves notes, pictures, sketches, lists, and other items all in one place. It's then easy to access them on your main computer later.

3. Freemind
I haven't tried mind mapping as a way to organize a story, but it sounds really interesting. This app lets you easily create a mind map, or system of points branching out from a central topic. I used to like this method when it was mandatory in my English classes, so I might give it another try!

4. Pomodoro Timer
What writer doesn't have trouble with time management? This app follows a traditional pomodoro method time schedule (25 minutes working with a 3-5 minute break), which seems like an ideal short stretch for writing on the go.

What are your favorite mobile writing apps?

Putting the Creative in Creative Writing

I've been working on a new novel lately. While that isn't particularly worthy of admiration in itself, maybe you'll be more impressed when I tell you that I've been writing it with my thumbs on a keyboard 2" wide.

You see, I have a nine-month-old baby. I also freelance from home, and my hours have been steadily increasing. These two facts combined mean my large blocks of time to write have shrunk to zero. I could have given up, decided to put writing on hold until my son is older or until I can carve out more time.

Instead, I figured out that I can squeeze in ten to fifteen minutes of writing on my phone while I'm feeding the baby. Sounds a bit rough, right? But you know what? I'm managing 500-600 words a day. At that rate, I'll be done with my draft by early June. Not too shabby.

If I can do it, so can you. Pull out your phone or your pocket notebook in line at the bank, on the train during your commute, or while waiting for your coffee. You might only get a few lines down--but that's a few less lines you need to have a completed draft. Need uninterrupted time to get in the drafting groove? Jot down some ideas instead, or write a few journal lines for one of your main characters.

I'd be remiss if I didn't close this post by mentioning the app that I use for my writing. Evernote is an app with versions for your phone and computer that syncs automatically, so there's never any need to do a complicated transfer. My only quibble with it is the lack of a word count feature on the iPhone app, but I get around that by taking a few seconds to copy the text I wrote and pasting it into the Wordcounter.net window. I'm hoping they add word count functionality in the next update!