Recently Published

I most recently published a memoir piece about my tussle with a Florida preacher who thought he would help God with my conversion. Published in The Dead Mule here.

I also have a piece to be published in one of the Chicken Soup series of books.

Required reading for the modern author.

About Dennis Mitton

I write about whatever shiny object grabs my attention at the moment. I’m working on two books and several shorter pieces. Some fiction and some non.

I am a coffeeist, a scientist, a father, and a husband. I have been writing obsessively for most of my life. My first name spelled backward is ‘sinned’. Of course, I drive a thirty-year-old Saab.

A Couple of Writing Helps to Ease Your Burden

Posted on by Dennis Mitton

Hemmingway at TypewriterI use two. After completing just about any written thing I load it into Grammarly and see if I get the same feeling that I used to get from Mrs. Green. I’m getting better at details but still trip over clauses and commas. I suppose that using Grammarly could make you lazy but they send out a weekly usage report and damned if I don’t want to improve over last week. So I play a game to see just how little I can leave for the robot to discover. It’s an end-around to make the mechanics of writing fun.

I use the free version. Ads and emails tell me that I have more – deeper – issues that will be revealed with a paid account. If it were a buck-ninety-nine or so a month, I would probably pony up just to thank them and support the program. But it runs ten or twelve bucks (with frequent offers at about six dollars) and I just think that’s too much. For me anyway.

I did pay for Scrivener. And smiled when I did so. Don’t think of Scrivener as a word processing program. There is nothing you can do here that you can’t do using MS Word. But Scrivener allows you to manage your writing in a way that is difficult or impossible with other writing programs. I love it and you should check it out. If you end up using it, watch a couple of You Tube videos to see how expert users have set it up. It’s one of those programs that is easy to use straight from the box but has depths to plumb for those so inclined.

I’ve also just started using the Writer’s Database to track submissions. It has an easy and comfortable feel. More to come later with more use.

Cheers and please let me know of any other tools you use.

Preview Changes (opens in a new window)Tolstoy’s writing set-up. Follow the great master.
He brought me back to writing.

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4 thoughts on “A Couple of Writing Helps to Ease Your Burden”

  1. I don’t use any tools, and would like to know more before I use anything I have to pay for. I’ve heard good things about Scrivener, but nothing about why it would actually be useful so I’ve never investigated it.

    1. You can download Scrivener and use it for so many number of days for no cost. I think it’s $50.00 US to purchase.

      Per the post I like the ability to sort and organize my writing. I write longer pieces outside the blogs an am always working on a thinking about books. Scrivener just offers so much that is so easy compared to Word or to other stock all-purpose word processors.

      1. I’ve been using Word almost since it existed, so I find it pretty easy. I don’t have any problem organizing my work etc with it. The latest version even allows you to write blog posts in the format of several providers in Word itself, so you get the best of both worlds. If I was going to change I’d want something to add to what Word does. However, I won’t know until I try, so I will sometime.

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