Updating our Android Writing Apps

 

We’ve updated all of our Android apps on both Google Play and the Amazon Appstore for Android.

Lists for Writers now has all the latest lists. The new search feature lets you search any list – perfect for finding a phobia or term from a genre list. The new shuffle feature randomizes the order of any list, making it easier to find some inspiration.

Story Dice now has all the latest die faces, bringing the total up to 170 different pictograms.

All of the apps also got some substantial internal updates, which should resolve a few cases where things didn’t quite work. Also behind the scenes, we moved all of the apps to Android Studio (goodbye Eclipse!), made some good improvements to our build workflow, and added additional test devices.

 
Lists for Writers on Nexus 7

Lists for Writers in Parent & Child Magazine

Scholastic Parent & Child, October 2013 The Best Children's Reading and Book AppsOur Lists for Writers app is featured in this month’s Scholastic Parent & Child magazine: The Best Children’s Reading and Book Apps.

Great to turn to for inspiration for any part of the story you’re telling — character names, places, myths and magic, specific words, and more. Plus, choose from different kinds of plots, conflict types, and issues. For iOS and Android.

Creative Writing Apps for BlackBerry 10

Name Dice BlackBerry 10 app on BlackBerry WorldRight before the ACT Fly-In, we were able to attend BlackBerry Live 2013 in Orlando. Each attendee received a BlackBerry Z10 as part of the registration, compliments of Brightstar. Everyone spent some time setting up their devices and downloading the conference app to manage their schedules. This was a lot of fun, and it encouraged those of us who were unfamiliar with BlackBerry to jump right in and use it. Visiting the exhibitors and the Jam Space (developer hangout) got us inspired to hurry up and get our apps on the BlackBerry 10.

We are very happy to present our most popular educational apps now available in BlackBerry World! Check them out: Lists for WritersStory Dice, and Name Dice.

BlackBerry 10 Writing Apps By Thinkamingo

NaNoWriMo on the Kindle Fire

nanowrimo-kindle-fire

For our family, November means National Novel Writing Month (aka NaNoWriMo) where we’ve all attempted the challenge of writing fifty-thousand words in a month, or one- to ten-thousand words for the kids. This year, the Office of Letters and Light has added Camp NaNoWriMo events in April and July. Word count goals for everyone can range from ten to fifty thousand words. For me, this means I have an excellent chance of completing my meager ten thousand word goal. (Fifty thousand has always eluded me!)

Many excellent Kindle Fire apps can help you accomplish your novel-writing dreams! Here are a few of our top picks:

  • For actual writing, there are a number of word processor apps, but it’s hard to beat  QuickOffice Pro if you need a full-featured word processor.
  • Evernote organizes your writing and many other things. It’s even more useful paired with Skitch, a drawing tool that works with Evernote, for making maps, family trees, diagrams, and even crude character sketches.
  • Having a photo in mind of what each character looks like helps a lot, but for younger writers, an app like WeeMee Avatar Creator lets you create cartoon avatars for your characters.
  • We built the Lists for Writers app based on our experiences with NaNoWriMo. We took our collection of lists and organized it into a handy app that we can access all the time.
  • Our Story Dice app is a brainstorming tool to develop story plots. With a roll of the virtual dice, you could add a twist to your plot, or get an idea for your main character’s backstory.
  • Our free Name Dice app makes character naming easy! This free app has a million different first and last name combinations. The source lists have been carefully curated to produce believable names.
  • Movie soundtracks can be a an incredible source of inspiration while writing. Set up Pandora with some movie soundtracks! Also, creating playlists for each of your main characters helps explore them in greater detail and can help you really get into the writing as the character when it comes to dialogue.

We hope you enjoy your Camp NaNoWriMo writing experience as much as we will!

Good luck!

9 Packing Tips for Camp NaNoWriMo

Camp NaNoWriMo Participant 2013 blog header

Camp NaNoWriMo is a spin-off program of the very popular NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month.) In the single month sessions of April and July, you can get some encouragement to get significant chunks of writing done. Visit campnanowrimo.org to join! It’s free!

1. Set a reachable goal (with mini-goals.)

With Camp NaNoWriMo’s lower end goal only being 10,000 words in a month, this is an easily reachable goal for most people. If you have plenty of time on your hands and think you can turn yourself from a couch potato into a writing machine, maybe 50,000 words is within your reach. Once you set your word count goal, it’s very important to have some checkpoints along the way. If your goals is 10,000 words for the month, you need to write 2500 words each week, and around 500 words, five days each week. Print out a blank calendar and mount it somewhere you will see everyday. Cross off each day as you complete your word count, and make a note of your daily word counts.

2. Set up a regular writing spot.

Do you work best at your desk? Dining room table? Recliner? Window seat? Library? Park? If you have one productive spot, take some time to clean it up and refresh your supplies. If you need a variety of places, make a list of those now so you don’t have to think about it later.

3. Assemble resources.

Some writers need paper, pens, dictionaries, thesaurus, etc. Others need a laptop and an iPad or phone with apps. I’ve been in both camps and can do it either way. I highly recommend that if you work on a laptop, that you turn off your internet connection during your scheduled writing time. This will increase your productivity greatly!

4. Schedule time to write.

Gaining skill and mastery requires regular practice just like playing the piano or fencing. When is your brain firing on all cylinders? Early morning? Late night? Find a time and carve it out on your calendar. Don’t skip it. Just do it. Even if you write nonsense for an hour, you might write one great sentence that will help you accomplish your goal tomorrow. Legendary composer Aaron Copland said that he found the greatest time of inspiration to compose between the hours of 8am-4am, Monday through Friday. Get busy and just do it!

5. Get to know your characters.

Who are these people you are writing about? Spend some time making character profiles, family trees, relationship flow charts, and finding reference photos. The more fully you envision your characters, the more easily dialogue will form between them. If you write a brief backstory for each character, that will help you find their motivations for the way they behave with your other characters.

6. Do your research.

Researching setting improves the process by providing a great deal of credible information to draw from. Is your novel set in 18th century France? You might want to study! Is your main character a neurosurgeon? Read up on it! Are your characters from a modern-day Chicago suburb? Get on Google and look at the satellite and street views of some Chicago suburbs! Print out some houses for your characters to live in. Draw a map. Lay out a house design so your action makes sense.

7. Tell no one, someone, or everyone.

I go back and forth on this one. I either tell everyone I know that I’m working on something, or no one, and do it secretly. This is up to you, but make a decision and stick to it. If you decide to keep it to yourself, keep it! This is most difficult to do if you are married or otherwise committed to a significant other (or have a parent living with you.) You can choose to tell that one person only. That seems to be a good choice, but only if that person is supportive and doesn’t cast judgment on you.

8. Determine your reward.

What are you going to do when you complete your goal? Go out to dinner? Buy new shoes? Go sailing? Whatever it is, find a picture of it, put it in a cheap frame, and keep it nearby during camp. When your internal motivation hits a wall, look at your reward for some external motivation.

9. Assemble a writer’s block first aid kit.

I have two kits: physical and virtual. My physical kit contains a dictionary, a thesaurus, story dice, pipe cleaners, unusual pens and pencils, assorted paper, number dice, lists I’ve kept over the years, a couple of current magazines, creativity card deck, and a stress ball. My virtual kit contains: iPad, iPhone. I use brainstorming apps on my iPhone and use my iPad as a sketchpad, notepad, and timer. Thinkamingo has a toolbox full of apps that help me with my brainstorming process, including: Lists for Writers, Story Dice, Name Dice, and Story Spark. Other apps I use for organizing my writing, sketchbooks, and productivity are A Novel Idea, Penultimate, Simple Pomodoro Timer, and Dropbox.

Ann Adair is the President and Co-founder of Thinkamingo Inc and makes mobile apps with her family. She has participated in NaNoWriMo for years and never crossed the finish line. Following her own advice, Ann plans to write at least 10,000 words in April’s Camp NaNoWriMo.

 

 

Lists for Writers Version 1.5 for iOS

Today we are releasing version 1.5 of Lists for Writers on iOS (iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch). This version fixes a few bugs. We improved support for VoiceOver (text to speech for the vision impaired).

This version adds full support for the iPhone 5 and 5th Generation iPod Touch. In order to fully support those devices and iOS 6, we are no longer able to support iOS versions prior to 4.3 and older arm 6 devices (the first and second generation iPod Touch, the original iPhone, and the iPhone 3G). We understand that a few users still use those devices and we wish that Apple made it possible to continue to support them.

Lists for Writers now has definitions

Lists for Writers now has definitions available (for iOS 5+)! This has become a frequently requested feature. Now you can tap on any word in a list and get the definition for it*.

We’re excited about this new feature and it’s already proven useful.

This update also adds a new list of body types and improves our support for older devices. The iPhone, iPhone 3G, and iPod Touch second generation and older should all now be supported as long as they are running iOS 4.0 or higher.

* Not all words in the app appear in this dictionary, but most of those appear on lists that already contain a definition.