Andrew Ferguson
Children's/YA Author
Archives
Game Review: Toonstruck
Posted on June 2, 2021 Leave a Comment
So today, I’m going to review an often overlooked gem of the point-and-click adventure genre: Toonstruck (1996).
App Review: Goodreads Android App 2.0.2
Posted on April 16, 2021 Leave a Comment
Anyway, today I got an email asking me to download the new and improved Goodreads App.
‘Yes, I will.’ I thought. ‘And then I’ll tell all my faithful readers exactly what I thought of it, mwahaha!’
Super Snappy Speed Reviews – Writing Apps for Android
Posted on April 3, 2021 Leave a Comment
As ever, the apps I have reviewed here are not necessarily apps that I particularly liked or disliked, but are simply a random selection of writers’ apps that I have tried out at one point or another. As usual, these reviews only reflect my own personal opinions and impressions, squished, squashed and squeezed into a few short sentences.
Want to Add Handwritten Notes to your Scrivener Project? Try Notebloc.
Posted on March 22, 2021 Leave a Comment
Let me introduce you to Notebloc for Android and iPhone. This handy little app not only uses your smartphone’s camera to capture images, but it also automatically adjusts the colour and angle of your image(s) before easily exporting them as jpg or pdf files, making adding your handwritten notes to Scrivener a breeze.
Novelist: A Handy App for Planning Your Novel
Posted on March 18, 2021 Leave a Comment
But that’s not to say mobile apps can’t help you in your quest to write a story, especially when you’re on the go and need a simple, orderly means of gathering together all those little plot bunnies that jump into your head at the worst possible moments. For that reason, I’ve been trying out a nice little app I discovered on Google Play called Novelist by Alessandro Riperi.
Super Snappy Speed Reviews – Games Edition
Posted on March 10, 2021 Leave a Comment
And so, for this edition of Super Snappy Speed Reviews, I’m going to give you seven mini-reviews focusing on the stories found in computer games (mostly retro games, because I’m an old dinosaur like that). As usual, the games I have reviewed here have been selected entirely at random from my own collection of dusty relics and do not necessarily have anything in common apart from the fact that they are all games (although you’ll be lucky if any of them are less than ten years old!).
Can’t Afford Scrivener? Try yWriter.
Posted on March 6, 2021 Leave a Comment
Many years ago, when I decided to make my first serious attempt at writing a novel, I did what a lot of enthusiastic beginners probably do: I searched high and low for the perfect novel writing app. I didn’t know about Scrivener back then (in fact, I’m not even sure it was available for Windows at that time) but I did come across another app in a similar vein called yWriter by Spacejock Software.
Ink and Pixel: Writers’ Edition
Posted on March 1, 2021 Leave a Comment
Last year, I wrote a post about the pros and cons of e-book readers compared to traditional paper books. Well that’s all well and good for reading, but what about for writing fiction? How do you write? On paper or with a computer? These days, it’s not really much of a choice. You’ll have a hard time getting anything published if you don’t at least type up your drafts before you send them to anyone who edits or publishes for a living and (as I recently discovered) manual typewriters are hard to come by these days.
But what about in those glorious early stages, when you’re still figuring out character profiles, chapter outlines and scribbling out rough zero drafts?
My Thoughts on FocusWriter
Posted on February 12, 2021 Leave a Comment
There’s an old saying I tend to adhere to: you need to use the right tool for the right job. For me as a writer, that means I have lots of different writing tools depending on the kind of writing I’m doing and what stage of the writing process I’m at. For instance, I use Scrivener to write my novel and other large projects; Hemingway Editor for times of editing; Jotterpad to scribble notes and song lyrics on the go (you didn’t know I wrote music too, did you?) and FocusWriter for short and flash fiction, which is the subject for today’s little review.
There are, of course, plenty of “distraction free writing environments” out there. In fact, even the other apps I mentioned at the start of this post boast distraction free modes which hide most or all of the toolbars to allow you to focus exclusively on your words. What sets apart FocusWriter from these, however, is how highly customisable that environment is and how many features of a typical word processor are still available without being intrusive. Personally, I sometimes find that even the best distraction free interfaces can be a little too sterile when it’s just you and the blinking cursor on a blank screen, daring you to write a word. With FocusWriter, that’s not a problem. You can make the interface as pretty or as sterile as you see fit.
Need Help Deciding What to Read?
Posted on February 2, 2021 Leave a Comment
Someone recently asked me how I decide what books I want to read. Good question, I thought. The truth is, I find choosing new books (and new TV shows, movies and everything else) exceptionally difficult. As a rule, I try never to immediately follow a sci-fi with another sci-fi or a mystery with another mystery but that still leaves me spoiled for choice….
As you might expect, the internet is ready and eager to try to help. Here’s a whistle-stop tour of three websites that give you customised book recommendations.
Andrew Ferguson 