Five Free Tools and Sites for Writers I Can't Live Without

The Internet provides endless opportunities for writers to procrastinate--but also to get stuff done. Here are a few tools and sites online that I've found invaluable--and that may just help you, too!

Freedom. This nifty little program will keep you from going online for an amount of time you specify--up to three hours, or more, I forget. But it's a lot of time. For those days when you'd rather be looking at cute videos of cats on YouTube than becoming a published author, Freedom will cut you off from your go-to procrastination sites--and keep you working on your novel.

Write or Die. This has literally gotten me through NaNo a couple of times when I thought nothing else would. Write or Die gives you a specified amount of time to write a specified amount of words--like an hour to write 1,000 words, for instance. If you start to flag, it screams at you. It takes over your screen and makes it flash crazy colors. It zaps you with an electric shock through your keyboard. Actually, that last one I don't think it does--but I'm not sure, because I've always been too scared to let myself type that slowly for that long. Be warned.

The Plot Whisperer. So I've discovered in myself an unfortunate inability to plot. I encounter it whenever I try to revise my own novels. Oh, I can edit someone else's novel like nobody's business--but editing my own, and especially plotting my own well, is another story. The Plot Whisperer offers all kinds of tools for those of us who are plot-tistically challenged. I've just started exploring this site and have a lot more to do!

Pinterest. I'm a little obsessed with Pinterest. It's a great noveling tool--I set up boards for each of my novels and collect images and items, found bits of poetry and detritus from the web. In this way, I maintain an online inspiration board I can visit whenever I need to get into the right mindset. Couple this with a decent playlist for each novel, and I'm unstoppable.

Conceptart.org. Artists as talented as you are (or wish you were) as a writer. They hold frequent design contests--often on fantasy and myth-inspired themes--and I love to check out the images for inspiring ideas that feed my storytelling. Perfect place to hunt for Pinterest imagery.

What are your favorite writers' tools?