Words of wisdom, according to my father. The implication, of course, being that if a deal looked too good to be true, it usually was. If something came too cheap it wasn’t worth what you paid for it, and if it was free, well, how good could it be if someone was giving it away? And in most cases, I’d agree with that. But then there are other times that free shit is just plain cool. So to that end, a few links…

Here’s some story layout software for people who have a hard time keeping everything organized. I only downloaded it yesterday, but from what I’ve seen so far it’s pretty damn cool. It’s designed by a guy who is a published author and a computer programmer, and he’s used the experience gained from both to come up with a really clean, intuitive interface.

For people who just want to write without being distracted by all the shiny things on their computers, there’s Q10, a full-screen text editor. It comes with typewriter sound effects, which is pretty cool all on its own. But the best part is that it’s completely portable. It’s so small you can run it straight from a flash drive without having to install it, so you can use it wherever you like.

For people who like to outline, over at Holly Lisle’s website you can find her Plot Outline Mini-Course. And linked in the sidebar on that page are a bunch more how-to articles as well.

Here’s a free short story called Serial, written by Blake Crouch and J.A. Konrath. The link to download the rest of it is at the bottom of the page.

And last, but certainly not least, if you go over to my friend Skyla’s website, you can find links to her eSerials, one of which is complete, and two which are works in progress.

Enjoy.

Because you haven’t lived until you’ve seen a mustached horse or show-jumping bunnies.