Nine years ago, I wrote a blog post about my ideal novel writing tool called NEO. You can read that original post here. The problem I was trying to solve was replicating the clean, crisp workflow I’ve always had in Apple’s Pages, before Apple updated and ruined Pages. Most of my novels have been written in the black, distraction-free full-screen mode Pages creates that you can swipe to and forget about the rest of your laptop. Just your words, a wordcount at the bottom, and an interface that gets out of the way.
Yes, there are thousands of writing tools out there, and the problem with them usually falls into one of two camps: They are made to do everything, so they don’t do anything cleanly, like Word. Or they try to be too clever and give you every book-writing gadget in the universe, like Scrivener. People swear by both. I begrudgingly use them.
Whatever perfect writing tool you’re about to mention in the comments, I’ve probably already tried. I’m so glad it works for you! Keep writing! Stay awesome! None of them work for me. I don’t want to spend any time in my word processor doing ANYTHING but writing. Nothing to break the creative flow state. Just my words. Basic key strokes to do basic things.
Writing a novel in Word or Pages means inserting page breaks, numbering a chapter, centering that number, centering section breaks, uncentering to start writing again, renumbering every chapter because you inserted a new one, ad naseum. NEO was going to be designed from the ground up to do one thing: write long-form prose. That’s it.
The last time I worked on this application, it was with a software developer while I was sailing across the Pacific. Limited internet access made the collaboration difficult, and we never got past basic functionality. It wasn’t good enough for my daily use, so I never shared it with you all. Today, that changes.
NEO can be downloaded here (.dmg for Mac, .exe for Windows)
It’s still rough, not even beta-worthy, but NEO is now the first thing I boot up in the morning. It’s where my writing is happening. And I’m in love with it. But there’s a lot to work on, so it’ll keep changing. If anyone wants to use it, it’s free! If you find bugs or have suggestions, leave a comment on this blog post below (or at GitHub). I’ll take your thoughts into consideration, but I’m not interested in feature creep or bloat. Just simple and functional. If you want to take the source code and run with it, have a great time!
Installing:
Mac users: double-click the .dmg, drag NEO into Applications, then run it. To make your life a little easier, I actually paid for a Mac Developer license and figured out certifications and signing and all that jazz, so you should only get a warning about running software from the internet. None of that “unidentified developer” nonsense. C’mon, you’re on my blog, you know me.
PC users: double-click the installer. You might get a warning and be asked to continue. I’m not going through the Windows developer nonsense because it’s way crazier and you still get warnings anyway. I haven’t tested this version much, so use at your own risk.
A beginners guide for the brave: The first time you open NEO, it’ll ask you for your name and if you are a pantser or a plotter. All that means is whether new documents open in the Outline tab or the Manuscript tab. You can change this option later at any time (go to File > Goals Settings).
The main interface in Neo is your Shelf. You can have lots of WIPs here, and you can create new shelves to keep them organized. Rename shelves by clicking the name.
Create a new WIP in any shelf or import an existing document. Importing will probably require a little fiddling, as this is not the main goal of NEO. It’s more for starting new projects and seeing them to completion.
A few features to highlight:
This is about distraction-free writing with only the things you need at your fingertips. Complex functions are handled with quick key-presses. Need to start a new section in your current chapter? Hit the enter key twice. Need to start a new chapter? Hit the enter key three times. This and your imagination are all you really need to write a novel in Neo. That’s pretty much it.
Chapters are auto-numbered for you, even if you insert one in an earlier place. Hover your mouse on the left side and you’ll see an outline of all your chapters. Feel free to make a brief note here about what happens in that chapter. On the right side you’ll see Placeholders, a feature I’ve always wanted. To create a placeholder, hit COMMAND + SHIFT + X. Make a note about what you need to do here later and keep plowing forward. All your placeholders are hidden away for when you need them. You can lock this window open by clicking the little symbol at the top, for when you are in afternoon-revising-mode.
If you want to get rid of a piece of writing but don’t want to lose it forever, highlight it and drag it down to the DARLINGS tab. Or hit COMMAND + SHIFT +D. It’ll stay there while you improve the draft. If you realize your original stab was better, you can restore darlings from the darlings tab (or you can delete them forever). This allows you to take creative risks without FOMO. You could also use this to make notes in your draft about things that need to happen in the story, and they’ll stay in Darlings pointing back to the correct place. Great for making notes without needing a second document open (my old, clunky way of writing a novel).
There’s an OUTLINE tab at the bottom for people who prefer to structure their documents ahead of time or brainstorm. If you selected PLOTTER during install, you will begin new books in the Outline tab. For PANTSERS it’s always available with a click. Type a note for each chapter and hit ENTER to create a new chapter in the outline. TAB if you want to create sections within chapters. This will create those chapters and sections in your manuscript for you, with the notes there to be replaced with your lovely prose. Outlining might still be a bit clunky, since I’m more of a pantser myself.
I love to write in fullscreen mode. Just hit COMMAND + SHIFT + F to switch to fullscreen. The same combo or ESCAPE will leave it. Even better, when you want to avoid distractions and the easy swipe over to email or social media, ENTER THE SILO. COMMAND + SHIFT + S will seal you in the vault with your WIP. Leaving is more difficult. Staying is easy. So stay and keep writing!
At the bottom of the writing UI you’ll see how many words you’ve written today. Click this to change your personal daily goal and the goal you have in mind for that WIP. You can also do a sprint from here, with a lightning bolt at the bottom letting you know to keep going and a congrats when you hit your goal. I love this feature.
Back on the SHELF, set a word goal for each project, and a yellow bar will move across the bottom as you near completion. It’s a nod to NaNoWriMo, where a lot of my books were written. You’ll see daily bar graphs and other stats over time. This needs a lot more testing. Let me know if you find a major bug.
If you don’t like the color gradient on your book covers, click the little refresh button in the top right corner of the book cover. The colors are just to help your books stand out from each other. Under the FORMAT option at the top bar, you can change the body font and select one of 3 drop-cap fonts. The idea here is that a book should look like a book while you are writing it. You should be as immersed as the reader!
In the FORMAT drop-down, you can also turn TYPEWRITER mode on and off. This just makes it so your cursor stays in the center of the screen, no need to scroll up and down or follow along with your eyes. I like this sometimes but not all the times, so I made it a feature you can turn on and off with a quick COMMAND + SHIFT + T.
You can export your files in several basic formats. But here’s one of my favorite features! For years, I’ve had a habit of emailing my WIPs to myself to back them up. I often do this after a bit of writing flow where great stuff pours out from the ether and I’m terrified I’ll never be able to replicate it. If you hit COMMAND + E, you’ll email yourself a copy of the current WIP in PDF format. Even better, it’ll create a SHA-256 fingerprint for the file, which proves that the file has not been altered or edited. As you write, a series of these will prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is a work you’ve been writing over time. That’s not the primary reason for the feature, but might as well while you’re creating a backup and sending it to yourself. The first time you email a WIP it’ll ask you to choose Apple email or Gmail (PC users will be spared the question).
Spellcheck is default off! No red squiggles to evaporate your creative juices. If you want to turn it on, COMMAND + ; (semi-colon). There’s also a find/replace option, because I can’t live without that. And that’s pretty much it. Poke around to discover more. There’s a shortcuts list under the HELP menu.
The main thing is this: I made this for myself, and I don’t expect anyone else to use it, but there might be another author out there who has had the same frustrations as me, or has a similar workflow and is looking for exactly this. If that’s you, I’m glad we found each other. To everyone: stay awesome and keep writing.
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