Common. Core.

Those two words inspire fear loathing in the hearts and minds of nearly all writers and teachers.

But here we are. It is happening, and we must deal with it.

If you’re writing non-fiction for YA peeps, then you already sure as heck know about it. But even fiction writers might want to find ways to write a common core tie-in guide to go with your manuscript. Teachers will be most grateful to have a reason to use your novel in their lesson plan.

Which makes you more salable.

History, science, math, language skills. The more common core standards you can tie into your novel the more chances you have to sell it to a room of 25 kids.

There are several apps out there about the standards and I vetted each of them. The only one worth your time is…drum roll please…

CORE TALK

This app doesn’t just link to Common Core Standards, it links to them by state. It also keeps up-to-date with news concerning the standards, as well as opportunities to learn more about them. Some of the workshops, lectures, and seminars are even online. Of course they’re mostly geared toward teachers and librarians, but as a fly on the wall, you might get a few ideas how to slant your teacher guide.

And also come away with loads of sympathy for teachers and librarians.

The Cloud, The Cloud, it’s all a big scary thing with the accounts and the big fat hairy i which means Apple and maybe you don’t have Appley products and maybe you do and maybe you have an iPhone but you have a PC or maybe you have an iPad but a Droid or maybe you have a PC and Droid and a Nexus tablet period and you think you’re left out but NO!

THE CLOUD IS FOR EVERYBODY!

Well, almost everybody.

Because really, as long as you’ve been on Yahoo or Gmail or some such, you’ve been in The Cloud.

The Cloud is remotely stored data that you can access. That’s all it is. Like you’re email.

So get ahold of yourself, sister. We’re looking at two FREE Cloud-servers accessible from any device that you can log into.

GOOGLE DRIVE

This used to be Google Docs, and honey, it is so simple.  First, get a Gmail account. Then download this app on your iOS devices. Sign in and you’ll get a window like this:

• Touch the “+” sign in the upper right corner to create new documents, spreadsheets, folders, upload pictures or videos from your iPhone.
• To access documents already in your Google Drive Cloud, touch My Drive. If there are particular ones you want to get to faster, without scrolling through all your folders, star them.

Anywhere you can log in to Google, you can log in to Google Drive. It’s right on the Google page.

Oh look. I seem to have added a file from my iPhone recently.

Let us see what it is.

Another productive morning.

BONUS beauty: You can share a document with others and it will show up in THEIR Google Drive accounts. AND you can limit what they can do to the document: either eyes only, allow comments, or full permission to edit. Nice.

Google Drive gives your 5GB of free Cloud space, easily accessible from any device.

EVERNOTE

Here’s the thing. Evernote does a whole lot freakin’ more than Google Drive. Which also makes it a whole lot more complicated.  The basics:

Evernote is “notes” organized into “notebooks.”

.

These “notes” can be text, pictures, audio recordings OR clips from the internet or other apps, which I am NOT even getting into today. Next time, mes amies.

I know, it doesn’t sound that complicated. THAT’S BECAUSE I DIDN’T MAKE IT SOUND THAT COMPLICATED. There’s all this:

With the tagging and the searching and the sorting and the locationizing, and there’s a spiffy feature there on the top right, that boils down to a scanner.

Notebooks can be shared with THE PUBLIC, or only with CHOSEN ONES, but if you want to give editing privileges, you have to pay for the Premium App.

There is a 60MB for month limit, 25MB is the largest file download allowable. HOWEVER. There is no limit to the amount you may keep in your Evernote Cloud.

To access your account from anywhere, just go to evernote.com and log in.

These are just two of many ways to get afloat in The Cloud for free. So really, there’s no excuse to get caught without the notes your need to get an article or chapter finished.

Please. Help me think of a new excuse for not getting chapter 38 finished.

You know, sometimes it’s just faster to scribble a random thought, rather than type it.

Who doesn’t wake up while this is going on?

Or you might want to sketch the layout of a room, a street corner or a murder scene.

Yeah, you’d get the whole novel written before this guy was finished dying.

Anyway.

Take a look at some handy-dandy apps that are perfect for when you want to free-hand it:

Ink for iOS

Opens immediately to a blank screen so there’s little to no waiting time. White background, draws a find black line. Perfect for capturing your Next Great Idea or a quick-sketch of a character. Email, Tweet, save to camera roll, print or copy to clipboard.

Be a Note!

Ah, choices. Write with a faux pencil, or a paintbrush with choice of width and colors. Change the color of the paper–lined, unlined, grid. There’s an eraser and undo. When you’re finished, save to camera roll and take care of what you want to do with your ideas from there.

Write Now

Choose lined or unlined background of several choices of color, several choices of writing-implement color of various widths. Yeah, yeah. Eraser. But also three colors of highlighter. AND–this is what I like–Offset Touch. I have trouble seeing where I’m putting the detail when I sketch or write. With Offset Touch, the point of line placement is out from under my fat finger. Six different settings.

Download a handwritten-note-taking app today, and be ready the next time you’re caught in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.

Writers have to know a little bit about a lot of stuff. You write about a savant kid, you better know enough math to fake it.

You write about a plague, you better understand how an epidemic spreads.

Depend on Google? Sometimes. But you don’t want your readers to Google and find the same odd tidbits you did, and think all you know you learned on Wikipedia.

It might be true, but you don’t want them to think that.

Dip into the classes available on these two apps and stick around just long enough to get what you need.

NO TESTS.

BWAHAHAHAHAHA.

MIT OpenCourseWare LectureHall

Loads of video lectures, whole courses worth. Notes and discussion forums also posted. There’s all kinds of social optimization going on in this app, if you want that sort of thing.     Might come in handy if you need to bounce some ideas.

iTunes U

Apple’s open courseware app pulled from colleges and universities in 26 countries. Some are audio, some are video, some are Powerpoint with accompanying lectures. With extra materials. Much more user friendly, but essentially a solitary experience.

I don’t care how smart you get, though. You know this is gonna happen:

Memes.

Where the hell do they come from?

And why do I think Clarinet Boy is so dang funny?

A whole lot of them start on reddit. You know that, right? Reddit is 4chan’s  respectable grandson. And no, I will NOT link to 4chan. That would shut us down in three seconds flat.

There are several iPhone apps for reddit-reading, but two stand out:

iReddit

This is the official app, and it’s free. Good way to get acquainted with the site, and browse it quickly. Offers several standard “sub-reddits”, or specialty pages, or you can peruse any sub-reddit that you wish, if you know the name. Can save to Instapaper or email links. Also, a nifty “serendipity” feature, where you shake your iPhone for a random post.

Alien Blue–Reddit Client

This app has a free and paid version.  Comes with a large, eclectic, standard list of sub-reddits, and again, you can add your own favorites. If you find something shareable in Alien Blue you can copy, send to Twitter, sms, email, Evernote, Facebook, Pocket, Instapaper, Tumblr…you get the idea. Create filters to keep out Reddit contributors you find–less than savory. The font and color is also adjustable.

Reddit contributors vary in age. Most contributors seem to be in their twenties or so, but teens read Reddit for the AMAs, (“Ask Me Anything”–no-holds-barred Q&As of all kinds of people, from victims at the Batman shooting to movie stars to, just last night, Obama) memes and funny pics. And they read Reddit for other things–but I’ll let you figure that out.