NEO - Hugh Howey
hughhowey.com
NEO Write your next book without the friction. NEO is a free, distraction-free writing app built by a working novelist for novelists. It runs on your own computer, and your manuscript stays yours — no account, no cloud, no subscription. Download NEO Loading latest version… See all platforms ↓ 📜 Distraction-free A page, and not […]

EDIT: The tool was written using Claude, a generative AI tool from Anthropic. I’m not familiar with it. While I have asked ChatGPT a thing or two in the past (and, as someone who investigated my post history found and told people, I asked it to make me a playlist once), I’ve never used Claude. Anyway, a couple people said it looked like AI. I’m not a programmer, so I never even thought to look at the GitHub. But, you can see Claude is on the GitHub: https://github.com/hughhowey/neo

I apologise; spreading an AI-coded/vibe-coded tool was not my intention. I saw something, I tried it, I liked it, so I wanted to share it. I am not personally against all forms of AI, and if the author had been up-front and said he’s not a programmer and he asked Claude for help, I might have considered using the program. I will stand by it not being bad. I wrote a couple thousand words on it over coffee on Sunday and it was mostly enjoyable to use. But, being that the AI element is being mostly hidden from people who don’t know how and where to look, that’s not something I’m going to keep using.

Original post follows below:

I just heard about this yesterday, and installed it on my Mac, and I like it so far.

The good:

It’s free and claims to be private. It provides a distraction free writing environment. It doesn’t require Windows but works there. It’s got sprinting support, outlines for plotters, and a couple other clever tricks. It can publish to EPUB as well as other formats.

The bad:

Dark mode only, so no writing outside. No mobile support, so if you get inspired and you don’t have your computer, you’re out of luck. No save button, it just saves automatically. It says it uses plain text, but the file structure is weird.

The ugly:

AI can be used to make book covers. You have to bring your own OpenAI API key and he says it isn’t free, but he doesn’t get the money, they do. He says the cover isn’t exported, it’s just there to inspire you. Still, with AI threatening our way of life, it’s weird to include it at all.

Overall I like it though. As a coffee shop MacBook writer, it works for me. But I’d love to use it on my iPhone as well.