Get Me Writing » Get Me Writing – A resource and companion for aspiring creative writers Writer’s Toolbox | Darla Writes Here are online and print writing resources that I use regularly. I’ll be adding to the lists as I come upon other useful tools, so be sure to check this page often. Reference Dictionary.com Word of the Day. See my post for ways to use this in your writing.Merriam-Webster: Dictionary from the best-known name in reference books.Roget’s Thesaurus: Old faithful.Encyclopedia Britannica: Great source for verifying locations, events, etc., for your stories.Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia: I use Wiki a lot for research, but only as a starting point. Check to see that what you use has a footnote to the original source–and check it. I have a hard copy of the dictionary and thesaurus, and I even have a family copy of Britannica (1963). A book every writer should own The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. Start a best books for writers collection Resources for finding great books and stories Bartleby: Publishes the classics of literature, nonfiction, and reference free of charge. Goodreads.
The Kill Zone MOODY WRITING Believe in Your Story In March, I took a fascinating class with Gwen Hernandez on working with the software program, Scrivener . Scrivener, available from Literature and Latte, is widely touted as a totally wonderful program for writing, and while I had owned it for a while, I knew I needed guidance in fully taking advantage of its many features. The class was great. Hernandez laid out daily information in chunks that were just right to absorb and work with. The homework was easy and helpful. WYSIWYG: What You See Is What You Get Scrivener is not a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get — pronounced Wizziwig) word processor. But let’s discuss the WYSIWYG question. Creating in WYSIWYG. The Compose Window of Scrivener isolates the writing in its own screen and helps you focus. Creating in Non-WYSIWYG. The relationship between layout and design and content isn’t straightforward. One big advantage of Scrivener is the ability to track metadata, or data about the data. Status. Flexible? Shrunken Manuscript
WRITERS HELPING WRITERS | Home of The Bookshelf MuseWRITERS HELPING WRITERS | Home of The Bookshelf Muse ****WE HAVE MOVED!**** The Write Practice The Ultimate Guide to Writing Better Than You Normally Do. Writing is a muscle. Smaller than a hamstring and slightly bigger than a bicep, and it needs to be exercised to get stronger. Think of your words as reps, your paragraphs as sets, your pages as daily workouts. Procrastination is an alluring siren taunting you to google the country where Balki from Perfect Strangers was from, and to arrange sticky notes on your dog in the shape of hilarious dog shorts. The blank white page. Mark Twain once said, “Show, don’t tell.” Finding a really good muse these days isn’t easy, so plan on going through quite a few before landing on a winner. There are two things more difficult than writing. It’s so easy to hide in your little bubble, typing your little words with your little fingers on your little laptop from the comfort of your tiny chair in your miniature little house. It’s no secret that great writers are great readers, and that if you can’t read, your writing will often suffer. Available in print withThe Best of McSweeney’s Internet Tendency