Writing Tools and Information
Here's a solid resource that's worth bookmarking. The Writer has recently updated its list of 30 essential digital tools, apps, & resources for every writer. Take a look - you will find something that will help you with your creative endeavors.
https://www.writermag.com/writing-inspiration/products-for-writers/digital-tools-for-writers/
Photo by Jenni Chen, license CC BY
Keeping any type of journal will help with improving any mental health issues. However, if you want to tackle a specific problem you’re having, it will help to determine the right type of journal to keep. Keeping a particular kind of journal may work best for your issue.
Boosts Your Mood – If you want to boost your mood, keeping a gratitude journal is where it’s at. Once a day, preferably before bed, write down what you’re grateful for today. It might not seem like much but it’s powerful for going to sleep & thinking positively about your life.
Increases Your Sense of Well-Being – As you write out your thoughts, you’ll start seeing issues from a new angle just because you’re opening your mind to think about it. This is going to make you feel more capable of dealing with whatever happens.
Lessens Symptoms of Depression – Understand that depression is different from sadness and that you likely need a counselor. Writing it all down can make it seem less horrific so that you can feel better. Plus, you can look back at days you thought life was "over" and see better days after.
Reduces Anxiety – The problem with anxiety is that it was designed to help us get away from immediate danger. It triggers the "fight or flight" response. If each time you have that anxious feeling you choose to write in your journal how you are feeling and why, then you’ll start to control it better.
Lowers Avoidance Behaviors – Many people who have mental health issues practice avoidance behaviors such as not going to places that cause them anxiety, or not doing the things they need to do due to how they feel. When you write it out, it helps you get the feelings out but do the thing anyway.
You’ll Sleep Better – Pouring your heart out into a journal is a great way to get things off your chest. However, for sleep, go to the gratitude journal and write down what you’re thankful for today and go to sleep thinking of that.
Makes You a Kinder Person – Exploring your emotional state and accepting your feelings while you work through what makes you who you are in your journal is going to make you naturally more empathetic to others too. Letting go of judgment for self improves your thoughts for others also.
Improves Your Memory – This is almost a situation where you want to say "duh" but it must be said. Writing down things helps you remember them because you can go back and read it, but also because the act of writing something down enables you to recall it.
One thing that can help you make your journaling work is to learn how to keep one effectively. Make some journaling rules, do it every day to create a habit, and keep it private unless you decide to let your therapist see it or you decide to use it to help others. This is for you and only you for the most part.
Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash
The way to ensure that journaling works for you is to do it long term. Long-term journaling gives you more insight into your life because you’ll be able to reflect on the past, present, and even the future (sort of) to try to get answers in your life.
But first, you must dive in and do it steadily. And you need to do it daily to make it a consistent habit. Below are some simple tips for making journaling part of your daily routine.
Make It Easy – If you don’t make it a huge deal, it’ll be simpler to get done. For example, it’s easier to use a pen and paper rather than a computer for most people. You can have the book in your bag or on your bedside table or wherever you plan to write. I personally find it useful to keep it nearby at all times in case inspiration strikes at some random moment.
Select a Time That Works For You – The best times to journal are early morning or right before you go to bed. However, these times might not work for some people. If you know a better time, do it. For example, some people like journaling while on lunch at work. It’s up to you. Think of what part of the day that you have the most creative energy and opportunity, and then try to include doing some journaling during that time.
Get a Drink and Eat a Snack – Don’t allow your mind to manufacture any excuses or extraneous thoughts while you’re journaling. Make sure you’re fed and hydrated before you get started.
Create a Comfortable and Accessible Space – It’s easier to delve into your thoughts if you’re comfortable and not thinking about how bad your backside hurts on a chair or how uncomfortable your wrist feels. Some people like sitting at a desk, some in a comfy chair, while others prefer relaxing in their bed while journaling. Choose wisely.
Combine It with Something Else You Enjoy Doing – If you enjoy working out, why not journal right after you are done? If you have a daily activity, add journaling to it. It’s a variation of habit stacking and it’ll help to establish your new journaling habit quickly.
Use Relaxing Music to Set the Mood – I know that some people prefer silence, and that’s okay if you do. But consider trying some music that doesn’t have words and that you find relaxing. It might help you to gather your thoughts and to remain calm and focused.
Utilize a Particular Type of Journal – For some people, using a style of journaling like bullet journaling, prayer journaling, project journaling, and more, works better since it defines some rules for entry. The constraints can help guide you towards your goal.
Consider Using Prompts – With a simple Google search, you can discover journaling prompts for any type of journal you want to use.
Reward Yourself – When you have been diligent for a month writing in your journal, take some time to read what you wrote, then reward yourself for succeeding.
To truly experience the full benefits of journaling, it needs to be done nearly every day. Therefore you need to find savvy ways to incorporate journaling into your daily life. The best way to accomplish this is to make it easy and turn it into a habit.
If you’ve ever written anything, from a paper to a novel, you know how hard it can be to come up with the best ideas. Writer’s block hits us all from time to time, and that includes published authors. Authors work very hard to craft compelling stories that their readers will not only enjoy, but love. For many this takes years of hard work and planning. It may even mean hundreds of rejections, thousands of edits and loads of re-writing. They may draw upon their own life experiences, or the tales of others, or simply upon their imagination. Some authors however, get lucky and dream the entire thing.
Since science is still a little uncertain as to why we have dreams in the first place, they have an almost mystical quality about them. It may not be magic, but it can seem like it. Our dreams can be filled with bizarre creatures, people, and scenarios. Even from mundane activities to fantastical situations, they can be quite memorable. For some authors, this makes them a great starting point for novel ideas.
If you yourself are an aspiring writer or creative, there may be a way for you to tap into your dreams as well. Thinking of your book or project as you fall asleep is one of the best ways to dream about it. Even if you aren’t lucky enough to stumble upon inspiration as you sleep, it’s important to remember that creativity is deeply personal, and finding what works for you can take time. For the full list of books inspired by dreams, plus some tips on creativity, check out this link and visual by Sleep Advisor:
https://www.sleepadvisor.org/books-inspired-by-dreams/
This resource is such a goldmine that I must share it.
As Tyrone Li mentions on the BookBub site, GrubStreet held their annual Muse & The Marketplace conference for writers in April. There, "authors, agents, and editors hosted talks and panels on craft, the publishing process, and book promotion strategies. We gathered lots of helpful publishing insights and promotional tips on a variety of topics, from marketing on social media to participating in bookstore events-- and even to dealing with author envy! We're excited to share some of these tips with our readers who couldn't attend, and hope you find these takeaways useful."
You'll find those tips online at https://insights.bookbub.com/promo-tips-muse-marketplace-2019/. There is some great information here. For me, the author social media hints and the insights on juggling a day job with your writing practice to be particularly helpful.
Literature is incredibly important for personal growth. Many lessons we learn are from the books we read with characters that stick out to us in a special way. Set aside time to read some of the remarkable tales of women in literature, you’ll be astonished at some of the epiphanies you will takeaway to incorporate into your life.
If you are still looking to find some great lessons to learn from female figures, why not pick up a book with one of the best female literary characters! Redbubble.com has put together a list of 12 Lessons We Learned From Female Literary Characters including quotes and the messages we derive from those excerpts. We never stop learning if we never stop reading. Happy reading and learning, go women!
https://www.redbubble.com/life/female-literary-characters/
Photo by Frame Harirak on Unsplash
For those who are looking for a little bit of guidance in finding a home for their poems, I have dusted off and reposted an awesome resource. Check out “How To Submit Poems To Literary Journals And Magazines” at Writer’s Relief. Follow these seven steps and you’ll find your work in the limelight in quick fashion.
Photo by Glen Noble on Unsplash
The right words ignite a spark for change. They lead movements, challenge societal norms, and question authority. And when a writer decides to pen their stimulating thoughts onto paper, people read them over and over. Their books spread throughout the world, inspiring people to take new paths and introducing them to their unique perspective.
The books that have made the largest impact throughout history date back to the early ages of 1000 C.E. up to the dynamic modern era of the early 2000s. And people still flip through their pages, craving to absorb the timeless knowledge from each writer.
There are religious texts, like the Torah, the Quran and the Bible, then there are philosophical and political musings like The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. Millions of people flock to grab a copy and align it with their values. Other books marked important steps towards international human rights, like Thomas Paine’s work of The Rights of Man.
Of course, the above mentioned are only a small sampling. Largest assembled this list of 25 powerful and influential books, so you can explore a host of other masterpieces that people still read today through their list.
Photo by Raul Varzar on Unsplash
Poets and writers are always looking for a way to “pop” and appear vivid against the blah backdrop of the internet. Creatives are attention whores – me included - and the only way to make an impression and find greater success is to stand out.
As part of my endless/obsessive pursuit of improvement, I discovered this new-ish article by Robert Lee Brewer about “five things author websites need to find more success.” There are some solid takeaways that both experienced and novice writers with websites can put into practice and find results. Enjoy.
https://www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/5-things-author-websites-need-to-find-more-success
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Writers spend a lot of time focusing on the craft of opening lines. This is true for fiction, poetry, essay, and even speeches. But what about endings? Aren’t they important, too?
Of course they are. And in this piece from the Washington Post, Ron Charles gives some much-deserved love to some of the more impactful closing lines in literature.
It’s not unreasonable to say that the number one problem most writers have is that they just don’t write enough. Writing, even professionally, is often treated as a side venture, or something that is inherently doable at a moment’s notice. The truth though is that it’s a skill, and like any other skill it must be practiced and nurtured to be its best. In other words, anyone fancying him or herself a writer needs to find a good excuse to write creatively and/or intellectually every single day. ‘'
Because of this, there’s actually a fairly strong market of prompt and exercise books aimed at writers. The thinking is that if you simply have an idea in front of you, you won’t have trouble putting pen to paper. As helpful as these books can be though, they’re not strictly necessary. With a little creativity you can come up with some daily exercises of your own, and help to ensure that you get at least a little bit of practice in every day.
A few ideas to get you started….
1. Just Write Titles
Sometimes you just don’t feel like you can get the words down to do anything substantial, and while some writers contend that you need to force through those times, there are other solutions as well. One is to simply write titles of things you’d like to write. It’s simple and quick enough that you can turn it into a daily exercise, even if that means just 10 or 15 titles a day - be they for stories, books, essays, or even films or songs. It’s not a robust writing exercise by any means, but it does activate that part of your brain, and it can give you some ideas of things to work on.
2. Go For A Jog, Write About It After
Writing just about a jog isn’t the most exciting thing in the world, but if you go running outside chances are you’ll see other people out, pass by interesting places, or even see animals or other elements of nature that intrigue you. These are the kinds of things that can inspire any writer, and it’s a worthwhile idea to practice your observational skills anyway. Throw in the fact that exercise can chemically stimulate creativity as well, and it’s actually an excellent way to put yourself in a writing mindset. A quick jog and then a series of stories or vignettes about the things you observed while out can be an excellent daily, or at least near-daily activity.
3. Play Daily Fantasy, & Write Up Recaps
This is an idea that will make sense to a lot of people who play fantasy sports, because some of the leading sites have started writing automated recaps of contests. You can turn this into your own exercise by turning to daily fantasy, which involves a range of contest styles but more importantly runs every day. That means with each and every night you can have a contest to recap creatively, the way a sportswriter might do it. It seems somewhat random, but the idea is to have something fresh to discuss and shape into written thoughts on a daily basis. Plus, if you’re a sports fan at all, it’s quite a lot of fun to do.
4. Find Launch Points
One of the most common writing practices out there is to base your work off of somebody else’s (provided you’re not intending to sell that particular work of course). You might pick up a favorite book, open to a random chapter, record the first few sentences and then close it and continue the story your own way, for instance. That’s just one example, but wherever you can find these “launch points” for a story, you should give it a shot. At a certain point, repetition - the act of writing a story every day, no matter how small - is the best practice.
5. Try A Dream Journal
There’s a lot of pseudoscience behind remembering, analyzing, and recording dreams. You can try different ways of remembering your dreams though, and if any of them work you can simply start writing about your dreams in the morning. Waking up an extra 15 minutes early (easier said than done, of course) gives you time to write a few words about what you remember or what you think about it, or even to write a little story about it. This is a particularly fun exercise if you can make it work, because it’s almost like your own brain is feeding you prompts.
Really, it all comes down to creativity and resourcefulness. There are many ideas beyond these that can lead you to daily writing in a very effective way. Just be sure to keep that pen moving day in and day out, and you’ll become a better writer for it.
Whether we admit it or not, we all make mistakes. This article by Kyle Massa on the ProWriting Aid website will help you correctly use some of the most commonly misused words. Full disclosure – I’m guilty of number two on this list, but now I know better.
When you get a chance, check out “Social Media Advice for Authors with Limited Time”. It’s an exceptional post from Crystal King on the Grub Writes blog that has a lot of useful tips. I bookmarked this resourceful article for future examination and use – and you might want to as well.
https://grubstreet.org/blog/social-media-advice-for-authors-with-limited-time/
Improvement comes from practice & process. And when I think process, I focus more on editing rather than the writing itself. A clear process has helped me make consistent strides in my writing skills.
I think real improvement can be found through stronger editing...and maybe that overall concept can work for you.
People, when they discover I’m a writer, often ask what I write about. I used to roll my eyes and explain how writers use everything as material. But I was thinking recently about the subject matter of various poems & stories either published or underway and what themes are at work.
Some subjects are barely projects, or unfinished stories that are underway but stalled out, and a couple things are just one or two poems into what I envision will be a longer series. I've also been thinking about the difference of approach when it comes to compilation (mixtape) books and project books and how the latter seems to be driven by intent from the start and the former slowly take shape during the process. But I suppose that's a blog entry for another day.
There are few things more quintessentially American than a road trip. The sheer size of the country, an abundance of connected highways, diverse regions and incredible landscapes of our national parks make a cross-country road trip the ultimate bucket-list experience. Discovery is ingrained in our culture. Recognizing that many Americans are descendants of immigrants who left their home countries, John Steinbeck wrote, “Every American hungers to move.”
Naturally, it makes sense that so many of us yearn for the open road. One might even say it’s symbolic: the vehicle being the visual representation of freedom, a drivers license the ticket and the route the destination. Road trips go far deeper than simply a travel experience, which is why literary lions like Tom Wolfe, Jack Kerouac, and John Steinbeck documented their adventures by car in the form of novels.
Inspired by some of the most popular travels in American literature. CarRentals created this guide to literary road trips. Only, instead of living these adventures through the pages of a book, they re-created the author’s routes to give us a list of road trips you can actually take.
https://www.carrentals.com/blog/your-guide-to-literary-road-trips-across-america-infographic/
Bookmarked for future reference - the folks over at Blogging.com have put together a great list of the top resources, links and tools that will help freelance writers find more (and better) work - https://blogging.com/freelance-writer-resources/.
This list is worth checking out!
Crafting conclusions to essays can be challenging. It takes skill to end on a good note and drive your points home one last time. It’s the final chance to impress and give readers understanding as to why your essay matters. The style of the conclusion that's most effective will vary depending on the tone and point of view of your essay. However, there are some key points that apply no matter what style of essay you're crafting.
A good essay conclusion restates, not rewrites your thesis from the introduction. It usually consists of three sentences minimum. And it concludes thoughts without presenting new ideas.
One standard structure I've used is to Restate, Review, Connect, and Combine (I remember it as R-R-C-C):
Sentence #1: RESTATE the thesis by making the same point with other words.
Sentences #2-4: REVIEW supporting ideas; summarize how they prove the thesis.
Sentence #5: CONNECT back to the essay's main premise and relate your closing statement to an opening thought; make it relatable to impress a reader and give them something to contemplate.
Lastly, COMBINE these sentences into a conclusion. Eliminate redundancy. Add a transition word or phrase to make it clear you're concluding. Just try to be more inventive than the standard "In conclusion..." or "In closing..."
There are pitfalls to avoid. Resist the temptation to write any new information; focus on summarizing the thesis and statements. Try not to share personal thoughts unless it's a first-person opinion piece. Don’t attempt to restate every detail - that's what the body paragraphs are for. And finally, don't use boring, mundane words. Choose concise but vivid language instead.
To end an essay in a strong manner, consider its type and audience. A conclusion is your last chance to impress readers. R-R-C-C can be effective, but don't be afraid to take a more creative approach if it presents itself...just avoid the pitfalls I mentioned.
If there is one thing that reflects a poet’s style, it is their usage (or non-usage) of line breaks. It may seem like a small factor, but line breaks can greatly influence the effectiveness and meaning of a poem. Which is why I found this discussion of line breaks over at Frontier Poetry thought-provoking. It discusses the three types of breaks and what goes into crafting a line of poetry. It is an interesting read.
https://www.frontierpoetry.com/2018/04/19/poetry-terms-the-three-lines/
Happy Shakespeare Day! In celebration of the 402nd anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth and death, Invaluable created a Shakespearean insult generator. The tool rounds up over 70 of Shakespeare’s top insults from his most famous works, like Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Whether you wish to insult a friend, colleague, or your greatest enemy, we’ve got you covered. What better way is there to celebrate Shakespeare than to use his insults when you need them? Below are six sample insults that I liked (click the right edge to see the next image):
Check out the generator for yourself at this link: https://www.invaluable.com/blog/shakespearean-insults/.
