Writing Resources

Here is something I downloaded as a toy that, mainly because of a recent software version update, has become a truly handy little tool for fiction writing.  It’s a 99¢ program for the iPhone called “iStopWritersBlock.”  {website}  {iTunes}

Created initially to help writers with writer’s block, it features a database of myriad plot twists, writing challenges, and quotes designed to inspire you to write, all served up randomly at the touch of the screen.  Fun, I thought, but even though I bought it I never really used it.  I was saving it for those occasional bouts of writer’s block to see if it really works.

Today, however, a free update appeared which also includes handy tools for character generation:

Here is something extremely handy even if you don’t have writer’s block.  Random character traits, including names, descriptions, facts, personality, and my most favorite … quirks!

Please pay no attention to the typos

Obviously this isn’t for your main characters (I guess it could be, but I always know mine pretty well) but for the odd background character who only comes on the stage every once in a while, this is PERFECT.

Of course, programs like this have been around for a couple of decades now, but this one is always with me.  So if I’m sitting at Starbucks with a pen and paper, I still have the program.

Is it worth 99¢?  I think so.

Every once in a while I stumble upon a great Internet site I wish I’d known about earlier.

This is one of them: http://www.novelandshortstory.com/blog/

It seems the Writer’s Market of yore is reinventing itself online, and this is part of it. I remember in the pre-Internet days I used to live and breathe the Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market books, shelling out good money for them every year. It was the fiction market’s bible.

When the Writer’s Market put itself online and then wanted to charge for access, I signed up for a while but quickly found I could get all the market listings I wanted for free from places such as Spicy Green Iguana (which now seems to be stagnating) and (my personal favorite) Ralan.com.

This blog, however, brings back the old warm-and-fuzzies from my days of dog-earing the old fiction bible, and has a great “Friday Feast” market news post that keeps you up to date on who’s buying and who’s gone on hiatus, etc.

If Monty Python had access to the University of British Columbia’s online English-Latin Dictionary, they would have known the name “Biggus Dickus” isn’t correct (it’s Maximus Erectum).

This Java based translator was written by Djun M. Kim, of the University’s Mathematics Department, and features a slick, fast, and uncomplicated interface.

Anyone who has a love for language will have fun looking up Latin terms, and then discovering the basis for many contemporary words.

Optimus oraculum, baby.

I’m at a new office working on a project, and like that doofus kid I used to be at school, I showed up without a pen.

So they ordered some for me, and to my surprise, the pens I received the next day were a set of Pilot Varsity disposable fountain pens.

They are so cool!  They write unbelievably smooth, the ink dries immediately, and the lines are very expressive.  It’s a real fountain pen, but brought into the 21st century.

I have some high quality and cherished fountain pens at home, but besides those, these are my newest favorite pens.

Last year a lovely and talented writer named Jennifer turned me on to Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg.

Thank you Jennifer.

Thank you.

I’ve had this book for months and I haven’t even finished it. I can only read about two pages before I suddenly have to put the book down, rush over to my desk, and write something.

This book is so unique you can judge it by weight. It’s light, yet it holds more inspiration per ounce than anything I have ever hefted before in my life. It’s like condensed inspiration, slowly and lovingly rendered down to almost pure form.

I know I’ve touted this book before, maybe here, definitely elsewhere, but even if I’m repeating myself it deserves to be repeated. I sometimes wish I’d discovered this twenty years ago, but no. Things happen for a reason. The universe has a timing all its own. Something brought Jennifer and I together one morning at a Starbucks, and I think her gift to me was to tell me about this book. So the book came into my life at a time where I can really appreciate it, and savor it, and let it inspire me one page at a time.

I cannot recommend it highly enough to anyone who writes. Not just novels, but poetry, business reports, sales receipts, shopping lists … even if you don’t write at all. It teaches you in a very Zen way to appreciate life as it happens.

It’s a writer’s job to notice things. Moments. Instances. If you notice them, you appreciate them. Then you can write about them.

But the real gift here is that you learn to notice them.

Thank you again, Jennifer.

And thank you Natalie Goldberg.

This is going to be a rave review.

I’ve been a fan of Microsoft Word ever since Word for Windows 2.0, the version that won me away from WordPerfect 5.1. However, in their struggle to improve it over the years, they’ve bloated it with a plethora of features only a few specialists could appreciate. Each successive upgrade always had some small thing here or there that made me think, “Okay, that’s cool.” But it’s become so much more than a word processor … you could use it to do almost anything.

All I want it for, is to write.

This upgrade, however, has got to be the smartest in years. Instead of throwing in another truckload of extraneous features, they concentrated on making the experience of using the software much better. The more I use it, the more I appreciate what they’ve done. And that helps me to concentrate on what I want to do.

The features they did choose to add, though, are also smart. Big case in point … I’m writing this blog in Word 2007, and it speaks directly to my blog’s native software (in this case, WordPress). I post directly to the blog from the word processor.

That rocks.

This is not to say that I wasn’t lost for the first few days. Everything has been rearranged, and that was — at first — aggravating. Some things that I couldn’t find were hidden from me in plain sight. I looked all over the place for the word count feature only to discover it’s right in front of me, on the bottom left-hand corner. Some other controls, like the AutoCorrect options, are buried deep in a very non-intuitive place … but you only have to find it once.

The most common controls are right at your fingertips. Literally. Across the top in their new “ribbon” interface, and also … and this is the real winner … almost everything you could possibly need when creating text is available in a pop up right-click menu, including the most common formatting controls. For those of you who like to keep your fingers on the keyboard and not use a mouse, you’re in for a treat. Hit the alt key and watch what happens.

All I can say is that it’s intelligent, a pleasure to use, and the working space is 100% oriented toward helping you concentrate on what you’re doing.

Very well done, Microsoft. Indeed. Kudos to you!

I have discovered the most wonderful set of albums. I don’t even remember where I came across them, probably from someone’s blog. (You know how when you visit someone’s blog and they have some annoying music playing the moment you pull it up, which alerts everyone in the office that you’re goofing off and not actually working? Well, in this case it paid off and I was glad of it.) The music is psychedelic and hypnotic and as intrusive or unobtrusive as you want it to be, which to me is amazing in itself. Now that I have kids living with me again, the television is always on, and the television makes it very hard for me to write. So I put on my iPod and queue up some music to drown it out, but the music can’t be such that it, too, distracts from my concentration.

So thus Shpongle enters my life. I don’t think I’ve been this in love with music since I first discovered Pink Floyd in the 70’s. I stumbled upon it on the net, was completely wowed by it, and went searching for more. It turns out that it’s really hard to find unless — thank God — you look on iTunes.

I know, people who’ve known about Shpongle for years will simply nod at me and say, “Where have you been?”

Well, who knows? I’ve been lost, wandering, searching to be Shpongled for years, and now that I have accepted Shpongle into my life I know that it is everything that hallucinogenic drugs were supposed to be, but weren’t: mind expanding, creativity enhancing, and inspiring. Especially if you’re into writing way out, freaky Science Fiction and/or Fantasy. Which I am.

And so here’s my rave review, years late, but better than never. Shpongle is the bee’s knees.