15 Websites for Writers

What is writing?

Some say, it’s merely the act of putting information into a textual format so as to be understood by another. Do you agree? I’ve always wondered, could it be more? Is it not the coming together of two minds, one active and one passive, as ideas and images are exchanged through the power of words?

It could be time travel, as claimed by Stephen King. Words are bridges from one mind to another, and their power is locked in books in a suspended animation, a lexical and semantic cryogenics that spans the ages.

What of the thoughts of writing as an art form? Tapping the human condition, are those lucky enough to tap the multi-verse of enlightened wit, pomp and vernacular; our writer-come-guides.

But are writers travellers, hiking through the jungle of their imagination? Or are they more wizards, conjuring from nothing? Some might even argue they are alchemists, forging golden words from seemingly worthless parts.

At the moment, the jury is out.

Regardless of your opinion of what makes a writer, do you believe it is possible for anyone to access the vastness of the creative mind and reproduce it in words on a page? I’m an idealist, and a believer in the idea we all originate from one great consciousness. Why shouldn’t artistic ability be a shared trait? Sure, some can alienate their natural talent with distractions and different motivations, but we all ultimately emerged from the same awareness of reality. Why can’t we all be scribes, scribblers and scratchers of the itch?

Whether you write for fun, write for profit, or write because to not write would be akin to stopping breathing or quitting eating, here’s some websites and blogs guaranteed to give you help on your creative journey, from inspiration to tips, grammar help and guides on how to get published!

The Write Life

As the tagline of the site itself says “Helping writers create, connect and earn”. Providing a ton of aid to any writer lost in the vastness of the written world, you can expect to find a veritable Santa’s sack of useful information covering literally every aspect of the life of a writer.

Writing.com

A website with 15 years of experience bringing writers together. It’s packed to bursting with tools and opportunities for writers of all levels, from amateur to pro. It acts as a place for established writers to hawk their wares, and for avid readers to seek out the next big thing too, giving it an extra edge on similar help based websites.

Writer’s Digest

Speaking of experience, these folks bring over 90 years of experience creating tools for writers. This website offers a wide range of tools and help for writers of all levels, and is especially useful as the tips are industry specific, with tips and short cuts on all aspects of the publishing and writing world from those who know.

Daily Writing Tips

A great site that offers daily inspiration for all your writing needs, from spelling to punctuation, and from vocabulary to grammar. It also boasts its fair share of prompts and stimuli too.

Chuck Wendig

TerribleMinds.com is one of my favourite fiction writer websites. The author himself has various published books, and offers some free short stories on his site for you to check out. In terms of tips, his regular blog has many alternative approaches to common writerly questions, but it is the community and flash fiction challenges that really set him apart.

Fiction Notes

Experienced author, publisher and writing coach Darcy Pattison offers a wonderful platform for fiction writers giving extremely helpful blog posts aimed specifically at those putting together their writing. I find her approach to writing both meticulous and methodical, and she does not disappoint either with her approach to writing structure and the drafting process. Offering a very focused and direct view of writing with clear, concise models for you to emulate on your creative journey, it can help you to re-evaluate finished writing, or start off new projects with a much clearer idea in your head. Check out this post on Finding Your Novel Opening and then take it from there.

The Renegade Writer

The whole ethos of this website, established by Linda Formichelli and Diana Burrell, is to empower you to live the freelance writer lifestyle on your terms, offering tips and tricks from inside the game.

Jane Friedman

Having over 15 years of experience in the publishing industry, Jane Friedman brings a wealth of expertise to her website, which boasts a blog offering veritable tit-bits of insider knowledge and industry know-how. If you’re trying to get published, or are new to the writer’s life, she’s a great starting point.

Writer’s Relief

A great site offering you help with how to submit to publishers. This covers the whole process, from start to finish, and for all levels from short poems and prose to 1,000 page epics. There is also a handy section on book design and e-books, both very useful for those looking to self-publish.

NaNoWriMo

National Novel Writing Month (1st-30th of November) is an annual opportunity for writers from all walks of life to come together and try to bash out a first draft of a novel in a short space of time.

As well as daily motivation and a supportive community of other writers, you will find a wealth of inspiration and information for your writing in their blog. There are also links to help you with what to do after you’ve finished your story, such as publishing and editing help.

The Write Practice

The emphasis here is on guided practice making perfect. Posts from an assortment of different regular and guest contributors keep the content interesting and varied, and you’ll be hard pressed not to find something here that you can take away with you. Each post is followed by a relevant prompt focused on a sustained writing practice of about 10-15 minutes, with a thriving comments section for scribblers to share their work.

Write To Done

A wonderful site giving budding writers myriad posts to help you learn new skills in writing, and then relevant tasks to help you practice what you’ve learned.

As the Chief Writer Mary Jaksch puts it, “Write to Done is about learning to write better.”

Grammarly

One of my favourite sites to use for checking niggling grammar queries and vocabulary expansion, but also offering a citation suggestion tool, all from it’s rather unique text checker. I discovered it while looking for a plagiarism checking service while marking my students’; another great feature!

Grammar Girl

If you’ve ever found yourself longing for a user friendly website that can cater for all your grammar, word use and punctuation queries, this is it. Chocka-block with helpful info presented in a captivating and concise layout, I thoroughly recommend this site for the budding grammarian!

Copyblogger

As Copyblogger says of itself:

“Since January 2006, Copyblogger has been teaching people how to create killer online content. Not bland corporate crap created to fill up a company webpage. Valuable information that attracts attention, drives traffic, and builds your business.”

If your writing needs are of a digital nature, and popularity/traffic/content are your buzzwords, you’d be hard pressed to top this site.

Not found anything you like? Check out this post on TheWriteLife.com that offers the 100 best websites for writers. If there is a site you know of that is just dying to be on this list, please let us know in the comments below!

Special thanks to stockimages @ FreeDigitalPhotos.net for use of their photos in this blog.

© Itchy Quill and ItchyQuill.WordPress.com, 2015

The Art of Writing; Practising Plagiarism (or rather, Copywork)

Let’s begin by re-assessing the nature of the title. Of course, this is not going to be an article from a writer condoning the use of another’s material so as to further your own financial and critical success.

Wikipedia defines Plagiarism as: “…the “wrongful appropriation” and “stealing and publication”of another author’s “language, thoughts, ideas or expressions” and the representation of them as one’s own original work.”

We are not here today to try to claim that the above would be good behaviour, not least the behaviour of a true gentleman/gentlewoman! In fact, we are more interested in the practice part.

The method is called Copywork. In its purest form it is just copying or writing out by hand from a written model. The focus is on improving your own writing by imitating other writers who you deem to have a style or ability worth trying to emulate.

Once upon a time in America, this was the way that children were taught to write. Even though it has now been replaced by more productive and child-specific methods, there is still very much a place for it in the advancement of writing ability in people of all ages. Before the invention of the computer, or even the printing press, anything that you wanted to keep, you would have to copy by hand. This meant that many great authors were forced to copy work, regardless of choice. Therefore many greats, as we shall see, were champions of copy work long before it was in vogue.

“Why should I do this?” I hear you cry. Well, I think you might be surprised. Here’s the Itchy Quill run-down of the benefits of Copywork, from children to adults.

Don’t start kids too young though…

Demonstration of Structure

Many different styles have been introduced throughout the long history of the English language, from Gothic to Post-Modern, Romantic to meta-fiction, and they all have their own unique traditions and subtleties that can sometimes not appear obvious. The best way to learn is by doing, and so transcribing examples of them will give you a much greater understanding of the relationship between form and Lexis in a specific writer’s work, so that the mysteries of literary customs will be yours to harness. Will you use this new found power for good or evil?

Evil… Always evil

Stylish Pro’s(e)

If you have the drive and motivation, there really is no limit to what you can try to copy. With a wealth of wonderful prose in the English language, you are positively drowning in a vast ocean of words and stylistic whales.

For a greater understanding of the ‘Western canon’, you could try your hand at imitating some Austen. Are you more of a 20th century reader? Dabble in some Woolf, Kerouac or  Vonnegut. Prefer contemporary fiction? King and Adichie are but a start. Some writers write with simplicity, some are long-winded and majestic, some just blunt and crude; yet they all have their merits and their conventions.

The point is that each author has a style that fits a greater period of writing, and to truly understand the subtle intricacies of such a writer and the style they set themselves in you can take a punt at mimicking their wordplay. We always encourage that you should try to find your own ‘voice’ in writing, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get an understanding of another’s voice beforehand. Politicians the world over utilise tried and tested speech-giving techniques to make themselves seem more caring, passionate and in control. They imitate others, often citing great speech givers like Winston Churchill and Martin Luther Kind Jr. and attempting to emulate their most effective mannerisms. Rarely would we connect politicians with positive life choices, but in this context they may be onto something. Take that mentality to your writing, and watch your words burst forth as you become a prose pro!

Politicians = Trustworthy (citation needed)

The Devil in the Details

This forces you to pay attention to details. Perhaps it is the original author’s use of a specific element of punctuation that you aren’t sure about the use of (such as the pesky semicolon), or even their ability to cite academic works in their text (a la Malcolm Gladwell). Forcing you to focus gives you great practice at using yet more elements of the English language in a context that will help you to produce it again at a later time.

“Oh right, you mean ‘figuratively’ a devil… I see”

Self-Directed

The whole purpose of this exercise is to make it as easy to check as possible. After you have finished transcribing a piece, it takes a few quick minutes to see how much is accurate and correct. It should really become a ritualistic event, much like keeping a journal, but that doesn’t mean you need to dedicate more than about 20 minutes a day to start seeing the results. It is important though that it is done by hand, as there are a lot of studies linking handwriting with cognitive recall. It’s like magic.

Expelliamus! Only joking. Come back…

Launchpad

Every great writer has a technique to help them get the pistons firing in their head before settling down to enjoy a productive session of writing. Think of them like warmers, small activities designed to get your brain functioning in the correct context, and giving it focus on the area of itself it will need to utilise in the near future.

Blast Off!

Literary Legacy

It is claimed that this technique is nearly as old as education itself, with clay tablets discovered in what would have been Mesopotamia showing evidence of scribes copying down proverbs and sayings. This tradition continued into the Ancient Egyptians and was also practiced by Jewish kings of old, as they were expected to “make their own hand-written copy of scriptures” according to wonder.riverwillow.com‘s introduction to copywork.

It is also true that many of the historical greats of written English would practice this technique, as before the invention of the printing press, much of what people wanted to create a copy of had to be hand-written. William Shakespeare, Robert Louis Stevenson and Charles Dickens are some key examples, and Benjamin Franklin even taught himself to read and write by utilising copy work techniques!

Reading is fun

Vocabulary and Grammar

That’s right; it can help you level up your V & G game. Even those of you already operating at a near Wordsworthian height can benefit from seeing both of these elements of written language in context.

I’m sure many of you have at different times thought about expanding your vocabulary, whether it be with a word a day app/calender, wider and more diverse reading or even just using a thesaurus when writing. A wide and varied vernacular is crucial for a writer, and to help understand some more advanced texts to be read for pleasure. Different genres often have their own specific lexical sets too. This technique gives you real time vocabulary seen in context, and produced in such a way by yourself in parroting that you  literally see the word fall in it’s correct place in a sentence.

The whole ‘place in a sentence’ thing is extra crucial when we consider grammar. IQ has many grammar gnomes we keep locked away in our basement ready to proof-read our posts, but not everyone can be so lucky to rely on the bookworm-readiness of fantasy creatures.

English is capable of some truly bizarre grammar rules and structures, and a great way to learn these naturally (and not with mind-numbingly boring grammar books – unless that’s your thing, which is fine) is to use them in context. A whole industry of English teachers exist around the world, qualified by and large by the fact that they know the native use of language by heart, without any real formal training. It’s this ability to ‘feel’ what is right that will be one of the greatest benefits of copywork.

The great masters of literature perfected their grammatical cohesion and word choice; let their example set you free!

“I’m so (adjective)! I (verb) (nouns)!”

Need further motivation? TheWritePractice.com has a wonderful blog giving advice on further reasons why imitating your favourite authors will help with your own writing.

This doesn’t just have to be for the fiction writers out there; copywork can be hugely useful for anyone studying or practising law, medicine, history, or any of the other writing heavy subject areas, especially those with specific academic jargon (I’m looking at you, law).

Visit TheArtOfManliness.com for their blog post on copywork, with instructions on different ways to attempt copywork, from smaller work to larger, more intricate texts.

Go forth and imitate. It might be the best thing you do today!

Special thanks to bulldogza, digidreamgrafix, Feelart, hyena reality, imagerymajestic, khongkitwiriyachan and stockimages @ FreeDigitalPhotos.net for use of their photos in this blog.

© Itchy Quill and ItchyQuill.WordPress.com, 2015