Sunday, February 3, 2008

Blogs, websites and other stuff for writers

This post is a collection of writing links you might like to check out.

I haven't included full reviews. I might take them individually and do that another time, but I have found them all very useful and so have listed them in no particular order.


Nick Daws' blog and website are full of great general writing advice, tips and ideas, and competitions.

This is a very interesting article by Nick: 'Hidden Profits in 'Spare Change' Time'


The very lovely Leo Babauta's excellent new writing blog Write to Done has posts including:

Revision and the Art of Being Concise

What Makes Great Blog Writing?

Short Stories: The Art of the Start


Leo also created the fab Zen Habits.

If you only look at one thing on this site, make it this one: Create a New Habit in February.

But I hope you get chance to read a lot more! The posts on Zen Habits are in various categories (one for each day of the week):

Productivity and Organisation - Top 50 Productivity Blogs

Finance and Family - Financial Zen: How to Get Financial Peace of Mind

Simplicity - Haiku Productivity: The Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the Essential

Happiness - Handbook For Life: 52 Tips for Happiness and productivity

Health - 10 Tasty, Easy and Healthy Breakfast Ideas


The Zen Habits Tumblelog is full of 'links, quotes, photos, videos and more that might catch your fancy' (it certainly catches mine!)


Writers' News is full of news, competitions and great links. There are lots of sections about writing and publishing in the links, for example:

Research and Other Resources

The British Library

Institute of Historical Research

MacMillan New Words


Seth Godin's Blog is full of fab ideas.

Check out his Big Ideas Post and TrackBacks.

Download Seth's free e-book about blogging: Wh0's There?



The Aelf's Bloggery, by Gene Alvin, is lovely and packed with helpful advice and useful information about writing.

See also Aelf's Books and his Good Stuff (some really useful free resources for writers)


The Writing Center, University of North Carolina has provided some useful handouts for writing papers, citations, style and sentence level concerns, specific writing assignments, and writing for specific fields.

This handout on Writing Anxiety is great.


The Dabbling Mum is a site I have found helpful for various reasons for a long time.

Check out the Writer's Magazine, full of articles about all kinds of writing and how to earn money from writing (aimed at stay-at-home mums.)

The Dabbling Mum also has useful sections for Business, Competitions, Parenting, Reviews, and yummy Recipes, each with a story attached (what a fab idea!)

Scroll down the home page to sign up to one or more of three free newsletters (Business, Parenting, Writing) and claim three free e-books.


Copyblogger is great for useful info and humourous articles about blogging, copywriting and marketing, under various sub-headings:

Blog Psychology - The Mark Twain Guide to Better Blogging

Creativity - Three Great Writing Techniques I Found While Watching Television


Mark McGuinness writes an excellent blog called Wishful Thinking, providing inspiration for creative professionals.

Download his fantastic free e-book: Time Management for Creative Professionals


For daily doses of inspiration, check out Karl Moore's uplifting blog. Not a blog aimed at writers in particular, but one I love and hope you will enjoy.

:o)

I'm off to make a coffee and then try out all these links to make sure I've done them properly! I'll do it again soon, from a different angle. I'm so excited about embedding links, it's great, opening up all sorts of possibilities ...

Thanks again to the lovely aliqot for telling me how to do it (and the lovely SallyQ for telling her!)

Check out the fab 'What do you write with?' on aliqot's freewebs site.

10 comments:

Mark McGuinness said...

Thanks for the links! Great list of resources.

Moondreamer said...

Mark, you're very welcome (Wishful Thinking is fab!) and thank you :o)

Lane Mathias said...

Gosh there's LOADS to check out here!

Thank you:-)

Moondreamer said...

You're welcome Lane!

I feel a little guilty though ... some of these sites/blogs are seriously addictive!

:o)

aliqot said...

Thanks for the links, and the plug.
Sounds as though I'm talking plumbing here. ;-)

I'm finding the blogworld addictive as well.

Ann Marie said...

You have some really intuitive blogging here! Your writing is wonderful and easily addictive!

Have you ever considered being published?

Ann Marie

Karen said...

Wow, there's so much to look at there - really interesting, thanks :) I've just read the Writing Techniques from watching Television, which was rather useful actually!

Moondreamer said...

You're welcome, aliqot!

Yes very addictive, but great therapy too!

:o)


Wow! Thank you Ann Marie!

No, not seriously thought about it. (Have written a few things but never get as far as submitting them anywhere!)

I popped over to say hello on your blog, but you don't have one! Perhaps you're just thinking of starting one?

If so, welcome! Enjoy!

:o)


You're welcome, Karen!

Glad you found it interesting. I love the stuff on Copyblogger! Lots of fresh takes on things.

:o)

Ann Marie said...

You are welcome!

I am not a blogger, but I read lots of them digging for new writers. I work for an online publisher. Can you get my email address from here?

Ann Marie

Moondreamer said...

I can't see anything except your name, Ann Marie, but you can email me at moondreamer_daisy@hotmail.com

I'm very interested to hear more!

:o)