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Friday, April 10, 2015

A Writer's Tool Box?

Do you have one? You know, certain websites, real life places, people, whatever you need in order to get you through tough writing spots. It could be a naming resource, an idea factory, favorite research place or person you bounce ideas off of. We all have them, but do we recognize how important they are?

Share your resources and links with us in the comments today!

Here's what my toolbox looks like.

Google--my go to when starting any kind of research. The internet is so full of articles on everything! You just have to be careful to find credible sources.

seventhsanctum.com--My naming go to! There are also generators for combat moves, organizations, settings, equipment/technology, skills/abilities/traits, etc. I mostly use it for naming, but I did get my miniblasters from the equipment generator. When I get writers block I just browse this site and it sparks all kinds of ideas. I love to mix and match stuff here.

Grooveshark or Pandora--great for creating moods with music. I noticed today that Grooveshark has changed their format and it took forever to find where to log in.
Pandora is easier to use. However I like having control over exactly what songs play in my lists for each novel. Can I do that on Pandora?

Writers Helping Writers--this is a great site for resources. It's run by Angela and Becca of the Emotions Thesaurus. They have a toolbox of free pdfs as well as lots of links.

The Emotions Thesaurus--I have it. It's a great way to get past the telling words and think about the visual cues and internal sensations to help show those emotions. Mine is a print version because it's easier to flip back and forth.

When things are really tough and I know I just need to write something, and it doesn't matter what. I head over to Write or Die. It really helps me to get over myself and let the words flow by turning off the inner editor. You just don't have time to edit yourself when the screen is flashing at you and sirens are going off.

The last site is one I should probably visit more often. I saved it thinking it would help me avoid cliches. The truth is tropes don't really change, but we can shake things up a bit if we know what's overdone. TV Tropes covers everything. All genres, any situation, all character personalities.

There are other places I frequent, but they come and go. Those are the ones in my writing bookmarks folder on my browser.

What's in your bookmarks?

7 comments:

Ink in the Book said...

Excellent resource list. Thanks for sharing these during camp nano. They'll come in very useful:)

Charity Bradford said...

Yay! Glad I could help. Good luck with Camp nano!

Patchi said...

Hadn't heard of Seventh Sanctum or TV tropes. Great sites I'll be spending some time exploring!

Charity Bradford said...

They are both fun to just wander around in. Seventh Sanctum is a great idea "booster" especial if you ever do Nano.

Liz A. said...

When I want a name that's ordinary but out of the ordinary, I go to a site that has a list of popular Victorian names. It's why one of my characters is named Vertiline.

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~poindexterfamily/OldNames.html

Charity Bradford said...

Ooo, cool name! Thanks for sharing the link, Liz.

Traci Kenworth said...

Thanks for sharing!!