Writer's Resources from Quintessential Quill

https://www.quintessentialquill.com/writer-s-resouces

[Link] 10 Mind-Blowing Tips on How to Stop Procrastinating

by Jack Milgram
 
Ever asked yourself if there’s a way to learn how to stop procrastinating? Tired of anxiety and panic because of looming deadlines? Have you already tried many time management techniques and found only one effective way to stay productive—to tie yourself to the chair?

We can relate to these questions, as many of us have asked ourselves the same things. Procrastination seems an enemy to all of us—something that makes us feel lazy, guilty, and stressed out.

But want to know the best part?

Perhaps, procrastination can be to your advantage; instead of a flaw.

How does it work? Firstly, what does procrastination mean?

Here’s a typical procrastination definition: an act of postponing or delaying some tasks often connected with work or studies.

It doesn’t mean you forget to complete some assignments or get fired because of your laziness. More often, the real problem is due to the anxiety and stress you feel before a deadline.

In other words, procrastinators usually do as much work as non-procrastinators—the difference between them is how many hours they spend on actually completing the tasks.

Read the full article: https://custom-writing.org/blog/how-to-stop-procrastinating

Free "The Art of Storytelling" Class Online from Pixar in a Box

"What makes someone a good storyteller? Storytelling is something we all do naturally, starting at a young age, but there’s a difference between good storytelling and great storytelling. In this lesson you’ll hear from Pixar directors and story artists about how they got their start, what stories inspire them, and you’ll begin to think about what kinds of stories you might want to tell." 

Take the class now.

[Link] The 34 Best Tools for Improving Your Writing Skills

by James Hicks

Words are hard.

Whether you’re a published author or just getting started with blogging, it’s not always easy to string words together in a way that makes sense, sounds good, and makes the reader feel something.

But every marketer should be able to write — and, more importantly, every marketer can write. It’s just a matter of finding the writing environment that works best for you, expanding your vocabulary, asking for feedback (and listening to it), and practicing.

Luckily, there are a slew of great tools you can use to help improve your writing. Check out the list below, and feel free to add the most helpful ones you use in the comment section.

The 34 Best Tools for Improving Your Writing

1) Daily Page

“Writer’s block is a comforting lie we tell ourselves so we can stop writing and go do other, more pleasurable things,” said Beth Dunn, HubSpot’s UX writer and editor. “If your fingers still work, you can write. Sit down at the same time every day and start typing.”

Want to get into the habit of writing every day, but don’t know what to write about? Daily Page emails you a writing prompt every morning, and you have the rest of the day to write your response. Once you’ve written your response to the prompt, you can either share it or keep it private.

2) 750 Words

Another way to practice your writing is to do a “brain dump” exercise using a tool like 750 Words. “Brain dumping” means getting all that stuff in your head down on paper — without having to worry about incomplete ideas, tangents, and private stuff.

It’s not blogging or status updating — it’s just you, writing whatever you want on a totally private account, without ever having to title your content or tag topics or share with your friends.

What it does do is track your word count so you’re sure to write 750 words (about three pages of writing). Plus, it’s gamified, which makes it kind of fun: You get a point for writing anything at all, two points for writing 750 words or more, and more points if you write consistently. And every time you write, it’ll give you some cool statistics on how much time you spent writing, the feelings and themes of your words, and so on.

Read the full article: http://hightrafficwealthprogram.com/reviews/the-34-best-tools-for-improving-your-writing-skills/

Practicing Writing -- Check Out This Resource!

Here's a resource you really should check out:

Erika Dreifus -- Practicing Writing

Erika Dreifus is the author of Quiet Americans, a short-story collection that is largely inspired by the histories and experiences of her paternal grandparents, German Jews who escaped Nazi persecution and immigrated to the United States in the late 1930s. Erika earned undergraduate and graduate degrees from Harvard University, where she taught history, literature, and writing for several years. Currently, she lives in New York City, where she works as Media Editor for Fig Tree Books.

Online Writing Resources

What are your favorite online resources for writers, and why do you find them effective, inspiring, etc.?

Frank Edler: I always like to run my work through Hemingwayapp.com very helpful at picking out complicated sentences, over use of adverbs and extra wording in general.

James Bojaciuk: The two resources I use the most are on the extreme opposite ends of the sliding scale between "professionally austere" and "likely designed by a teenage girl."

For the professional in all of us, you owe it to yourself to check out Celtx. It's not the most useful thing for the novelist, but if you find yourself hard at work on anything from a script to a comic book to a audio drama, Celtx is invaluable. Thankfully, it's also free.

For the corner of your soul that's in love with Disney sitcoms, there's Written? Kitten! It's like Write or Die, except rewarding you with fluffy balls of purrs instead of deleting your work. The keen thing about this site, though, is that you can immediately edit it to reward you with whatever you'd like. Dinosaurs, explosions, Arnold Schwarzenegger, you name it.

Gordon Dymowski: For writing drafts, I use LibreOffice Writer. (LibreOffice is a free, open source alternative to Word). I like the fact that Writer is a little old-school, no frills, and allows me to concentrate on drafts before performing a final polish. (I do have Microsoft Office, but I tend to use that for freelance work documents, and LibreOffice helps liberate me creatively.

For motivational reading, the blog Write to Done. It's a little bit more professionally-oriented (meaning that it can sound a bit spammy), but contains some great pieces of advice on moving through difficult pieces, focusing on efforts, etc.

Great podcasts on writing include both Perry Constantine's EXPLODING TYPEWRITER and WRITING EXCUSES. The latter can be a bit too dry, and feels much more lecture-oriented, but it's short enough (20 minutes) that it's more of a diversion. Exploding Typewriter' goes into greater depth and contains more "practical" advice on writing.

Rebekah McAuliffe: It really it depends on what kind of writing you're doing. For nonfiction, I definitely recommend Purdue OWL -- Online Writing Lab. It has everything you need from structure to citation. But for fiction, personally I just go with the flow. The resources I use are mainly research based. For example, when researching ALPHA, I used everything from my university's library to YouTube.