Writers in the internet age have a tremendous depository of resources available at the click of a mouse. Sometimes it can be a whole lot of information, and if you’re anything like me, you tend to get buzzed with reading too many sites.

Nonetheless, I find I’ve learned a lot by visiting writing-related websites, and thought maybe I could share a few of the sites I’ve found useful.

The list is completely subjective and random, and reflects my own interest in the genres I like. Some are related to book reviews, some provide writing advice, others help with writing markets, some are by renowned editors and agents. This is by no means a complete list of all the sites I visit, they’re just off the top of my head.

Here’s the list, and feel free to point us towards other sites writers could find useful in the comments to this post. Happy browsing!

Guardian Books

Nathan Bransford

Stroppy Author

Alan Rinzler

Help! I Need a Publisher!

Bookmark This

Writing Routines

“If you write one story, it may be bad; if you write a hundred, you have the odds in your favor.” ~ Edgar Rice Burroughs

The age-old writing advice: write as often as you can. Where you can. When you can.

I was talking to my local writing group friends the other day and it dawned on me that I write in snatches. At the time, I hadn’t thought much about how and when I write.

But it is important, I realize now, to be aware of this, because then it is possible to improve the routine for a better quantity and quality of writing.

I wake up first thing in the morning and write for ten minutes before I freshen up. Dream journal, whatever.

I write while waiting for a cab I have called. Write while waiting for the pasta to boil. Write a post based on writing prompts.

I do sit down and write an hour or so every once in a while, a few times a week, and usually get an average of 4000 words written a week. So, I have learned not to complain.

I know I haven’t yet made it to the stage of discipline where I sit down and write every single day at a particular place. My favourite writing days are those when I get a lot done in snatches, finish a story, for example, or do a series of writing exercises.

I’m getting a few short stories published in Antologies here and there, but I wonder if my sort of writing routine would be any good for longer stretches of work. Since most of the girls on this blog are novel-writers, prolific ones at that, I’m curious. Is it possible to write a novel in snatches?

How do you write? How often? What is your writing routine?

Last weekend, I participated in a workshop by Patrick Gale and Suchen Christine Lim.

Both of them were quite adamant about the use of pen and paper. Pen and paper, they said, would not let you edit as you draft, which is very important for first drafts.

Also, it slows down your thinking and writing, which, apparently, is a good thing. They even said something about writing by hand being an organic process as opposed to typing, closer to our hands and hearts.

This brought to mind my writing teacher and friend, who does not allow laptops in her creative writing classes for beginners. An year ago, I could not imagine putting pen to paper, it seemed an alien skill after years of typing.

But when I started off, I realised that with pen and paper I could access the creative side of my brain much easier. Thus far I had typed out all my articles, official letters, reports and so on. So, for me, the pen and paper became the starting point for all my first drafts, after which I typed them on to a document.

While typing I started editing automatically, my first draft virtually became my second draft. I printed this out, and started scribbling on it, adding in and deleting parts, then typing them in again.

This has become my de-facto drafting process for all my short stories. I have not managed a novel yet, so I don’t know what drafting an entire novel by hand would be like. As others have said, it could have its disadvantages.

Patrick Gale does all his first drafts in long hand on notebooks. As writers we have all have different processes, and I’m curious to know how other writers create their drafts. So how do you draft your work?

I have been browsing writer-friendly sites and articles, and I thought I could share some of them with the girls.

1. Useful links to terrific articles and pointers from agents etc.

2. An Agent’s Wish List

3. Fab Writing Tips

4. Checkpoints when writing scenes

5. Brainstorming Techniques

Some of the links contain links to more useful writer’s resources.

Happy Reading, Girls!

In my writing, I struggle with dialog. How do I get it to a point where the conversation is not only meaningful, it also advances the plot and reveals character?

I have done a few dialog-writing exercises, but the results are often dead, stilted.

But today I read some interesting bits about real-life conversation in a curious book called the 3 am Epiphany, which I’ve borrowed from a friend. They sort of made me realize that dialog does not have to be always clean, cut-and-dried, but can imitate life in various ways, all the while doing what I ask of it: advancing the plot and revealing character.

Without further ado, here are the pages I’m referring to:

3 am Epiphany on Conversations

Conversation examples

A Writer's New Year

Nature does not know New Year. It is we that have set up divisions between time, so we can mark the changes that happen to us, record our histories, close our books, make new beginnings.

So New Year is an entirely “unnatural” way of seeing things, but a great one nonetheless. It gives us a moment of pause when we sit back and introspect on what has passed by, and what is still to come.

It is an especially important time for writers. They ruminate over what they’ve achieved over the year, the stumbling blocks they have encountered, and how they’ve coped with it all.

Queries sent out, books under edit, a book begun, a book that’s hit a writer’s block, each writer has something to think about and resolutions to make.

I’ve seen a few awesome New Year posts this time, one of them is here. It has made me think of my role as a writer, things I ought to do, or have undertaken.

I have spoken about my New Year thoughts here. What about you? What was running through your head at the turn of the decade? What resolutions did you make, what work did you feel proud of, what do you look forward to as a writer in the New Year?