Writer's
Toolkit
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Books about
Writing, Magazines about Writing, Good Sites about Writing,
Book review
Web Sites, Contest Listings, Markets, Other Writers,
The Irish
Writing Life, Copyright, Newsgroups,
Research Resources,
Improve your
Writing, Search Engine Tips, Taxes,
Posting things to other Countries
Grace's Writing About Writing
Books
about Writing
Caveat : It is easy to buy and not use writing
books, these ones helped me
'Telling Lies for Fun and Profit' by Lawrence Block. I like the title
but it improved my writing
'The Writer's Handbook' edited by Barry Turner - the
big book of market listings
'How to Write Damn Good Fiction' by James N. Frey - perfect for novel revisions
C. Hope Clark's e-books
are excellent - she is behind the 'Funds for Writers' e-zines which are packed
with postive writing knowledge. I use these e-books regularly.
Magazines
about Writing
Book
review Web Sites
Some of these pay only in bylines while others pay a few
dollars. You will not make your fortune, but it is fun work for anybody who has a love of
books. Some sites require samples of your work elsewhere, others welcome newbies. Always
be careful to avoid selling all rights unless you're sure you don't want to
display/sell the review anywhere else.
Contest
Listings
Rather than list individual contests, here is a list of Web
sites which provide contest listings. Remember to use search engines yourself as well.
Past issues of my column for Writer Online's Contest
Correspondent can be accessed online but my 'Writing Contest Expert' series
of e-books will be
available later this year. Email grace@gracetierney.com
for advance orders.
Other
Writers
The
Irish Writing Life
- Irish Writers' Centre
- the best writing resource in Ireland
- Irish Writers'
Union
- Virtual
Writer - the Longford Literary Project
- Albedo -
well respected Irish Science Fiction/Fantasy e-zine
- The Dublin
Writers' Festival - 12th to 15th June 2003
- Lilliput Press -
publishers, mainly non-fiction
- Poolbeg - publishers,
mainly chick-lit
- National Library of Ireland
- TighFili - poetry and
prose writing hub
- AnamCara (Soul
Friend) Writers' Retreat - Co. Cork
- Tyrone Guthrie
Writers' Retreat - Co. Monaghan
- Find stone age
sites around Ireland
- Up to the minute
Irish news and press releases
- West 47 Irish
Literary magazine
- Whispers and
Shouts Irish Literary magazine
- Links on writing
in Ireland and the UK
- Boyle Arts Council,
including annual poetry contest
- Well written, hip Irish
News
- Parody of
The Irish Times
- Contempory
Irish writing and writers
- Irish Publishers
- John Burns at the Times reported in July 2005 that Irish
authors will soon be paid every time one of their books is borrowed from a public library.
Under pressure from the European commission, the Irish government announced the creation
of a public lending right (PLR). Popular Irish authors, such as Maeve Binchy and Roddy
Doyle, already get royalty payments when their books are borrowed from British libraries,
but the Irish government has refused for years to set up a similar scheme, arguing that
the Irish library system was too small. The bill will now be introduced in the Dail before
the end of 2005. Several aspects of the British scheme are likely to be copied in Ireland
— such as the maximum payment to authors (£6,000 or about €8,700), and the need
for writers to register in order to avail of PLR. There is also likely to be a minimum
threshold, such as 100 loans or €5, before a royalty payment is processed. “The
number of loans is going up,” said Alun Bevan of the Library Council, which may be
chosen by the government to implement the scheme. “Ireland is bucking the trend in
other European countries, which are seeing a decline.” Academic libraries will be
exempt from the scheme. EU authors will also be eligible for royalty payments. Irish
authors shared a £120,000 (€174,000) payment from Britain last year.
- reference material from
Irish libraries and archives about
Ireland
- CIRCA Art
Magazine and their
guidelines
-
Xclusive Magazine - Monthly Irish multicultural lifestyle magazine
- Fingal
Arts Office
Markets
Most of the Good Sites
about Writing listed below also provide market listings. Always read the writer's
guidelines and check payment details.
- Funds for Writers e-zines
and e-books
- Towse's
List excellent, regularly updated
- WriteLink
(UK, updated at start of each month)
- Absolute
Write free weekly newsletter includes good market listings
- Behemoth
(sorted by deadline date)
- Writer's Market
- online version, paid subscription required
- FreelanceBank -
list of freelance projects, mainly USA
- Freelance BBS -
searchable freelance work index, mainly USA
- Gadfly List
- alphabetized list of magazines in all fields, mainly USA, all take e-submissions and all
pay
- Public Lending
Rights - cash earned by an author from library-lendings of their books in 22 countries
- Gary
Hayden's UK Fiction Markets List - UK magazines, fiction and non-fiction
- Places
for Writers - calls for submissions - paid and voluntary, fiction and non-fiction -
many are Canadian based
- Check here for
response times and 'black holes' - particularly good for sci-fi venues but not exclusively
- E-zine list - very
comprehensive, well designed, and easy to use but most of the zines will not pay
contributors in cash
- Global Newspaper
Listing
- UK
magazine information - including circulations, target audience, and sometimes contact
information
- query
letters, contracts, working with an editor, promoting a book etc
- UK market
listings
- Craigslist, Dublin
- Fiction
ezines
- Magazine listing
for North America and UK, categorised and searchable
- 71 ways for
writers to make money
- Agent listing for UK
and USA
- Irish
Magazines, including circulation and contact information
- Calls for short story
submissions
- Children's
book publishers, with contact info and guidelines, courtesy of S.L. Cook
- First
Book query letters, contracts, working with an editor, promoting the book etc
- Finding
a publisher
Copyright
Remember that while the concept of copyright exists in most
countries, the details of how that law is applied and the penalties for breaking it are
different from country to country. Most of the links below refer to US copyright issues.
Copyright also applies to images so beware of using pictures you do not own to illustrate
articles or your Web site. If in doubt, consult a member of the legal profession.
Good
Sites about Writing
- Absolute
Write there are plenty of good articles here and a free weekly newsletter which I've
found very useful for ideas, advice, contests, and markets.
- Writer Online
I'm biased because I
write for these people but they're not a bad place to start for market and craft
advice
- Holly Lisle
Forward Motion Community is a US based online writers group and lots of very useful
articles by Holly Lisle herself about starting out, coping with rejection and reactions of
others to the job of being a writer.
- Writelink is a UK based
site which provides good monthly information on contests, markets, and jobs. Past issues
are archived on site and some writing courses are available free via email. I have used
their short story course and can recommend it.
- All the links about query letters and
writing contracts you could ever need
- Writer's Write is
a comprehensive site with advice on craft of writing and tonnes of links to paying markets
(and guidelines, although some of these can be out of date), jobs, and a monthly online
newsletter about the writing life
- The Writers' Net
provides profile pages, email accounts, and advice to writers, editors, publishers, and
agents
- For Writers - good
US based site which lists markets, writing groups, author sites etc
- The Shaw Guide
to Writing Conferences and Workshops - they even include several in Ireland and get
Brownie Points for that.
- Preditors
& Editors List - good for vetting agents. See also FictionAddiction's Agent Watch.
- The Truth about
Publishing - hard facts on why most novellists are never published
- Book
publicist's Blog - great tips for self-promoters
Newsgroups
- alt.journalism.freelance - sometimes has good advice
- misc.writing.moderated - moderated and thoughtful
Research
Resources
I could write a book (hey, maybe I should?) on the topic of
getting the best out of search engines but the best advice is to try them out for
yourself, keep your search terms accurate and inventive, and always read the advanced
search hints provided (they are there for a good reason). My favourite search engine is
google (www.google.com) but other good ones include www.yahoo.com (www.yahoo.co.uk allows
you to narrow your search to UK and Irish sites which can be a blessing sometimes),
www.thegoodspider.com (donate money to charity while you surf), and www.webcrawler.com (a
meta-search engine).
- Encyclopedia.com -
free searchable database of more than 14,000 articles, including ones on modern events as
well as historic figures.
- Searchable biographies
of over 25,000 personalities, slight US bias
- Searchable biographies
of over 28,000 notable men and women, the results are short but the search options are
good
- CoolQuotes is a
great source of quotations on any topic
- Use Quoteworld to
find the source of a quotation or just browse by topic. Note - there are popups on this
site
- The
Quotations Home Page - no ads, more than 23,000 quotations including contemporary
quotations that you won't find in the quote-books
- Got a question ? Ask
Jeeves !
- Oxford English
Dictionary
- International
dictionaries
- (over 18s only please) Dictionary of bad language in more than
162 languages
- Dictionary
- Reverse
Dictionary you describe a concept/profession/hobby/phobia whatever and it gives you
the word, useful for when words fail you
- British
vs. US spelling from the Encyclopedia Britannica
- Irish
slang
- Historical resources
- Women in History
- Names for characters
- More names for
characters
- American
character names back to 1880s
- historic
names in US and their popularity graphed
- Searchable names and
their meanings
- Gaelic
character names
- Phobias
- For any kind of research
- For prompting story ideas
- Searchable classics,
thesaurus, and dictionary
- Good for cross-references
- Sources and news services
- Find an expert to
quote in your story
- US States and their
postal abbreviations
- worksheet
for targeting a magazine market
- More statistics than
anyone could ever want, this is the page about Ireland
- Lyrics and Meanings of
Nursery Rhymes
- This day in history
(great for homemade birthday cards)
- Online
jigsaw puzzles (for when you need to avoid work!)
- The
truth about brass monkeys
- Use calendars for inspiration for new ideas;
- MyDailyPlan
- Holidays
and festivals world-wide
- VP Calendar
- HiDates
- Yahoo Holidays
- Clear answers on most
topics
- Historic city
maps - easily searchable
- meanings of phrases and slang
- Find A Grave - lists
the burial sites of thousands of personalities around the world, as well as 7.6 million
graves of regular people. There are even cross references, by location, by claim to fame,
year of death, etc.
- collection of
reference sites that
writers might need
Improve
your Writing
- CritiqueCircle -
looking for good in-depth critiques, this is the place
- A list of Web
sites that play with words - from acronyms to cliches and riddles to Shakespearan
insults - this is a great place to expand your knowledge of the English language.
- American-English
dictionary and thesaurus
- Guide to the differences
between US and British English usage - including slang.
- Proofreader's
hall of shame
- This project claims to be 80% accurate in determining your gender based on a piece
of your writing - use it to see if your POV character's gender rings true - it's fun
and may make you re-visit your 'voice' for particular pieces.
- Good thesaurus, uses
American-English spellings
- Dictionary (free
unlike many others)
- There are 14 punctuation marks
used in English (according to 'The West Wing' anyhow), so I looked them up and learned in
the process.
- 11
rules of writing
- A clear guide to grammar and
writing arranged by topics
- Advice on how to introduce variety in your sentence
structure
- For a glimpse into the
world of a US newspaper copyeditor check out The Slot. It's always useful to know why
a particular sentence gave the editor an apoplexy
- Times Style Guide
- Acrobat (.pdf) document explaining the marks
proofreaders use.
- Editing and grammar tips
- Whom Tip - To decide whether to use 'who' or 'whom',
mentally re-word the phrase and substitute 'she' for 'who' and 'her' for 'whom'
- Great opening lines of
books
- Novel
writing advice, a series of excellent articles
- Pangrams - The sentence, "A mad boxer shot a quick,
gloved jab to the jaw of his dizzy opponent." contains all letters of the alphabet,
this is a pangram. I've been fascinated by these since reading Mark Dunn's novel
"ella minnow pea" (2001, Methuen Publishing) about censorship and language. See
here are a few more examples drawn from that book;
- The wicked peon quivered, then gazed balefully at the
judges who examined him
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
A quick move by the enemy will jeopardize six fine gun boats
Back in my quaint garden, jaunty zinniasvie with flaunting phlox
John Prady, give me a black walnut box of quite small size
Six big devils from Japan quickly forgot how to waltz
My girl wove six dozen plaid jackets before she quit
Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs
Few quips galvanized the mock jury box
- The Associated Press Stylebook by Norm Goldstein (Buy at Amazon.com
or Amazon.co.uk)
- The
Associated Press Stylebook quizzes
- Interview
your character (I've used this and it is great)
- Treat yourself to a
beautiful writing notebook
when you reach a writing goal
- Promote yourself at
18Questions or just read other writers' tips
Search
Engine Tips
- Clustering search engine
that groups results by url extension, source engine, topics - useful for taking out
clutter
- The following applies in Google (and most other search
engines)
- You're trying to find info on the ica ...
- search engines are not case sensitive so don't bother with
capitals
- They also ignore the s that turns things into plurals and
keywords that are very common (ie. The, and...) are ignored
- search for one keyword : ICA
- search for an exact phrase : "Irish Countrywomens
Association"
- search for several keywords : country association
- search for country but pages MUST have the word
'association' on them :
country +association
- search for country and association but exclude pages with
the word 'milk' on
them : country association -milk
- The phrase search and the use of + are the most useful in my
experience.
- Also sometimes Yahoo will find pages that Google doesn't
because they search in slightly different ways.
Taxes
Posting
things to other Countries
Anybody know of other places where I can buy stamps online
(eg. Canada, Australia, France etc) ? I would like to expand this list.
Please contact me
if any of these links become obsolete. I use them myself so they should be ok, but the Web
changes fast.
All photography and text on these pages, except when
otherwise indicated, are copyright Grace Tierney, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007,
2008