Resources for writers

This resource list is for writers to improve their work, get published, enter competitions and join the worldwide writing community.

You don’t have to be a professional to enjoy writing or to publish your work. Anyone can enter writing competitions and have their work critiqued.

Writing prompts

• Writing prompts – oriented towards school students, but good for all ages.
• Writer’s Digest’s creative writing prompts.
• Daily writing prompts from The Daily Post.
• Writing and conversation prompts on my Patreon page.
• Julia Cameron’s The Right to Write

International writing events

• April: NaPoWriMo – National Poetry Writing Month. 30 poems, one each day.
• November: NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month. A novel in a month.

International competitions

• JustaContest.com – list of local and international writing contests.
• WinningWriters.com – list of poetry contests (requires a free newsletter subscription for a partial list, or premium membership for the full list).
• Writers Reign – writing contests of all types: poetry, books, performance arts, non-fiction and short stories.
• Book Trust – list of short story competitions.

Great writing software, apps and websites

• 750words.com – encourages you with accolades to write 750 words daily.
• Evernote – a great note collation tool, used in combination with Scrivener for longer writing tasks.
• OneNote has caught up and in some ways overtaken Evernote, offering more functionality.
• Scrivener – the best and most flexible editor for books and long research papers.

Recommended books

• The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition – William Strunk Jr., E.B. White and Roger Angell (And a free online searchable version)
• Eats, shoots and leaves – Lynn Truss (amazon.de, amazon.com) A wonderfully humorous book on why punctuation is important.
• Writing Research Papers: A Complete Guide – James D. Lester (amazon.de, amazon.com)
• The Craft of Research – Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G. Colomb, Joseph M. Williams (amazon.de, amazon.com)

Free online writing courses and tutorials

• RMIT Writing Lab.
• Writing and humanistic studies – from MIT Open Courseware.
• The Online Writing Lab (OWL) – Purdue University. For students of all ages, ESL students and professional writers.
• A freelance writing career guide – useful for those thinking about becoming freelance writers.
• Writing Research Papers – David R. Caprette, Rice University
• Online guide to writing and research – University of Maryland University College
• Intro to Tech Communication – MIT Open Courseware
• Professional, Technical writing – Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL)
• Technical Writing – Wikiversity courses and articles
• Editing Hacks – learn editing techniques, watch tutorials and read interviews with professional editors.
• Proofreading – Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL)

Blogs on writing

• The Renegade Writer on freelance writing
• Men with Pens
• Write to Done

Writing platforms

• As HubPages has been subsumed into the Arena Group, they have phased out their sites where they share revenue for writers. I can no longer recommend this platform, and am in the process to moving my content off to here, my own website.