Along with the long drawn out babble that will typically dominate my site, I wanted to include a few tools that I utilize to improve my writing that may help you. Please use them at your will. Here are sites and brief descriptions on why they are important.

Duotrope.com – Here’s the tagline from the site – Duotrope’s Digest is a free, online resource for writers of fiction and poetry. It is easy to sort through, and hopefully once I finish my novel I will use it more often to enter short story contests. I can track where all of my submissions are and what the status is. Please use this one if none of the others I suggest. It’s worth your time as many of the contests offer payment and publication.

HiWrite.com  – A list of how to’s and to do’s when you have a finished manuscript and want to see what the next steps are.

Translation.babylon.com  – Why use it? – Because you may need to include some Romanian in your next book. I know I do.  Hello = Buna ziua. Or, if you are writing some far flung tale that you need basic greetings in another language.

Word Frequency Counter  – Simply drop your text in, hit submit, and gawk at often you use ‘that’ every five hundred words! This will help you see how often you use certain words and encourage you to diversify your vocabulary. When I feel a piece is particularly boring I paste the text here and, usually, I can see that I lack diversity, confirming my suspicions.

Writer’s Digest – A free site, with a download of 101 best websites for writers. Worthy of the perusal. They have a great print publication. I have a subscription to it and have referenced it quite often.

Writer’s Market – This is not a free site. However, sign up for the emails, they have some helpful tips. If you can afford the money this is a great site because it has literary agencies and will save you some time when sending out your query letters, so you don’t send your literary novel to a sci-fi only agency (no these do not exist).

If you have sites or tips that you refer to again and again, please share.

Don’t give up my friends. Challenge – 500 words done by tomorrow?

Keep Writing.