Some Useful Internet Resources for Writers

Going it Alone as a Writer

One of the things I did this week was to compile a list for my students of some internet resources they might find useful for their writing. We've now had our last class of the academic year and one or two people were already wondering how they were going to survive till September without any writing classes to go to! How could they keep their writing going?

Here are some writing resources I found which I thought they might enjoy using over the summer.

Increase Your Vocabulary

Students have often said to me, 'I wish I had a bigger vocabulary, but I don't know how to go about learning new words without it taking a lot of effort.' In our lessons, there are often some words mentioned which are new to at least some of them, but I wanted to find some way they could enlarge their vocabulary at home as well.

The Word of the Day site provides readers with a new word every single day. As well as definitions, it also gives examples from literature of the words being used in context, which really help helps to bring them to life. It includes information on the foreign word the new word was originally derived from. There's also an archive of past Words of the Day - I could happily spend hours browsing through this site!

Read Poetry

There's a vast amount of poetry available on the internet, but if you don't know where to start, there's a useful website that will send you a poem every week. It's from the Oxford Brookes Poetry Centre. A few of the poems are not very easy to read unless you're very familiar with modern poetry, but there are many that will appeal to a wider readership. Again, you can lose yourself browsing through their archive of poems. I particularly liked 'In Praise of Aunts', '-wards', and 'Muriel'.

Read Writing News and Features

If you want to know about competitions and markets for your writing as well as gaining access to a large archive of articles about all aspects of writing, Writing World is a very useful website to visit. You can also sign up there to receive a regular newsletter about writing opportunities, news, and features.

Of course, there is my own daily blog, The Writing Wizard, which provides step-by-step guidance on how to write for aspiring writers and this daily blog too.

These examples are just a few of the many resources for creative writers to be found on the internet.

The Public Library

Don't just confine yourself to online sources though. Public libraries still have a lot to offer, even in this technological age. My own, moderately-sized, library provides not only novels and non-fiction, but also books on many aspects of writing, collections of short stories, and even talking books on cassette or CD. I'm always surprised at how much is available, even in these days of library funding cut-backs.

I hope you'll enjoy sampling some of these websites. Don't forget to log in tomorrow though, to read yet another of my blogs on creative writing. And please do visit The Writing Wizard too. I'd love to add a touch of magic to your writing.