WIP Challenge Day 16, Wednesday

[jagnikjen]

It's hump day folks--we're halfway through the week. YAY!

How's your progress today? What have you accomplished?

Are you...

~ writing?
~ editing/revising?
~ beta reading/critiquing?
~ refreshing the muse?
~ dealing with real life?

Discussion topic:

This is our comm's RESOURCES post--are there other sites you visit when you write that would benefit your fellow authors?

Please share the link and a brief explanation if needed.

Comments

[jagnikjen]

The Elements of Style Online

The Guide to Good Grammar and Writing

Grammar Girl

Advanced Fiction Writing

Merriam Webster Online Dictionary

Online Thesaurus

The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation

[lacerta]

Thank you for the link to the punctuation guidelines. That is very helpful.

[sylvaine]

Did some editing today during lectures. When else? :P

As for resources - this one isn't really a resource site, more a site to get you to write (much like 750words.com): WrittenKitten, which shows you a new kitty picture every time you finish another 100 words. Because kittens! :3

[jagnikjen]

That looks like a fun link.

[lacygrey]

Today I wrote something utterly and completely different from my goal, 700w of it. Don't know what I'll do with it yet, but writing makes a change from editing and it shows me I can still do it.

A Resource: The Spinny Thing Prompt Generator. Its more than just a random generator: you can define all sorts of parameters like pairings, events and genres. By going through the process several times its almost a way of discussing with yourself about what you want to write.

[jagnikjen]

Thanks for the link!

[lilly_c]

Got some writing and a little editing done first thing this morning but not so much since. I am tempted to write something fluffy right now because I've just watched a film that was a bit more violent than I was expecting it to be :(

A resource: Guide to Writing Correctly. It was published by the University of Aberdeen (the other uni here) and it is aimed more at academic writing, than fiction but the tips and questions in each section are quite useful for both.

[jagnikjen]

Thanks for sharing--it looks very interesting and helpful.

[taelle]

Work ate me, and I haven't been writing for several days. I obviously fail. Woe is me.

... and no, I use fandom-specific resources, or google all over the place. Also, I am not a native English speaker, so if I worry about grammar I prefer looking for a beta editor.

[jagnikjen]

As for progress, even without my original manuscript doc (I misplaced my thumb drive--yikes), I wrote. I don't know how good it is or how much I'll keep, but I had to work through some stuff.

I have since found my thumb drive (whew!) and am piddling with a fanfic. :)

[bay_alexison]

Got another 600 words down for my Big Bang. A bit stuck how I'll proceed up to the ending, so for the rest of tonight I'm going to do some canon and history research (said I would do that last time, but didn't get the chance to due to a family emergency, oi).

I too more or less use fandom resources and google stuff for research. Used yWriter sometimes for writing organization, but now these days I had been using Scrivener. That reminds me, I need to go update some writing stuff in there, lol.

[lacygrey]

I agree that ywriter is good for organisation. I'm using it at the moment for my first long fic. I'm finding a few of the editing options are a little bit cranky, but then I'm still getting used to it.

What do you think of Scrivner in comparison? Are there things it can do that ywriter can't? Can it do the things they both do better than ywriter?

[bay_alexison]

I admit I haven't played around with yWriter for a while, but I think I like Scrivener better as it gives better visualization of my chapters, scenes, notes, etc. as I can put a progress report on them (First Draft, Revised Draft, Done, etc.). Scrievener also has pre-made templates that you can use to write out your characters and settings. What I like better of yWriter though is if I have some scenes plan I can fill in extra details like POV of character, setting and important objects in there, etc.

[lacygrey]

I think I will have to try scrivener next for comparison. It looks a little showy but as there's a free demo it should be worth giving it a go.

Ywriter does have basic status and progress report options, but no templates. Text handling (one standard enforced indentation, problems applying fonts, highlighting and selecting text), as Ive said is one of the weaker points, but the organisational tools are good.

At the moment, Im trying to get a ficlet text on my screen to look as much as possible like it will when posted in a LJ comment. The best tools for this still to be Word or Open office

[linaewen]

I'm quite frustrated with Real Life at the moment. I have several story things that I'm itching to get to, and if I could just sit with them quietly for a time, I know I'd have some awesome writing coming out of it -- but no, RL will not allow it. *sigh*

I have some time away for the next ten days, so maybe that will help....

One of my resources is this:

http://www.etymonline.com/

This is helpful for checking on how "old" a word is; some of my work involves words that will spoil the tone of the story if they are actually too modern for the setting.

[jagnikjen]

Great link. Thanks for sharing it!