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NaNoWriMo Winner!

Writing

Wooo! I did it! I won NaNoWriMo! Yeah, it took me the weekend to recouperate enough to write this post, but there it is! Lol (Okay, in truth, my mom in law is also in town, so that’s my excuse!)

What is NaNoWriMo?

For those who don’t know, National Novel Writing Month happens every November and it is a personal challenge to write 50,000 words (usually on a novel, not always) in 30 days. Kinda crazy, yeah. But a lot of fun and incredibly productive.

It’s not always easy. It means writing an average of 1667 words each day. That may sound daunting, but it isn’t. Not really. Sit down with a 15 minute timer and write. Don’t allow yourself to stop for more than 5 seconds at a time. Don’t sit, staring at the screen, thinking about what you’re going to write. Actually write. For fifteen full minutes. Then count your words.

I’ve discovered that if I’m really in the zone, I can kick out 700 words in 15 minutes. But that’s not a usual 15 minute sprint. The absolute minimum I get is 400 words. But that’s not a usual 15 minute sprint either. A usual 15 minute sprint is about 550 words.

With 550 words every 15 minutes, I can write 2200 words in an hour. (You can probably get somewhere in the ballpark too. I’ve noticed that most writers can get at least 1500 words in an hour.)

So it’s not the number of words that’s the challenge. It’s the consistency of doing it every day.

And then there are the non NaNoWriMo events

In addition to NaNoWriMo and the usual Thanksgiving holiday, I also had an out of state wedding in the first part of November. And when I got home, my mother in law came over from Europe for a visit. We picked her up at the airport 4 days after we got back into town and she was here… Well, she’s still here. 😉

Since I knew I was going to have a lot of distractions this year, I front-loaded my writing. I wrote at least 2500 words almost every day for the first week. Don’t get me wrong. I was still behind by day 20, but I wasn’t nearly as behind as I would have been.

And I pulled it out in the end, so go me! 😀

What I used

Scrivener for Windows (of course!)

Write or Die 2 (Gaaaah! There’s a version 3!!!)

Jamie Raintree’s Writing & Revision Tracker (new one’s coming out soon! Squee!)

Writing sprints with my Tribe (if you haven’t joined The Writing Tribe, why not?)

What I worked on

I was a bit of a rebel this year and did two different projects. First, I did a short story (about 11k words) that will be a bridge between Jivaja and Book 2 (which is, as yet, title-less). And then, I wrote the remaining words on Book 2. So that is more than halfway done!

The short story is already with my beta readers and once I figure out the title of that, I’ll have a cover. I’m looking to release it in January. But if you’ve read Jivaja (or plan to read Jivaja) and want a free copy, drop your email address in this form and I’ll let you know when it’s available! It’s my little way of saying

As a note, it isn’t a stand-alone story. You will definitely want to have read Jivaja first.

All very exciting! Stay tuned for more cool news coming up!

Unless attributed otherwise, all images are CC0 licensed.

Also, links in this blog post may be affiliate links. This means that if you purchase something, I will get a small percentage of it, though it does not increase your cost in any way. I appreciate you using my links 🙂

Tool Time Tuesday: ProWritingAid

Tool Time Tuesday

Every other Tuesday, we talk about the different tools available for writers to make life easier (theoretically 😉 ).

Today’s Tool: ProWritingAid

Platform: Browser, Windows, Mac, pretty much everything

Cost: Free web version; Premium version available ($50/yr, price breaks available for multiple years; $175/lifetime; discounts for edu folks & bulk purchasing)

What it does: Wow. When I found this a couple years ago, I was astounded and fell in love all at the same time! While it can’t tell you whether your story is a good story, it can tell you how to improve your actual craft.

This is what Word’s Grammar check aspires to be! I use this on all my work before it goes to a professional editor (or acquisitions editor/agent if I’m submitting). I cannot accurately convey the depth of my love for this little program!

Okay, Venessa, enough praise. Show me!

So you can choose to use the free web version and do a section of your work at a time. If you can’t afford the premium version, this is a perfectly good way to do it. It will take longer, because you’ll be doing a lot of copying and pasting, but you’ll get the full functionality of the program, just a piece at a time.

If you upgrade, you can download the software to your computer (there’s even a 2-week free trial!). But here’s the brilliant part: you can use the software with the program you write in, whether it’s Word, Google Docs, Open Office. I use Scrivener for Windows. Here’s what ProWritingAid looks like when I open my novel, Soul Cavern, in it:

ProWritingAid

Sorry, you don’t get to see the text! Check out FreeFictionFriday later this week, if you want to read it 🙂

As you can see, it shows me all of my writing, in the Scrivener structure, and lets me work on it piece by piece. I use this for every story I write.

Check out all the features across the top. Style, Grammar, Overused words (it’s worth the price for just these three things alone!), Readability, Cliches, Sticky sentences (these are unnecessary words/sentences that slow your reader down), Diction, Repeats, Echoes, and Sentence lengths. The More tab has a dozen other tools like Thesaurus, Pacing, Pronouns, and, of course, more.

This month's #ToolTimeTuesday, featuring @ProWritingAid: It shows me all of my writing, in the Scrivener structure, and lets me work on it piece by piece. I use this for every story I write. Click To Tweet

 

You can also choose, on the Tools option at the menu on the top, what sort of writing you’re doing: academic, creative, business, etc, so that the suggestions are geared toward your particular work.

Photo courtesy of ProWritingAid.

I wouldn’t recommend solely relying on any digital tool for final editing, but I 100% recommend using ProWritingAid before sending any work to an editor. If you’re working with a professional freelance editor (like me!), running your manuscript through ProWritingAid will likely cut down on the cost of your edits, as it can help you make your manuscript much cleaner for your human editor. This will allow her or him more time and effort to focus on the story itself and less on the mechanics of the writing.

Also, a program like this is a great learning tool as well. ProWritingAid not only suggests corrections, but will often explain why the thing needs to be corrected. This is a fantastic way for newer writers to learn.

Where to get it:

Writing Improvement Software

I really do strongly recommend this software. I probably put it as #2 right after Scrivener out of all the Tool Time Tuesdays I’ve done.

Have you tried ProWritingAid? How has it helped with your writing?

Do you have a writing tool that you absolutely can’t live without? Drop a line to me down below and tell me about it!

Unless attributed otherwise, all images are CC0 licensed.

Also, links in this blog post may be affiliate links. This means that if you purchase something, I will get a small percentage of it, though it does not increase your cost in any way. I appreciate you using my links 🙂

Tool Time Tuesday: NaturalReader

Tool Time Tuesday
NaturalReader

About once a month, on Tuesday, we talk about the different tools available for writers to make life easier (theoretically 😉 ).

Today’s Tool: NaturalReader

 

Platform: Online, Windows, Mac

Cost: Free both online and downloadable with some limits; paid downloadable tiers: $99, $129, $199 (one-time payments); paid online tiers: $59.88, $95.88 (annual payments)

What it does: NaturalReader is text-to-speech software that you can use for free, or pay for if you need additional features.

One suggestion that I always give writers is to read their work aloud. Your ear will hear what your eye doesn’t see. But one of the issues with an author reading their own work is that sometimes we see on the page what we have in our heads — what we meant to put on the page but actually didn’t. NaturalReader is a good alternative, because your work is read to you by “someone” else. The chances of hearing mistakes or just noticing inconsistencies is higher.

So how does NaturalReader work?

If you just want a passage read to you, you can use the free online version, which allows you to paste text in to have read to you. I had a lot of fun playing with this one, because they have many voices to choose from, including American and British English, as well as a number of non-English voices, all in both male or female. I admit to having a lot of fun listening to my stories read to me by a British dude. 😉

 

The voices aren’t bad, either. Some of them sound a lot like Stephen Hawking’s speech, simply because there is natural inflection in words and sometimes the inflections used when the words were recorded don’t match the cadence of a sentence. But it’s not terrible and is less pronounced with some of the voices than others.

One issue I did notice is that contractions are a problem. Apostrophes don’t seem to be recognized. The voice would pronounce we’re as were and would spell out contracted words that don’t make real words, like wasn’t. This could be more of a technical issue, because I can’t imagine they didn’t record the word we’re when creating the vocabulary database. My bet is that the typographical database either recognizes curly or straight apostrophes and whatever I pasted in was the opposite. (I’m too lazy to check and see if that’s true.) Other than this little glitch, I didn’t find much in the way of issues while I was testing it out.

Obviously, if you’re writing something that has a lot of uncommon names, foreign words, or fantasy type names, the program isn’t going to be pronouncing them. But it’s not terribly distracting to have things spelled out rather than spoken.

Where to get NaturalReader: There are two different pages for this program: the Online version and the Desktop version. The Desktop version is available in both Windows and Mac. You can toggle between them via a button on that page.

Do you have a writing tool that you absolutely can’t live without? Drop a line to me down below and tell me about it!

Looking for more helpful writerly stuff? Check out all the other Tool Time Tuesdays!

 

Keep writing!

 

 

 

All NaturalReader media on this page is courtesy of NaturalReader.

Put On Your Unicorn Hat: How to Create Writing Boundaries

Writing

Are you constantly interrupted when you sit down to write? Does it seem like every time you try to get some words in, that is the exact moment that your spouse needs your input on something, your kids suddenly MUST have your attention, your mom wants to chat for an hour about her dog?

You’re definitely not alone. People in our lives can often be excited to hear that we want to write a book (or whatever we’re writing), but then when we try to do it, they want all our attention. It’s almost as if there’s now a subconscious competition with the writing.

It can be really frustrating, because of course we don’t want to hurt the feelings of someone we care about. And we definitely want to be there if we’re needed. But, in my experience anyway, the interruptions are almost always about trivial things, or things that could have waited an hour or two, til my writing time was over.

What makes the people who care about us subconsciously try to undermine our writing time? Who knows. And the “why” doesn’t even matter. What matters is that we are able to get our work done. So here are a few tips that might help with the “interruption-itis.”

Talk with your people

Help the people you cohabitate with to understand how important your writing is to you. Explain that this is a job for you, not just something you’re wasting time on, like when you watch television or play a game. If they can understand the importance of this, they will be more likely try to be aware of when they’re infringing on your time.

There is another side to this, though. If you tell them that this is important to you, that it is like a job for you, it needs to be those things. If you are setting writing boundaries for them, you must also set writing boundaries for yourself.

Don’t sabotage your work by constantly being on Facebook or Twitter during your writing time, or talking on the phone, or playing a game. Because not only does that undermine your own goals, but that sends a message to the people around you that even though you said you were serious, you’re really not.

So be serious.

Silence your devices

This goes hand in hand with not messing around with Facebook during your writing time. Turn your phone off, turn off notifications on your computer, close down your e-mail, your social media, and anything else that might distract you, like your mom wanting to talk about the dog. It’s surprising how often our concentration is stolen simply by a blinking light, a vibration, or a funny sound, even if we don’t respond to them. Silence the devices, turn them face-down so you can’t see the light notifications. Let your writing time be about your writing, not about everyone else.

Get behind a closed door, if possible

Being able to close a door in order to create your own writing space is incredibly powerful. If you have an office, wonderful! But if you need to close yourself off in a bedroom, in a laundry room, in a garage, or heck, even a bathroom, try to do it! And then teach your people to always knock when a door — any door — is closed.

If there are no closed doors in your house, create a symbol

Sometimes you can’t hole up in a room, such as if you have kids. In that case, create a symbol for your writing that other people can see. I have a friend who told her family that if they saw her sitting at the computer with her unicorn hat on, it meant she was writing and not to disturb her unless someone was bleeding or something was on fire. This was an excellent symbol of her writing boundaries and it was silly enough that it didn’t come across as pushy.

Maybe you don’t have a unicorn hat though. What else can you use? Here are a few suggestions:

  • A paperweight moved to a different location on the desk, such as the corner, where it is clearly visible.
  • A glittery sign on the back of your monitor (or the back of your chair, if that’s more visible) saying, “Writer at work. Do no disturb on pain of DEATH!” Or, yknow, use your own words 🙂
  • Wear a particular shirt or sweater or jacket that is your “writing attire.” Make sure to throw it in the wash regularly. Although not throwing it in the wash might also make an acceptable deterrence to interruptions!

Anything you can use to communicate that you are writing, without having to be interrupted in order to tell them that you’re writing, can often work.

Enforcing Writing Boundaries

So you’ve set up your glittery sign on your chair and your monitor and your Pennywise paperweight on the corner of the desk, clearly visible. But your spouse still comes in to ask you where the can opener is.

All the signs in the world are not going to help enforce your writing boundaries if you’re not willing to say, “No.”

If someone interrupts you with a non-emergency, point to your sign (or your paperweight or your unicorn hat) and make it clear that you are not open for questions at this time. Enforcing these boundaries is just as important as setting them. Because they won’t mean anything if you’re still answering the question about the can opener, even though you’ve said you need to be left alone to write.

If you’re not willing to respect your writing boundaries by enforcing them, no one else in your household will either.

Do you have some fun symbols to help enforce your writing boundaries? Let me know in the comments! I’m always looking for new ways to communicate with people around me.

Happy writing!

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Unless attributed otherwise, all images are CC0 licensed.

Tool Time Tuesday: Calibre e-Book Management Software

Tool Time Tuesday

Once per month, on Tuesday, we talk about the different tools available for writers to make life easier (theoretically 😉 ).

Today’s Tool: Calibre e-Book Management

Platform: Windows, Mac, Linux (+portable version)

Cost: Free!

What calibre does:

Calibre is open source software to manage your e-book collection, in ALL the ways.

As a reader, calibre is a perfect tool for keeping track of all your e-books. It’s not just a bookshelf, though. You can organize your collection in whatever way is most intuitive for you. You can create tags for all your books, download metadata (or create your own metadata), and sort and search by just about anything.

One of my favorite features (and what I originally downloaded it for years ago) is calibre’s ability to convert files from one type to another. Have an e-book in .pdf and want to read it properly on your Kindle? Convert from .pdf -> .mobi. Have a book in Kindle format and want to read it on your non-Kindle device? Convert to ePub. This is also a nifty feature for authors, if you want to see how your manuscript will look as an e-book (and when you’re ready to publish it too!).

Read on your phone? I use calibre Companion on my Android and it’s also available on iTunes for $3.99 in both places. Worth the money 🙂

Where to get calibre: Website

Have you used calibre? What do you think? Leave me a comment!

Do you have a writing tool that you absolutely can’t live without? Drop a line to me down below and tell me about it!

Keep writing!

 

 

 

All calibre images are courtesy ofcalibre ebook management.

Tool Time Tuesday: 2018 Revision & Writing Tracker

Tool Time Tuesday

Once a month, we talk about different tools available for writers to make life easier (theoretically 😉 ).

Today’s Tool: 2018 Writing & Revision Tracker

Platform: Any spreadsheet program

Cost: $10

What it does:

It’s a writing tracker! 🙂 If you’re a reader of this blog, and especially of TTT, you might recognize that I did a post very similar to this one about a year ago. There’s a new version of the writing tracker spreadsheet, so I felt that warranted a new Tool Time Tuesday!

As you might know from the post last year, I am a huge fan of this writing tracker. Not only does it allow you to track words of your first draft, but you can also track revision pages. And since revision is the biggest part of writing, being able to keep see how much you’ve done is critical to realizing your productivity. I’m not going to break down all the individual features, since I’ve done that already. But I will share a bit of how I use it.

Click to enlarge

New Stuff

Jamie has added the ability to track ten different projects within the spreadsheet over the course of the year, each with a column for writing and for revision.

I currently have seven of the projects labeled. I am tracking my blog posts, my pre-writing (for any and all stories), a pair of short stories (which I’m counting as one project, since they’re related), and four novels (one of which I’m only going to track revision pages of). I made my pre-writing a separate project, because I want to track how many words I create when I’m prepping to write my stories. I don’t necessarily need to track the pre-writing by story.

And that’s what makes this writing tracker so great. You can use it in whatever way works best for you.

Jamie even created a video to show how the tracker works. Check it out:

Motivation is created by action. When you look at what you’ve accomplished, it can help light a fire under your butt to get going. I’m writing this post on Jan 8, and (not counting this one), I’ve already written over 7000 words of blog posts and pre-writing. I haven’t even starting actually writing on the short stories yet (which are my first active project this year). I already feel incredibly accomplished and it makes me want to keep going.

The Writing & Revision Tracker is a big part of my writing process. You should check it out!

Where to get it: Jamie Raintree’s website

Have you tried the 2018 Writing & Revision tracker? Did you use the old writing tracker? Let me know what you think!

Do you have a writing tool that you absolutely can’t live without? Drop a line to me down below and tell me about it!

 

Keep writing!

 

 

 

Unless attributed otherwise, all images are courtesy of Jamie Raintree.

Okay, I lied! One quick post…

Writing

I know I said I wasn’t going to post til next week, but I just wanted to take a second to mention NaNoWriMo prep! If you’re going to be participating in National Novel Writing Month this year, come join us at The Writing Tribe for NaNo prep!

We just got started today. We’re talking about figuring out what we’re going to be writing and there will be a bunch of prep exercises in the coming weeks to get us poised to win NaNo in November.

So come join your tribe! 🙂

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Tool Time Tuesday: Merriam Webster

Tool Time Tuesday

Every other Tuesday, we talk about the different tools available for writers to make life easier (theoretically 😉 ).

Today’s Tool: Merriam Webster

Platform: browser, Android, iOS

Cost: FREE

What it does:

You likely know Merriam Webster as a dictionary. As a writer, you should know Merriam Webster as a dictionary!

Words have meanings and MW can give you those meanings. It’s important for writers of all kinds to have a good working vocabulary and an extended writing vocabulary. Now, this doesn’t mean you should use a $50 word every time you could use a ten cent word. But we, as writers, should use the most correct word that will be understood in order to convey the idea we want the reader to have.

So having access to a dictionary is a no-brainer. And Merriam Webster is one of the longest-lived dictionaries in the US, having been around for almost 200 years.

Now, if you haven’t been to Merriam Webster’s website yet, you might be surprised. It’s for more than just looking up words!

You can see trending words that are being looked up, as well as the Word of the Day (as I write this, it’s “hebetude;” if you want to know what that means, I encourage you to look it up 😉 ). You can watch videos about different word-related topics. These are short, interesting little snippets of knowledge about English as a language, as well as grammar and correct word usage. Again, as I write this, the video for today is Words of the Year: 1066, which I also encourage you to watch!

Not only does MW offer lots of knowledge and word education, but there are word games available, such as the Time Traveler Quiz: Which Came First? and Typeshift, a mashup of anagrams and word searches. These and other games can help you burn a couple minutes of your day when you need a break and have the added benefit of making you smarter 🙂

As a writer, all of these tools can be beneficial to me. It’s not just about looking things up!

Where to get it: You can go to their website, or go to your mobile store and download the Android app or the iPhone app!

Do you have a writing tool that you absolutely can’t live without? Drop a line to me down below and tell me about it!

 

Keep writing!

 

 

 

Unless attributed otherwise, all images are CC0 licensed.

My Top 5 Most Useful Books About Fiction Writing

Craft of Writing, Writing

Let’s face it, writing a good story is hard. It’s entirely different from telling your best friend the story about what happened Friday night. Face to face stories are easier, because you have tone of voice and inflections, as well as body language, to help convey your meaning. With a novel or short story, you only have the words.

I am an addict. I admit it. I have more books on the craft of writing than my local library does, I’d bet. I use these books for my writing, of course, but also for when I’m editing or teaching other writers. I learn a lot from reading the stories of authors, but there’s also a place for an educational slant — for having an explanation of why something works.

To that end, I’m listing my Top 5 craft of fiction writing books. These books sit on the shelf right beside my desk. They’re always right there.

Now, these are the top 5, but they’re not in any specific order. You can’t really say that a book about creating character is better (or worse) than a book about writing a synopsis. They’re about different things. So while this is a Top 5 post, it’s not a ranked top 5.

Also, a while back, I wrote a post about my two favorite books on revision. Since I’ve already mentioned those, I’m not going to include them here.

And with all that said, here we go!

Writing the Breakout Novel

by Donald Maass

I got this book relatively early on in my fiction writing journey and it really opened my eyes to the idea that a book can be planned. Not in an outlining sort of way (which it can, of course, and which I was highly resistant to doing at the time), but in a larger-scale sort of way. From a 30,000 foot view, so to speak.

The purpose of the book is to write a novel that pushes past the mid-list and becomes a breakout seller. Think Harry Potter, The Martian, 50 Shades of Grey. A book that captures the minds of millions of people, rather than thousands or hundreds.

Donald Maass, who is a very successful agent who owns his own agency, identifies the things that he observes as pillars of a breakout novel. With section headings like Premise, Stakes, Time and Place, Characters, etc, this is a high-level view of story creation that every author can benefit from.

Beginnings, Middles & Ends

by Nancy Kress

What author hasn’t struggling with slogging through the middle of their novel? We’ve lost the bright, shiny feeling of the beginning and we’re not yet at the exciting, climactic end. There’s a reason many novels are abandoned in the middle. Fiction writing isn’t always easy.

Nancy Kress addresses all these things — the bright, shiny, the exciting, climactic, and the slogging — in her book. She gives authors tools on how to stay on track in their fiction writing, especially in the middle, which is arguably the longest part of a novel.

Each chapter ends with exercises designed to give writers practice in implementing the author’s suggestions. Some of the exercises involve reading and identifying things she’s discussed (such as reader expectations after the beginning), some involve writing, both new and assessment of current writing.

If you have trouble finishing your stories, you might find this book especially helpful.

Writing the Fiction Synopsis: A step by step approach

by Pam McCutcheon

If you’ve ever struggled with creating a synopsis, this book will be your savior! There are actually very few books on writing a good synopsis (compared to other writing topics). Mostly, writers are just expected to figure it out, maybe from talking to other writers, maybe by osmosis. In recent years, there have been a few more books (but only a few), yet this one, written almost twenty years ago and for most of that time the only book on synopsis writing, is still the gold standard.

McCutcheon takes you through the steps of writing a synopsis using three relatively well-known movies as her test subjects. She provides a number of worksheets to help you along, but that are also useful in the writing process, as well. She focuses not just on what should be in the synopsis, but also on tone and voice, as well.

This book also has exercises at the end of each chapter, but the result, if you do them all, is that you’ll have a synopsis by the time you’ve finished the book.

Characters & Viewpoint

by Orson Scott Card

This is probably one of my most recommended books. A lot of newer writers don’t understand the difference between omniscient point of view and 3rd person limited point of view, and so I often see a lot of what is called head-hopping: jumping from different points of view within the same scene, paragraph, or even sentence. This book explains those points of view very clearly, using a camera lens as illustration. I’ve seen more than one writer have an “Ah-ha!” moment after reading the section on viewpoint.


The guidance about character creation is also valuable, especially in conjunction with the character creation advice in the other books on this page. Card gives information about where characters come from and what makes for a good fictional characters. And then goes into more in-depth things, such as how the reader should feel about the character, what the stakes are for the character within the story, and transformations.

This is one of those books that I believe should be on every writer’s shelf!

Many Genres, One Craft: Lessons in Writing Popular Fiction

edited by Michael A. Arnzen & Heidi Ruby Miller

I’m a bit biased about this book, I admit, because I have an article in it called, “Demystifying What Editors Want.” However, even if I didn’t have work in it, I would still have this book by my desk.


It’s a collection of over eighty essays about everything about writing popular fiction, from craft topics to life balance topics to promoting and marketing. Contributors include authors from all over the genre spectrum, from smaller published authors to mid-list authors to heavy hitters like David Morrell (First Blood [Rambo] and others), Tom Monteleone (Borderland Books), Nancy Kress (her name should look familiar 😉 ), and Tess Gerritson (Harvest and others). I’ll sometimes pick it up and just choose an essay to read when I’ve got 5 minutes. There’s always something to learn.

I often joke that this is my MFA program in a $30 book (the Kindle version is only $10!). 🙂 This is a really comprehensive collection of experiences and advice from authors and editors working within the commercial fiction publishing industry.

Okay, so those are my Top 5 books for fiction writing. I’ve tried to choose books that run the gamut of information that authors need to know about, from character creation, to doing the writing, to stuff needed to get published.

What fiction writing books do you find indispensable? Drop a line down in the comments!

Keep writing!
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Tool Time Tuesday: Writing Inspiration: Old Pics Archive

Tool Time Tuesday

Every other Tuesday, we talk about the different tools available for writers to make life easier (theoretically 😉 ). Today’s a special Writing Inspiration version!

Today’s Tool: Old Pics Archive

Platform: browser

Cost: Free!

What it does: Old Pics Archive is a website with collections of historical photos divided by topic or subject matter. For instance, you can find a gallery of photos from Woodstock, the musical event, or famous people, such as Brigitte Bardot or Sofia Loren. There are photos from everyday life in Nazi Germany, behind the scenes photos from movies, and cool aerial photos of cities and people.

You can also find vintage art and vintage commercial art, as well as photos of life in cities, such as Moscow, London, Damascus, and NYC.

I’ll sometimes go to this site and look through the “life in…” photos and find interesting looking people. Sometimes I’ll think up a story about the people or the situation in the photo. Sometimes I’ll use photos of these people to help in my character creation process. There are all sorts of ways for a writer to get inspiration from this site!

Here’s a freebie: Can you imagine what amazing things might happen in this library?

The Klementinum Library, Prague ~~ Courtesy: Old Pics Archive

Where to get it: The Internet! Just head to their website!

Do you have a writing tool that you absolutely can’t live without? Drop a line to me down below and tell me about it!

 

Stay awesome!

 

 

 

Unless attributed otherwise, all images are CC0 licensed.