Writing in the Digital World

Dave Hood

The Internet is a gold mine for writers.  You can find countless resources to improve your writing and advance your writing practise. For instance, on the Internet, you can do the following:

• Find writing prompts that inspire your creativity
• Search for freelance writing jobs
• Create a free blog where you can post your writing and create a writing platform
• Join an online writing community/ writing groups
• Find out how to submit to writing contests or literary publications such as Tin House
• Read and learn how to write poetry, short stories, personal essays, and more
• Enroll in online creative writing courses
• Purchase books on creative writing
• Create a web presence and writing platform with social media
• Learn how to self-publish your fiction or creative nonfiction
• Read poetry, short fiction, personal essays from popular literary journals

In this post, I’ll identify some of the many websites that you can use to find this information.

Writing Prompts

The purpose of a writing prompt is to provide inspiration and help you explore and practise your writing. You can use a writing prompt to kick start a freewriting session of 10 to 20 minutes, writing about anything that is associated with the prompt. If you searching for writing prompts to inspire you, check out these websites:

• First 50 Words  ( http://www.first50.wordpress.com )  The author of this blog, Virginia Debolt, provides you with a daily writing prompt for your writing practise. She suggests that you write ” often, write about anything, everything, what you see, what you learn, what you’re thinking, what you read.”
• Easy Street Prompts (www.easystreetprompts.blogspot.com) On this site you will find video prompts, photograph prompts, and word prompts.

Creating a Free Blog

Would you like to create a blog, where you can post your writing and create a Web presence?

Here are the best free blogging platforms:

1. WordPress- http://www.wordpress.com
2. Blogger-www.blogger.com
3. Twitter- http://www.twitter.com (micro-blogging)
4. Tumblr-www.tumblr.com  (micro-blogging)

These blogs are easy to setup and post content to. Creating a blog is an easy way to establish a Web presence, share your writing, and build a writing platform.

Join a Writing Community

The online writing community offers many services to writers. You’ll create a profile and then  post your poetry, short fiction, personal essays, and so forth. You can also join a writing group, obtain free reviews, and free advice. And you can join various forums, where you can discuss different aspects of writing with others. Many of these online writing communities offer free online courses and advertise writing contests. Here are a few popular online writing communities that you should consider joining:

• The Writers Cafe
• Writing.com
• Absolute Write
• My Writing Circle

Freelance Writing

Are you searching for a freelance writing job? Here are some good sites to find work:

• Freelance Writing Gigs – http://www.freelancewritinggigs.com/
• Freelance Writing Organization–http://www.fwointl.com/  This site has job listings and 5,200 free writing resources and links.
• Media Bistro– http://www.mediabistro.com/

For freelance writing jobs in your area, use Google to search for websites in your area.

Enrolling in Online Creative Writing Courses

If you are interested in taking a course in creative writing, such writing personal essays, poetry, short stories, screen writing—- there are a myriad of universities in Canada and the United States offering online courses and certificates in creative writing. This means that you can study from your own home, instead of having to fight traffic to attend a lecture.

Providing you have an Internet connection and credit card, you can enroll in online education courses from anywhere in the world. For instance, all universities and educations institutions I visited on the Web offer a plethora of creative writing courses, which you can take online. For instance,  the University of Toronto’s Continuing Educations program offers online courses in creative writing poetry, fiction, and screenwriting courses.

There are countless educational institutions around the world where you can take creative writing courses online. Here are five places to checkout:

• Continuing Education at the University of Toronto
• University of British Columbia
• Continuing Education at Stanford
• Online Writing Classes from Creative Nonfiction Magazine
• Gotham Writers Workshop

Resources for Writers

Creative Writing

One of the best sources of information is the Poetry and Writer website, a print-based magazine that also have a Web presence.  All writers should visit this site on a regular basis. Here is what you can learn on this website:

• Find our who is offering writing contents and competitions.
• Find out where to contact a literary agent via the Literary Agents database.
• Obtain details about contact information, submission guidelines, and the types of writing small press publish by accessing the Small Press Database
• Discover where you can attend a writing conference, workshop, or residency
• Search for jobs in the arts, writing, publishing. (Some are Internships, which don’t pay, and most are in the United States.)
• Obtain advice for writers about writing contests, literary agents, publishing your book with the small press or larger publisher, book promotion and publicity, MFA programs, literary organizations that you can join.

Poetry, Fiction, Creative Nonfiction Literary Journals

There are many online/print literary journals where you can read fiction, poetry, personal essays. Check out these Literary magazines:

• Granata Magazine
• Narrative Magazine
• McSweeney’s
• Sweetlit
• Tin House
• The Evergreen Review
• Witness

Please note that these are just a few of the popular literary journals that you can read.

Poetry

If you are interested in reading poetry by the best poets from around the world, obtain how-to advice on how to write poetry, learn poetry terms, techniques, and genre, read articles about poetry,  visit the following:

• Poetry Archive
• The Poetry Foundation
• Poets.org ( From the Academy of American Poets)

Literary Nonfiction

Are you interested in reading creative nonfiction, such as short personal essays of less than 1,000 words? You can read them at the Brevity, an online literary journal.

Purchasing Books on Creative Writing

Do you live some place where you don’t have regular access to creative writing books? You can purchase them online at the following:

• Amazon.ca
• Amazon.com

In fact, most of the books on how to write poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction that I’ve used  were purchased online at Amazon. Here are  a few of the books I recommend that you can purchase at Amazon, books you won`t find in your local bookstore:

Creative Nonfiction

• Truth of the Matter: The Art and Craft of Creative Nonfiction by Dinty Moore
• You Can`t Make this Stuff Up: The Complete Guide to Writing Creative Nonfiction from Memoir to Literary Journalism and Everything In Between by Lee Gutkind
• Story Craft: The Complete Guide to Writing Narrative Nonfiction by Jack Hart
• Creative Nonfiction: A Guide to Form, Content, and Style by Eileen Pollack
• To Tell the Truth: Practise and Craft in Narrative Nonfiction by Connie D. Griffin

Craft of Writing

• Elements of Style by Strunk and White
• On Writing Well by William Zinsser (Writing Creative Nonfiction)
• The Writer’s Portable Mentor: A Guide to Art, Craft, and the Writing Life by Priscilla. (A great book for learning how to write creative nonfiction, especially the various forms of the personal essay.
• Sin and Syntax by Constance Hale
• Imaginative Writing: The Elements of Craft by Janet Burroway. (Everything you require to write creatively, such as showing and telling, writing with sensory imagery, similes, metaphors….

Fiction

• Writing Fiction by Janet Burroway (Includes how to instruction, exercises, and anthology of short stories)
• On Writing Short Stories, edited by Tom Bailey ( Two parts: How to write and an anthology of short stories)

Poetry

• Poetry Repair Manual by Ted Kooser
• Writing the Life Poetic by Sage Cohen
• The Poet’s Companion by Kim Addonizio (Excellent book to learn how to write poetry)
• The Discovery of Poetry by Frances Mayers
• Creating Poetry by John Drury
• In the Palm of Your Hands by Steve Kowell

Create a Web Presence with Social Media

Do you want to create a Web presence? Here are a few popular social media platforms where you can create a profile, network with others, and promote your writing skills, expertise, and work

• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Google +
• Facebook

Learn How to Publishing an E-Book

Are you interested in self-publishing? A great place to begin is at the Self Publishing Review. At this website, you can obtain advice and find resources on self-publishing. You can join a social network, read their online magazine, and find out how to self-publish. The Self-Publishing Review also provides book cover design and an e-book publishing service. It can design a cover for your book for a  fee.  It can also convert your book of fiction or nonfiction to an XHTML file, the format of an e-book, for a fee. (For a book of 200 pages, the cost is $200)  And then you can upload it to Apple iBooks, Barnes and Nobles Pubit, Kindle, or Kobo-Self-Publishing. To find out more, check out The Self Publishing Review .

Another self-publishing service to look into is Outskirts Press. It offers the following services:

• Copy editing
• Cover Design
• Private Label ISBN
• Publishing packages
• Marketing solutions

To find other useful writing resources, you can carry out a search with Google.