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Finding Writing Inspiration in Everyday Life

Finding Writing Inspiration in Everyday Life

There is a guy on our street who likes to walk his dog in a nice dress shirt and pants. Why doesn’t he change before he walks his dog? I find it oddly fascinating. Or the guy that I stood behind today who had a tattoo on his arm that said, “Reward.” Even the quirky ladies that I talked to in the long line at Walmart. Those people are my inspiration! I pull characters, emotions, settings and appearance from them.

I like to keep a small notebook in my purse at all times so whenever I see something, hear something, or just need to make a quick note I can jot it down so I won’t forget. Other places to look for inspiration would be quotes, music, books, and movies. Trust me, I am not saying that I never get writers block, or that I never get low on inspiration, but during those times I don’t give up. Something on a commercial even gave me an idea once!

So, if you’re struggling for inspiration, look up. Look up from the glow of your cell phone to the world around you. There is tons of inspiration right there in front of your face. Everyone has a backstory!

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10 Writing Resources

Here are some of my favorite resources I use when I am writing:

1. I bought a Bluetooth keyboard off of Amazon for my iPad and had been using it to write when I am on the go. It’s a lot easier to haul my iPad around than it is my computer. If I use the Pages app on my iPad, I can sync it through the icloud drive and continue writing right where I left off on my computer! My phone also has the pages app, so if I get an idea I can scribble it down on there as well 🙂

2. Scrivener: If you follow me on Instagram you will see me post screenshots from a program called Scrivener every so often. I bought this program for $40 and use it almost every day to write. I love that you can organize and personalize it however you want to suit your needs. I am more of a pantser when it comes to writing, but I have slowly developed into a planner. I need to write a post about Scrivener at some point…

3. Grammarly! I wrote a post about this one already, but it’s so good that I just needed to mention it again to you. I love that it helps me correct my grammar mistakes and tells me exactly why I shouldn’t write something the way I did.

4. One stop for writers– this resource has helped me enhance my writing. It costs $9 a month, but I think it’s totally worth it. When I am stuck writing a scene, I can quickly head to the setting thesaurus and find sights, sounds, smells, tastes & textures, and possible sources of conflict for that particular environment.

5. Evernote– I use this one to jot down a note when I am on the go since it syncs to my computer so I can easily access it. I will save my whole manuscript to it as well just to have another place to store it.

6. My iPhone– It works as an excellent voice recorder for the time being, but I am looking at getting an actual voice recorder. My phone runs out of space quickly!

7. Facebook groups- I have a few groups that pertain to writing that I am part of, but for the most part, I am in Christian homemaking groups. Sometimes I get sparks of inspiration from posts from others!

8. Pinterest– LOVE this resource! I have a few boards about writing that I find useful when writing, or if I get stuck. It’s nice to have resources about writing, character development and grammar all in one place.

9. Thesaurus and Dictionary– Pretty self-explanatory, I think 😉

10. Jerry Jenkin’s Writers Guild- At this moment the guild isn’t open to new members, but if you are interested I would highly suggest that you sign up to be notified when it begins. If you do join, send me a message I would love to connect with you!

**BONUS: Music- but, I think, that’s also a given 😉 I love to listen to Pandora or Spotify when I am writing and sometimes, sometimes I will get inspiration from a song.

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Fixing Grammar with Grammarly

I struggled in English class back in High School, and I struggle with it still today. Grammar has always been hard for me to understand. But if you are going to be a writer it’s something that you need to know and know well. I am so thankful that I stumbled across this neat program called Grammarly it has helped me immensely with my writing. It lets me know what I did wrong and how to fix it with examples and explanations.

I did end up signing up for a premium account because it checks over 250 grammatical errors, provides vocabulary enhancement suggestions, detects plagiarism, and provides citation suggestions. If you sign up for a free account, you will be able to download a free browser extension (for Chrome and Safari) that will correct over 150 types of grammatical errors wherever you are writing online. So, you will have a grammar checker when you’re on Facebook, WordPress, or writing emails!

They also send you a weekly writing update with how you are doing, and sometimes it will include what areas need work. So, for the week of October 12-18th I wrote 10,297 words, I made 1,415 mistakes and used 651 unique words. Now I know that I need to expand my vocabulary a bit and work on my mistakes. I have used Grammarly every day now for the past month, and it has made me more conscious of my mistakes and areas that need improvements.

Try it for free and see what you think 🙂
The #1 Writing Tool

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