Here are some of my favorite writing web pages. The first we mentioned at the first kick off.
Write or Die word sprint:
Don’t have anybody around to race in a word war? Go here and set your word or time goal. If you stop writing for too long, it warns you with various alarms; in Kamikaze mode, it eventually starts erasing what you wrote!
http://writeordie.drwicked.com/
Names
We like finding just the right names for characters; here are my favorite websites to research (NameVoyager rocks!):
Historical (time of popularity):
http://www.babynamewizard.com/namevoyager/
http://www.thinkbabynames.com/popular/0/us/1900-1909
http://www.ancestry.com/learn/facts/default.aspx
International/ethnic:
http://www.behindthename.com/
http://surnames.behindthename.com/
Character sheets
Some character sheets are way long; I’ve made up my own selecting from a few of these, focusing more on motivation and emotional traits than, say, hair color. (Not that I’m dissing getting some word padding based on the way a character’s hair reflects or absorbs particular wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum...)
http://www.eclectics.com/articles/character.html
http://www.nanofimo.org/resources.html
Anybody else have a favorite writerly website?
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"The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamouring to become visible" --Nabokov
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poetT / Teri
ML in the black hat
75,257 / 50,000
Oct 27, 2009 - 07 06
Oh! How could I have forgotten this one?
Random idea generator
----------Seventh Sanctum has lots of character generator pages, but I really appreciate story idea kicks, especially
Envisioner &
What-If-inator
http://www.seventhsanctum.com/index-writ.php
poetT / Teri
ML in the black hat
88,901 / 50,000
Oct 27, 2009 - 08 00
The Straight Dope
Your questions, no matter how stupid, answered by the smartest man on Earth, Cecil Adams!
Shorpy
Period photographs for graphical inspiration!
Aeclectic Tarot
Need a dash of mysticism in your novel? Look for the meanings of tarot cards here.
Vintage Search
Any wine drinkers in your novel? Any wine drinkers reading your novel? Impress them with your exquisite knowledge of regions and vintages.
Hel Looks
Stuck on what a character is wearing? Check out people from Helsinki. :P
Erowid
Need to know something about drugs? Look no further.
People who write, and their writing in turn inspire me:
----------Neil Gaiman
Warren Ellis
My friend Cameron Summers
To victory!
46,679 / 50,000
Nov 1, 2009 - 04 16
I like this site for giving out random plot points that can possibly get you unstuck in your story:
----------http://futureisfiction.com/plotpoint/
All writing begins life as a first draft, and first drafts are never any good. They're not supposed to be.
- Patricia T. O'Conner
37,764 / 50,000
Nov 4, 2009 - 10 48
http://www.thenamegenerator.com
I just discovered this! It comes up with some weird (but fairly real-sounding!) names and it was pretty helpful last night when some characters were desperate to be named. Plus, users can tag the names they generate with descriptions, so rather than randomly generating names to your specifications, you can also search through the tags.