Resources for Writers
Stephen King, an editing tool, and a creativity boost
Hi Writers!
Kelly here from Medium. This Wednesday I have a few resources for you.
But first I just wanted to say a big thank you to all of you who have been giving to the Australian Fire Fundraising. My sister lives in Australia, thankfully she is in a safe area, but it’s a very sad and difficult time for their country. Last week we had red skies here in New Zealand from all of the smoke drifting across the ocean. I really appreciate that so many people from all over the world are showing such a lot of kindness to our Aussie neighbors. Thank you.
Now for the resources:
Stephen King in 7 minutes
1) First up, you might remember Gracey, the very first new writer to go through the Inspired Writer Mentoring Program. Gracey has come a long way in her freelance career—she’s now been published in some of the larger Medium publications: The Writing Cooperative (TWC), The Ascent, and PS I Love You, to name a few.
Her latest in TWC Top 10 Tips to Become a Better Writer According to Stephen King is a fantastic summary of his book “On Writing”. If you haven’t read King’s book, I’d encourage you to take a look at Gracey’s article. You’ll get inspired—I did!
Readability and editing tools
2) Are you using editing software like Grammarly? I’ve been testing some out lately and I’m hoping to be able to review them for you soon. I’d love to hear your experiences with them—you’ll be help other writers out too.
For now. here’s a free tool that I’ve used in the past to check the readability of my writing. For writing on the web, it’s recommended that you aim your text at around a 6th-8th grade level. Attention spans are shorter when people view content online (compared to print) so we need to keep it easy to read.
This Flesch Kincaid Calculator and will give you the grade level of your content and its Flesch reading ease score: aim for a score above 70.
Creativity Unleashed
3) If you’re needing a creativity boost, I would recommend buying the book that The Writing Cooperative are using for their book club this year.
I’ve read the first chapter of Felicia Day’s book: Embrace Your Weird and so far it’s a lot of fun! (I’m not an Amazon affiliate—just linking to that to show you the book. Buy it where ever is easiest for you!)
Bonus Resources and Inspiration
Here are my latest articles for you:
Want to Reach the Top in Your Writing Career? Remember three things (Medium Members)
Want to Reach the Top in Your Writing Career? Remember three things (non-members)
Don’t Lose Your Reader. Hook Them With a Story (Medium Members)
Don’t Lose Your Reader. Hook Them With a Story (non members)
And if you think you’d like to have a few weeks of mentoring to lift your writing game, I’d love to hear from you. I’ll be looking to start the mentoring program again for 2020 very shortly. Here’s the link
That’s it for this week!
Cheers, Kelly