Braincandy for Writers: Post #3

Hi all,

I hope you enjoyed the last two installments of Braincandy! Right about now I’ll be climbing to the Base Camp of Mount Kilimanjaro, hoping I broke in my hiking shoes well enough beforehand. I can’t wait to see the great landscape shots I’ll get from this vantage point, and thanks to Stina Lindenblatt’s awesome Photo Tips (she’s not just a brilliant writer & Blogger–she knows tons about photography, too!) maybe my pics won’t turn out too badly.

Well, after complaining last time that the Zombie Crew could be a little more diligent about keeping this place clean, they set about defrosting the freezer here at The Bookshelf Muse and found a Headcheese Casserole I’d been saving for a special occasion (like when they help me take over the world). Not only did they eat the whole freaking thing, they went rifling through my links again. (And one of them is wearing a French maid’s costume. Disturbing, people. Dis-turb-ing.)

Written Sound: Just like it sounds (har har) this one is the A to Z list of all those onomatopoeia words. People have asked if I’ll create a thesaurus for this, but I think this site has done a pretty bang up job already.

Angela was thinking one day, Hmmmm. wouldn’t it be great to read the diary entries of teens? Dear Diary And The Diary Project are the results of that search–sites dedicated to anonymous entries for teens and people dealing with certain challenges like divorce, school, love, fears, body image, depression, etc. Oh and a bonus here if you want to see actual hand written entries sent in from old diaries from when people were pre-teens and teens.

Snopes: This is THE place for Urban Legends, Myths and Rumors, which can be great fodder for plots and story lines. If you look in the sidebar, you’ll see different topic classifications from the benign to the downright disturbing. In true Zombie Fashion, the page displayed is labelled ‘Horror.’ It’s like a car accident…once you start clicking you won’t be able to look away.

Confusing Words: Death to Homophones! Affect or Effect? Complement or compliment? Or maybe you just get stuck on those words that are difficult to pin down a meaning for. All you do is type in a word and it helps you with the meaning. Quick and easy!

Self Control: Do you find yourself checking email , Facebook, Twitter, etc when you’re supposed to be writing? Of course you do! And if you’re like me, you probably bemoan the fact that you need to have the Internet on to research bits of info as you write and so the temptation to ‘peek’ at other stuff can’t be circumvented. Enter Self Control–it blocks your Facebook, Email, etc for a set period of time that you choose while leaving your Internet accessible. No more excuses! (Note: I just found this so haven’t used it yet, but it looks great, doesn’t it?)

Regency and Romance: Again, not a genre I write, but this is equal opportunity linkage, right? Here are a few places that looked pretty good if you write in these genres. This one here is all about Kissing (and if you read the entire series, it spans all aspects of romance from the First Touch to the Big Finale) helping with terminology and creating realism in those romance scenes.

Zombie’s Pick: Frawsome (freaking awesome) Generators

Treasure Generator
Civilization Generator
Story Arc Generator

Look for Post #4 in a few days, and in the meantime, enjoy! If you want to pass these on, feel free to link to this post, tweet, etc!