Five Free Tools and Sites for Writers I Can't Live Without

The Internet provides endless opportunities for writers to procrastinate--but also to get stuff done. Here are a few tools and sites online that I've found invaluable--and that may just help you, too!

Freedom. This nifty little program will keep you from going online for an amount of time you specify--up to three hours, or more, I forget. But it's a lot of time. For those days when you'd rather be looking at cute videos of cats on YouTube than becoming a published author, Freedom will cut you off from your go-to procrastination sites--and keep you working on your novel.

Reading Books You Wish You'd Written: Double-Edged Sword?

Last week, in the midst of my massively crazy photo shoot during which I had literally NO time for anything else, I managed to read the entirety of Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke and Bone. If you haven't read this book--stop what you're doing. Run, don't walk, to your local bookstore and buy it. Then read it. Right now. I'll wait.

OK, now that you've read it, you know what I mean. BRILLIANT, right? The imagery, like a Dark-Crystal-inspired macabre-beautiful dream from the depths of your subconscious, where everything has a twisted and personal meaning. The sheer creativity of this world and this concept. I just wanted to weep. And I had one single, overriding thought after finishing it, comprised of equal parts envy and awe: I wish I had written this.

My Best Self

My best self always wears a red dress.
Red for the pinprick,red for remembrance.
My best self loves blood on her hands,
sees it as "material."
See how she writes it on the cave walls.

My best self makes every failure into art.
Her poetry makes homeless men go blind.
I've seen her single-handedly levitate whole audiences.
Even her pain is so pretty.

The Artist's Catch-22

I went down to Pennsylvania today to do a photo shoot that involved new actors’ headshots and commercial modeling portfolio pics. The thing about this project is that if you want to get good acting headshots or portfolio pictures, it’s not enough to smile pretty and look nice. Everyone else will be doing that, too. There needs to be an emotion in the picture—one that grabs the person looking by the face and makes them want to see more.

There is only one way to do this. You bring up something from your life. You let it live in your face for a while. Let it inhabit your body. Make yourself a glove for the hand of these feelings. Sometimes it’s good feelings—I think of good times with friends and a giggle rises up like champagne bubbles. I think of a boy who broke my heart, of a song that reminds me of him, and show the camera something I usually hide. It’s about being open. It’s about being vulnerable. Acting is like this too—every audition, every performance. This is what the art asks of you.

Is Writers' Block a Myth?

It’s supposed to be the plague of writers everywhere. Writers’ block—the deadly disease that makes you stare at a blank page for hours, without the slightest clue what to write. I’ve heard of this Writers’ Block. I’ve even known people who claim to have had it. I never get it myself.

Maybe this is because I’m a working writer. As a copywriter, I work under deadlines. I have to get a brochure or an article in to my employer within a certain amount of time, and if I don’t, I don’t get paid. That incentive will kill any budding tendency toward Writers’ Block, in my opinion.

Maybe it’s not fair to say this—I’m sure there are plenty of people for whom Writers’ Block is a debilitating condition. But in my opinion, Writers’ Block is a luxury for amateurs. When your next paycheck is riding on you coming up with something, you come up with something.

Hanging Out at the Intersection of Poetry and Sensuality

I’m a member of this group called the Poetry Brothel. They have groups and events in dozens of cities and countries, and I have to tell you, if you ever get a chance to go to one, do it—it will blow your mind.

At the poetry brothel, patrons get the chance to buy poker chips which they can give to the “whores”—all really amazing and talented poets, both men and women—for a private poetry reading. There are public readings throughout the night as well, burlesque performances, a musical act, tarot, and other fun stuff—but the real attraction is this intimate and interactive new way to experience poetry.

Defining My Relationship With New York

Sometimes you come across a concept phrased a certain way and it just hits you in the chest with its truth and makes you understand a huge facet of your life more deeply. Trolling around Happy Opu the other day, I had an experience like this—when I read a description of New York as a place that has plenty of potential to hurt you—but also a place that “begs you and eggs you on to be exactly who you really are.”

Reading that sentence, I totally understood, in a way I hadn’t quite been able to before, exactly why I’m here—and why I need to be.

I’ve lived in a lot of different places. I grew up in a rural area in Vermont, and I love the country. I love hiking and camping and living in isolated spots in the woods where I can’t see anyone else’s house from mine. I love falling asleep to crickets chirping and swimming in ponds and rivers and going barefoot all summer. If I had kids, I would want to raise them in a place like Vermont. I might want to settle down there myself one day. But not yet.