The Internet is an amazing worldwide computer network replete with an ever expanding wealth of knowledge. It is also a severe distraction to writers seeking access to specific bits of it as it has grown easy, and addictive, to click on a link leading off to somewhere else. However, it is extremely useful to all writers regardless of type or genre. In this article I am going to pass on some sites that I have found to be quite useful.
Craft of Writing
For helpful articles on the craft of writing I subscribed to K.M. ‘Katie’ Weiland’s Helping Writers Become Authors website at https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/. This sight has articles on nearly every aspect of the craft of writing including: Novel Writing, Story Structure, Character Arcs, Archetypal Characters, and Scene Structure. She also has tips for writing in a particular genre, a comprehensive glossary of writing terms, how to’s for Scrivener, freebies, and much more. Katie is also the author of a number of books on craft that proved to be quite enlightening.
Additional articles on the craft of writing may be found on the Writer’s Digest website located at https://www.writersdigest.com/. Recent articles are listed on the home page but you may use the search feature to explore their extensive archives going back many years on nearly every conceivable subject. My own searches revealed articles as far back as 2008 – although, they may go back further yet.
Publishing
A website that has numerous articles on publishing your writing is Writer’s Relief, an Author Submission Service, located at https://writersrelief.com/. They have a Most Popular Articles selection under Leads and Tips that leads to an index of topics and articles. The categories listed and the number of articles are:
• Cover And Query Letter Writing (11)
• How To Publish A Book (11)
• How To Publish Poems (11)
• How To Publish Short Stories (6)
• How To Publish Nonfiction (Books And Essays) (6)
• Online Writing And Publishing (7)
• Submission Strategies, Tips, And Etiquette (17)
• Getting Help With Your Writing (5)
Images
We writers often use images as inspiration and for illustrating our stories and poems. There are many sources for paid images but if you’re at all like me I like to use free images if possible. This is not to say I never pay for images and if I’m going to publish the image I will pay for it – even if it is free. There are many sites that claim to have public domain art but carry the disclaimer that the user should research the copyright prior to use in publications. That’s just too much hassle so I turn to four (4) sites that have images submitted by their creators. These are:
• Pixabay, https://pixabay.com/
• Free Stock Photos, https://www.pexels.com/
• Public Domain Images, https://pixnio.com/
• Beautiful Free Images, https://unsplash.com/
There are numerous sites where you can purchase the rights to an image but I find many of them cost prohibitive. One site I have used in the past that I feel has reasonably priced and affordable images is CanStockPhoto at https://www.canstockphoto.com/.
Weather, Sun, and Moon
When I write I like to include specific details about weather, sun, and moon. For weather information I use the Farmers Almanac located at https://www.farmersalmanac.com/ where you can retrieve weather information by US Zip Code as far back as 1973. It used to go back to 1945 but the site recently eliminated the earlier search – darn. For complete sun and moon data for one day I use the Navy’s astronomical site located at https://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/RS_OneDay. With this site you can get worldwide information from 1700 to 2100. They were offline for a couple of years but fortunately they are back online. The Farmers Almanac website also has an Astronomy tab to check out.
Occupations
If you are in need an interesting occupation for a fictional character the go to resource is the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook, which may be accessed at https://www.bls.gov/ooh/a-z-index.htm. Once you click on an occupation you are presented with a summary page but through a series of tabs you also have access to details regarding: What They Do, Work Environment, How To Become One, Pay, Job Outlook, State & Area Data, Similar Occupations, and More Info, which may contain links to societies and other resources. So how about an Alligator Hunter or Mud Logger for an occupation.
Events
Say you’re writing something that took place in the past and you want to get an idea of what was going on in your time frame in order to keep it realistic. Once source is to use Wikipedia’s Year entries. For each year there is a comprehensive listing of Major Events, Births, Deaths, and Nobel Prizes. I believe the URL is consistent from year to year and 1973 looks like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973. Change the year part of the URL to view another year. I came of age in the 1970’s and I tend to write some in that decade. There is a comprehensive 70’s sight that I use at https://www.ultimate70s.com/, “where the 1970’s live forever!” By selecting a month, day, and year you are presented with History, News, Sports, Television, Music, and Weather. Yet another website that will give you information for a date is On This Day located at https://www.onthisday.com/. After selecting a date you gain access to History, Film & TV, Sports, and Music history data.
Calendars
The website https://www.timeanddate.com/ allows you to generate calendars for any year from 1 to 3999 insuring you won’t get the wrong day of the week for a date. You can generate calendars for an entire year or a single month. You can download as a PDF file and print to use in notating events. This website also boasts a World Clock, Time Zone tools, worldwide Weather information, Sun & Moon data, Timers, Calculators, and more.
Newspapers
The UCR Center for Bibliographical Studies and Research maintains the California Digital Newspaper Collection located at https://cdnc.ucr.edu/. There is an extensive listing of newspapers containing “890,927 issues comprising 11,162,849 pages and 48,618,810 articles.” Not all California newspapers are represented but it is a sizable archive. If you would like access to other newspapers such as the Los Angeles Times you would have to turn to a paid resource like https://www.newspapers.com/. This site currently boasts more than 832 million pages dating from 1690. While the site offers a free seven (7) day trial, the six-month subscription price is $74.90.
Additional Resources
To keep this article within wordcount limits I will briefly mention two notable institutions where you may conduct additional research. These are the Smithsonian Institution at https://www.si.edu/ and the Library of Congress at https://www.loc.gov/. Both of these sites have extensive digital collections.
So there you have it, a small collection of some of my favorite Internet resources. Enjoy.
Samuel Thomas Nichols
