I have managed to fend off a self induced turkey coma long enough to drag myself back to the keyboard. I do not know how long I will be able to stay upright but I couldn’t let the Thanksgiving holidays slip away without giving a few thanks of my own. I am constantly surfing the net to find websites that will improve my freelance writing as well as sites to lose afternoons playing highly addictive flash games. Case in point: Cursed Treasure by Kongregate, I dare you to spend less than an hour playing it!
Over the years I have collected a few websites that I visit on a daily basis. To say thanks to those people I wanted to write this post and hopefully introduce them to some new readers. Now before we start I just want to say that I do not know the people at these websites so there isn’t any ulterior motives to my mentioning them. Here we go, enjoy:
- Lifehacker -Lifehacker is a tough one to put into a category. I love DIY (Do It Yourself) projects like turning an Altoid tin into a guitar amp or designing the perfect home office and Lifehacker has tons of posts with guides along those lines. It also has articles on productivity, home maintenance, and instructions to help you use a multitude of common computer programs. Once you start searching through the articles you are sure to find a few things that interest you.
- Viperchill – As far as I am concerned Glen at viperchill is the king of internet marketing. He writes long in depth articles about how to get your website noticed using cutting edge SEO and marketing techniques. They are always well thought out and easy to follow. I even bought his E-book Cloudliving which taught me a ton about affiliate marketing as well as blogging in general. You should really check out this page.
- Copyblogger – If you are a freelance writer or blogger of any kind then I am sure that you have been here. This site is the king ding-a-ling when it comes to blogging resources and you can learn a lot. It has articles that range from how best to title your posts to which WordPress plugins are a must have.
- The Well Fed Writer – If you are not a freelance writer or copywriter of some kind then you may not get as much out of it but it is still worth stopping by. Peter Bowerman is the owner of the site as well as the author of the Well Fed Writer books. I have learned more about how to be a freelancer on his blog and in his books than in all of the classes that I have ever taken rolled into one. If you freelance then you owe it to yourself to dive in.
- Makeuseof – This website is a lot like Lifehacker but it is very geek oriented. They write about things like how to use an old computer as a DVR system or how to make your own hackintosh. If those are foreign terms for you then you can probably give this one a pass. Everyone one else should head there now and let your geek flag fly!
- Nanowrimo – I can’t say enough great things about the wrimo. Literally. This post would be hundreds of pages long but I will hit the high points. Once a year they get together to challenge writers around the United States (Possibly the world, I cant remember) to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. They pit cities against each other and post your word count daily to shame you into getting it done. Everyone always says that one day they will write a novel but the wrimo makes you put your money where your mouth is. You get to connect with other authors online and in RL and the forums are full of great advice on writing. I have done it for the last two years and one day i may even try to get my little novels published. On top of all of that they take in donations to help fund reading programs for school children. You really need to check this out if you have an ounce of writers blood in you.
- Butcher Block- This may not appeal to everyone and it has not been updated in a long time but I think it has a lot of great information . Jim Butcher is the author of the Dresden Files and he has written a few posts as well as recorded some podcasts about how to go about writing a popular novel.
If you enjoyed these or have some recommendations, I would love to hear about it. Let me know what you think in the comments!
