by Catherine L. Tully
Wayne State University has a little gem of a web page that I stumbled across the other day called “Word Warriors“. It lists a “word of the week” that you can check out to keep expanding your vocabulary. I heard once that the average person stops learning new words at age 23. Not sure if that is true–but it scared me! Now I actively seek out ways to keep expanding my cache of words–and this is a great resource to do it with.
by Catherine L. Tully
I’m a huge fan of Google in terms of innovation, and I use several of the things that they offer–besides the search engine. If you are a writer who needs to work on something with another person, I would highly recommend Google Documents. You can set it so that the people you want to be able to see your documents can open them and make changes. I have used this many times for Word and Excel. This side-steps the e-mailing back and forth, as well as the possible overlap of changes.
Google calendar is another one I like. This is great for Joe and I, as we can keep track of what the other person has going on from month to month. While I haven’t yet adopted g-mail (and probably won’t), I do find that Google is an incredibly useful entity. If you haven’t yet investigated the possibilities, swing by and check it out sometime. See what works for you…
by Catherine L. Tully
Many FZ readers already know that I got my start in writing by penning articles for dance publications such as Dance Teacher and Dance Spirit. I have a strong ballet background, so the advice “write what you know” rang true for me.
If you are interested in learning more about how to write for dance publications, check out an article on my dance blog, 4dancers, where another pro writer gives some good advice on how to pitch articles to publications in this particular field. It can be good to start with shorter pieces to prove to the editor that you have the chops for dance writing if you don’t have a background in this art form.
by Catherine L. Tully
Writers love to read. Those words are the inspiration behind this travel destination for writers—the Library Hotel in New York. This property has ten floors which reflect ten major categories of the Dewey Decimal System. Choose from: technology, social sciences, literature, languages, math & science, history, the arts, religion, philosophy and general knowledge. Better yet—each floor has a variety of subcategories which focus in on a section of the main theme. Each room features themed art and provides guests with a hand-picked selection of books that are related to the subject…
by Catherine L. Tully
Need a travel guide book? Don’t want to pay through the nose at the bookstore? Check out Guide Gecko, a site that sells PDFs and books to the public at reasonable prices.
Another cool feature is the publishing wizard offered which enables authors to create their own guidebook and sell it on the site. Authors receive a percentage of the profit, as well as a visible platform to sell their work. Interesting concept.
I’m always fascinated to see what people are coming up with out there, and I thought this was a creative site that FZ readers might want to check out. Enjoy!
by Catherine L. Tully
I was forced by CNN to watch a commercial about this pen, and instead of being mad–I was astounded! The Livescribe Pulse Smartpen shows some true innovation. Not only does it write and record, but it links your writing to the recording. This is seriously too cool. Use the smartpad and the pen and download everything to your laptop when you get home. Looks like it will be great for those live interviews!
There are different models available and they run between $169.95 and $229.95. An expensive toy? To be sure. But it really is an amazing idea!