gifts

Gifts for Writers

/ ginny200 / Leave a comment

To follow on my gifts for… theme, here are some gifts for the writers you know.

1) Self-editing for writers by Renni Browne and Dave King. Collins 2nd edition 2004. Great information, exercises and examples for the writer who must edit her own work(and who doesn’t?)

2)Scene and Structure by Jack M. Bickham. Writers Digest Books 1993 Understand how scenes and sequels interrelate to give structure to your fiction.

3)Writing the Breakout Novel  by Donald Maass. Writers Digest Books 2001 Donald Maass is and agent and author who gives invaluable advice.

4) The entire Write Great Fiction series from Writers Digest Books.

5) A selection of Hype! highliters from Staples for marking up your own work and these books.

6)Scrivener, a writing, organizing programme from Literature and Latte. Easy to use once you get onto it, and a terrific way to organize thoughts, research, drafts, scenes, characters, locations…and so on.

7) An over-sized Sustainable Earth notebook from Staples

8) Pens, lots of them. I use OptiFlow.

9) An eReader, any one, (but I use a KOBO) for taking books with you on vacation, or even storing your own work as pdf files.

!0) Stephen King’s book, On Writing. Pocket Books 2002. Available for that eReader. A biography of the writer as well as his thoughts and guidance on the craft.

11) Last but not least Turning Leaves Writer’s Retreat from Writescape http://writescape.ca/writescape/retreats/next-retreat/

Gifts for the writer, gardener, birdwatcher, reader…

/ ginny200 / Leave a comment

Poking around here and there on the Net, I found some great gifts for the passionate writers, gardeners, readers and birdwatchers on your list. Okay, gifts for me. Gifts for writers are up first, naturally, so check out Margaret Atwood’s suggestions on her Blog. 4 and 10 are the gifts I would choose, and can recommend 1 and 2 from personal experience.( My little book is the moleskin variety.) While you’re on Margaret’s blog, read her 15 book Tour packing tips. It’s hilarious.

Ben McNally, (of McNally Robertson) has a blog on Book Lounge, with his list of gifts for readers. He’s recommending Peter Ackroyd’s Venice: Pure City, a book I would like to read, mainly because I fell in love with the city last fall, and because he did such an outstanding job on London.

Susan Reimer writes a column, On Gardening for the Baltimore Sun. Her list of gifts for gardeners includes some of my can’t do withouts, like Felco pruners and gardening gloves. Lee Valley has some that are even warm on those nasty spring mornings, which can include rain freezing rain and wind in April, in Ontario.

Our Little Acre Blogspot has some unusual gifts for gardeners. I can recommend the Velcro plant ties, also available at Lee Valley. I’ve used them for years, especially for tying climbing roses to their supports.

For the birdwatcher, check out Squidoo. The site’s a bit wonky but worth it. What about birdsongs for the iPod!

All these blogs are listed to the right. Have fun!