In my last post of the year, I’d like to share some links to websites, posts and articles that have been particularly useful for me this year.

Some are helpful in terms of writing craft or writing life or creativity, others are inspirational, and yet others energizing. Some are just fun. Some are all of the above! All make me want to write.

Enjoy!

• Zen Habits reminds me to stay in the moment and to take pleasure in that moment. Plenty of useful and very do-able tips from Leo Babauta, such as his idea that you write one more sentence before giving in to the temptation of checking email.
• Erika Dreifus sends out a monthly newsletter which is chock-a-block with resources including calls for submissions, contests, and residencies. The newsletter usually opens with an interview that discusses writing issues and writers.
• David Abrams’ Sunday Sentence project  where readers post the best sentence read this week on Twitter (#sundaysentence). Sublime, moving, awe-inspiring – and often hilarious too, especially when taken out of context. (Thank you Erika Dreifus for introducing me to this! Erika’s Sunday Sentence.)
• Anne R. Allen finds interesting angles to discuss writing issues – about publishing, blogging, creativity. You might find this a little morbid of me but I found this post about “why you need to appoint a social media executor NOW” very enlightening. I had no idea!
• Re-reading the Paris Review interview with Ray Bradbury always triggers creative energy!
• Casey Neis If Casey Neis can do it, so can I! No, no way, am I crazy? But watching him in action reminds me to at least try! (Thanks to Dan Blank and Writer Unboxed for this discovery.)
• When I’m stuck in my writing, I turn to Donald Maass in Writer Unboxed for new insights. I try to apply whatever he suggests to my writing – and something always seems to shift and move, taking me further into my story.
• New Yorker fiction podcasts offer a monthly story together with a discussion with New Yorker fiction editor Deborah Treisman. Also free from iTunes.
• The Art of Turning a Unique Phrase by Becca Puglisi in Writer Unboxed (there’s invariably something interesting on that website!). An always timely reminder. (Thanks Joanna Penn)
• Found Polaroids.  No ideas? Go here. At least you’ll be entertained by the stories while waiting for the muse to strike! Or submit your own, inspired by one of the 6,000 Polaroid images.
• The Daily Post – the daily prompt, photo and writing challenges and tips will keep you on your toes.
• On Being with Krista Tippett: keeping in touch with the big questions in life (and maybe in your characters’ lives?)
• Dare I add a thirteenth? Every week I look forward to Mary Carroll Moore‘s newsletter. Such helpful, clear advice.

Do you have a valuable resource you’d like to share to make it a safe fourteen? Please use the box below.

Happy holidays – see you in 2016!

Thanks, Susi