My (hopefully) final Goddard residency begins on Friday. In anticipation of that event, I thought it might be a good time to finally write that post I’ve been meaning to write. Specifically, a short little guide to the websites I find indispensable to my creative writing process.

The main tools you already know about. I wrote about them over a year ago in a post entitled, “My 3 Favorite Blog-Post Writing Tools“. They are:

1. The OneLook Reverse dictionary, which is for those times when you know the meaning of what you’re trying to say but not the specific word.
2. The Online Etymology Dictionary, which “is a map of the wheel-ruts of modern English.” Where a writer uses a regular dictionary to look up the definition of a word, a writers use an etymology dictionary to understand the life of a word.
3. Wikipedia, which I shouldn’t have to explain to this audience. I would like to add the caveat, however, that like all good researchers, I use Wikipedia not as a primary source, but as a kind of human-powered search engine. I let it begin my research process, rather than end it.

Those are my three main tools, but as you can see from the screenshot above, there’s a couple of other “writing tools” that haven’t been filed away into one of the three subfolders. They are:

• Literature and Latte, which is a link to the user’s forum for Scrivener, which is the software I use to do all my creative writing.
• Wolfgang’s Vault, which is a link to a free archive of fantastic live music, some of which I’ll listen to when doing my creative writing (for example, this concert from New Year’s 1973 by the Allman Brothers, with guest musician, Jerry Garcia).

Those aren’t exactly tools, though. Sure, they come in handy, and in some small way, I couldn’t do my job without them, but I only click on them every once in a while.

It’s those tools stuck in the Specific and General Resources folders that really enhance my life as a writer.

General Resources

Behind The Name: My first stop when it comes to naming most of my characters. There are other naming sites on the Web, but Behind The Name is easily the most user-friendly. You can do either a site-wide search for a specific name or search the descriptions for a certain keyword (for example, when naming an explorer character, I might do a search for “adventure”). The site also breaks the names into ethnic categories, which is crazy-helpful for those times when I know I’m looking for a Biblical name or an African name.

Behind the Surname isn’t quite as useful, and I probably only use it once for every three dozen times I use its cousin, but for the same ease-of-use functionality, it’s my first stop when coming up with a surname.

The next batch of tools are basic references:

• WordNet, which has quickly become my favorite dictionary. Along with giving a standard definition, it shows you how the word operates in the larger network of the English language. It’s kind of like the Visual Thesaurus, except it doesn’t cost any money, there’s no long loading period, and it’s more useful. I love WordNet.
• Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com: For when I’m feeling lazy on the research front.
• Lex Scripta, which is a webpage that contains links to all kinds of dictionaries, including, for example, a dictionary of symbolism. I go to Lex Scripta when I’m not feeling lazy on the research front.

Along with those dictionaries and meta-dictionaries, this category also contains a bookmark to the Dream Dictionary, which I usually reference after writing the dream sequence. Sometimes I’ll agree with its “meanings” and sometimes I won’t. I use it more to enhance a sequence than to invent one.

Then there’s those times when I need to reference what someone else has said about what I’m trying to say. For that, I use Bartleby.com and Project Gutenberg, both of which are like what Google Books wants to be, except everything is in the public domain, which means you can access all of a book’s text, and not just a snippet.

The last item in this category is for those times when I’m not looking for inspiration as much as I’m looking for data: The CIA’s World Factbook, which is an incredible resource, especially its historical background for every country in the world. If you’ve never spent time looking at the Factbook, carve out 25 minutes from your day and go have some fun.

Specific Resources

This section contains links to more esoteric kinds of writing tools. They only come into play for specific instances, but if the tool has made it into this folder, it’s because I’ve found myself facing those same instances again and again and again.

In no particular order, these tools are:

• The Bible Gateway: King James Version, which is a searchable version of the King James Bible (along with links to a ton of other versions). As a writer of literature intended for members of Western civilization, I find myself needing to check the Bible for a number of reasons. The Bible Gateway is a million times easier than having a printed Bible by my side. For example, using a printed Bible, how long would it take for you to find EVERY reference the Bible makes to Satan? A fuckload, right? But with The Bible Gateway, it takes no less time than it does to write this next sentence: “The KJV uses the word Satan 49 times.”
• InterTran, which is a great site for doing translations in a variety of languages. It’s bookmarked here because I started a story last winter that required me to do a few basic translations from Slovenian to English, and this was the only translation site on the Web that let me work with Slovenian. I still use it once in a while, but like any language translator, it’s more of a cause of frustration than it is a useful tool.
• Days in Each Month: A Wikipedia page that lists how many days are in each month.
• Eye Anatomy: I can’t tell you how often I need to reference this page. The number is so large it’s silly. Along with sometimes needing to know technical names, I often use this page as the source of inspiration for metaphors, especially in those instances when trying to communicate what a particular sight does to a character.
• Provisional Definitions of Common Postmodern Terms: I used this more often when I was reading literary theory and criticism as an undergrad, but it still comes in handy every once in a while.
• Searchable Shakespeare: This is in my collection for the exact same reason that the Bible Gateway is: because I’m a writer in the Western tradition. And FYI: Satan appears in Shakespeare 7 times.
• Ulysses: Because sometimes one just needs to know what Mr. Joyce said about a subject before one attempts to add something new to the conversation. This one isn’t “searchable,” but if you just use your browser’s “Find” button, you can discover what you’re looking for. For example, the word “Satan” only appears 6 times in Ulysses.
• A Dictionary of the History of Ideas: This is an outdated text (originally compiled in 1973-74; a newer edition came out in 2004), but it’s useful nonetheless. I don’t find myself checking it very often, but I bookmarked it because I’d like to check it more often.
• Fiction Character’s Chart: I found this chart when compiling my list of 100 ways to flesh out a new character. I haven’t gone back to it since, but I want to keep it around just in case.
• Metaphors of the Mind: This is an incredible, searchable archive of all the different metaphors writers have used over the centuries to talk about the human mind. Again, a great source of sentence-level inspiration.
• Adverb Placement: Sure, I could get out of my chair, go to the bookshelf, and pull down my McGraw-Hill College Handbook to see whether the adverb I’m using belongs before or after the verb I’m modifying, but I could also just click this bookmark and be done with it. Of course, I could also take Stephen King’s advice to just delete the fucker: “[Adverbs are] like dandelions. If have one on your lawn, it looks pretty and unique. If you fail to root it out, however, you find five the next day…fifty the day the after that.”
• Height to Weight Chart: For those time when you need to know how much a five-foot, three-inch “obese” woman actually weighs.
• The Indexed Phobia List: This is good when you’re looking for a phobia name, but it’s better when you’re looking for something your character might fear.
• Zip De-Code: You might have to create a specific mailing address for one of your characters, and maybe, just maybe, there’s more than one zip code for the town/city in which your character lives. With Zip De-Code, you can see exactly where each zip code is located. Even if you never write a word of fiction, this is a fun tool to play with (remember to click the “Zoom” button before you start typing in a zip code).
• Vermont Fish & Wildlife’s List of Mammals in Vermont: When your character is walking through the woods of Vermont, it’s good to know that her encounter with a black bear is not beyond the realm of possibility.
• Moon Calendar: Part of the novel I’m working on takes place over two hundred years in the future, and like any people walking around at night, my characters have been known to take notice of the moon. This little Java application lets me put in any day of any year and get back the correct phase. Maybe you think I’m putting a little too much effort into getting the detail right, but really, how difficult is getting the details right when so many people around the Internet have made finding this stuff out as simple as a Google search? It’d be a crime if I didn’t at least look to see if someone else has already put in the hard work.

And that’s it. If you haven’t found any tools that would be useful to you, I hope you at least got inspired to find some tools of your own.