Tag: Writers Resources

Would you like to see your favorite writer wordless, at least for a moment? This holiday season is your opportunity.

Writers have their own special wishes. Make one or more of those come true this year, with gifts to equip and inspire them or enhance their workspaces. There’s something here for every budget, from the least to the most lavish.

1. “Caution” Door Hanger

The last thing a writer wants is to be in to be interrupted amid an insightful line of thought with trifling questions like, “Where’s my old skateboard?”  or “Who ate all the ice cream?”

2. A Brain-Prompting Writer Game

Writers always need inspiration, and they need to take time to play, too. The Writer’s Toolbox  from Amazon’s Audible store checks both boxes at once.

Tools are essential to every professional, and the scribes in your life are no exception.

3. Writer-Friendly Wall Art

A piece of literary wall art will add just the right touch to your writer friend’s surroundings—and even help them stay motivated.

Or choose an artsy design for a writer who works within the cultural scene, an academic chart for a technical writer, or a whimsical drawing for a wordsmith with a sharp comedic wit.

Your friend will love that you want to make their office (or kitchen nook) a more inviting place to work and that you chose a piece that fits them.

4. A Quality Journal or Notebook

Not just any journal or notebook. We’re talking about one that is well made, with paper that makes jotting down brilliant ideas a pleasure.

5. An Adjustable Laptop Tray

Writers write everywhere—on the couch, in bed, on a beach towel, or even at a desk!  Often, it’s hard to find a comfortable position for working in these places. Even sitting at a desk can be tiring, and the ability to write standing up or reclining gives an aching back and backside a rest.  

Under the tray is a USB-powered cooling fan to keep the laptop at its optimal temperature, and a side pull-out section to hold a mouse or notes for easy reference.

The tray supports laptops up to 30 lbs. (and who has a 30-lb. laptop, anyway?)

6. A Massaging Chair Cushion

Even a good desk chair can feel hard after hours of sitting, and many don’t support the back well.

It also comes with a touch pad controller and adaptors that allow it to be used in the house or the car. (The seat will heat in the car, too.)

A workday won’t go by when the special writer in your life isn’t thankful for this comfy gift.

7. A Smart Coffee Mug

It’s safe to say that most writers love sipping coffee (or tea, or cocoa) while they work.

Off the coaster, the battery holds the 10 oz size at the right temp for 1 ½ hours, and the 14 oz size for 80 minutes. And an “Auto Sleep” feature turns the mug off when not in use.

You can choose from four colors, and, as an extra “perk” when you purchase the (Ember)ᴿᴱᴰ Edition, the company says you will “help save lives by triggering a 3% donation to support global health programs.”

8. A Durable, Organized Laptop Backpack

This Custom Division Laptop Backpack from Timbuk2 is perfect for writers who travel, hike or sometimes like to work at their local coffee shop, library, or park.

9. A Trip to Tour a Favorite Author’s Home

This is the ultimate literary gift because writers are readers with favorite writers of their own.

Ms. Christie’s Devon, England home is one of “13 Extraordinary Writers’ Homes You Can Visit,” according to an article on thespaces.com. There, you’ll find beautiful photos of authors’ homes throughout the US and abroad, along with a bit of information on each property and their famous occupants’ lives.

All the featured homes, among them Dylan Thomas’ rustic dwelling, “The Boathouse,” in Wales; and Mark Twain’s quirky Victorian Gothic residence in Hartford, Connecticut, are open for touring. The article provides links to each for visitor information and tickets.

Throw in a gas station or airline card and a hotel gift card, and your extravagant, memory-making gift will be complete!

Of all the world’s most dangerous professions, writer is probably not anywhere close to the top of the list.

That being said, there are some pretty hazardous things that we writers do that can be harmful to our wellbeing.

Our eyesight is a prime example of something that is greatly affected by our profession. According to this article from Craft Your Content,  writers are especially venerable to digital eye strain, “which is a result of prolonged and extended usage of computers, tablets, e-readers, and cellphones.”

It seems that spending long periods of time behind a computer screen can cause headaches, blurred vision, and dry eyes, as well as neck and shoulder pain.

Some of the biggest mistakes that writers make that can lead to digital eye strain are:

• Not using blue light blocking glasses or screen filters
• Not maintaining the right distance and posture
• Not adjusting the brightness of your screen
• Not choosing the right font size and contrast
• Not wearing anti-reflective lenses
• Not giving your eyes a break
• Not blinking enough

It isn’t just eye strain that we writers have to worry about, though.

Given the fact that writing is a mostly sedentary job, writers face other health issues such as chronic back pain, repetitive strain injuries (RSI), and numerous other problems due to lack of movement and exercise.

We also tend to spend most of our time alone, which can lead to increased feelings of anxiety and depression.

The good news is, these are all problems that we can eliminate, just by being more aware of the way we work, and more intentional with moving our bodies and getting proper nutrition. We can also help our mental health by following these great tips from Aisles of Life:

• Get out of the house and interact with others
• Get fresh air
• Adopt a pet or plant for company
• Interact/collaborate with other writers
• Mediate and try breathing exercises to reduce stress
• Reduce your workload
• Stay in touch with friends and family
• Make frequent changes in your routine
• Take breaks from writing when you need to

We at The Writers For Hire have a bit of a love/hate relationship with Microsoft Word.

On one hand, it really is the best word processing software around. On the other hand, the formatting issues we sometimes run into are enough to drive even the most even-tempered of us mad.

Luckily, though, we have each learned some great tricks to make Word much easier to work with. And in this blog, we have joined forces to bring you our top Microsoft Word tips.

The Writers For Hire’s Top Microsoft Word Tips

Tip #1: Change case.

If you’re ever in the process of writing a document and decide midway through that you would like all of your titles to be in upper case or sentence case, you know it can be time consuming to go through and individually change each letter. However, with this cool tip from Wintress Odom, changing case is as easy as a simple click:

1. Just highlight the section of text that you would like to change.

2. Now, go to the “Aa” on your tool bar and click on the arrow pointing down. This will give you a menu of case options.

3. Choose which case option you would like to use, and POOF! Your case will be changed.

Tip #2: Accept (some) changes.

When using track changes, there are always some occasions where you want to accept some of the changes, but not all. Luckily, that’s easy to do with this next trick from Barbara Adams:

1. Highlight only the area you want to accept.

2. Now, go to the “Review” tab on your toolbar, and click on the “Accept” button.

3. A drop-down menu will appear. Choose “Accept This Change,” and only the areas you have highlighted will be accepted.

Tip #3: Create a custom toolbar.

For as many features as Word has, most of us tend to use a handful of the same ones 99% of the time.

Instead of constantly switching back and forth between tabs, you can save yourself some time by customizing your own personal toolbar. Here’s Kathy Rinchiuso’s trick for customizing:

1. Right-click anywhere on the toolbar, and a dropdown menu will appear.

2. Choose “Customize the Ribbon.”

3. A menu will appear with all of the various options your heart may desire. You can go through and individually pick which features you would like for each tab of your toolbar.

4. Once you are done selecting your options, click “OK” and your toolbar will be updated.

Tip #4: Compare documents.

When multiple people are working on a document, it’s inevitable that someone will eventually forget to use “Track Changes.”

Luckily, with this great Word trick, you no longer have to comb through a document to look for changes. Instead, you can just use the “Compare” feature to see the revisions between two versions of a document.

Here’s how:

1. Make sure both versions of the document are open in Word.

2. In the “Review” tab, click the “Compare” button.

3. Choose “Compare” in the dropdown menu.

4. Under “Original document,” choose the previous version. Under “Revised document,” choose the latest version.

5. Click “OK.” Word will display a side-by-side comparison and a list of revisions.

Tip #5: Use “Tables” to insert images.

If you’ve ever tried inserting a bunch of images into a document by just clicking on “Pictures” in the “Insert” tab, then you’re likely familiar with what a nightmare image formatting in Word can be.

However, fixing this issue is as easy as simply inserting a table before you insert a photo. That way, when you insert your images, everything will fall (and stay) in place. Here’s how:

1. In the Word document, place your cursor where you want to insert an image.

2. Click the “Insert” tab, then click on “Table.” The “Insert Table” menu will appear.

3. For a single image, select a “1×1 Table.” A table will be inserted into your document.

4. Click inside the inserted table to make your cursor appear.

5. Click on the “Insert” tab again, and then click “Pictures.”

6. Choose the image you want and insert it into the table. Once your image is in the table, you can use the table borders to make the image bigger or smaller. Or you can move the entire table by clicking on the cross arow in the upper left corner.

Your image will visibly be inside a table at this point, but it’s easy to make those table lines disappear. Just follow these steps:

1. Right click on the arrow cross in the upper left corner.

2. In the menu that appears, choose “Table Properties.”

3. In the dialogue box that appears, choose the “Borders and Shading” button.

4. Another box will appear. Click “None.”

5. Once you click “OK,” the borders around your image will magically disappear!

Tip #7: Use “Format Painter.”

If you’ve ever copied content from one document and pasted it into another, you’ve probably had to go back to fix the formatting so that it matches.

There are a couple of ways to get everything uniform, but none of them are as good as Kathy Rinchiuso’s favorite tool, “Format Painter.”

This single button makes tedious formatting a breeze.

To use “Format Painter:”

1. Highlight some text containing the formatting that you want.

2. Click on “Format Painter” in the toolbar.

3. Now highlight the text that you want to change, and it will change to the desired formatting.

Tip #8: Use your “Ctrl” button.

If you haven’t mastered using shortcuts through your “Ctrl” button, now is the time to do it!

While this tip isn’t specific to Microsoft Word, it definitely makes typing in Word a lot faster.

Here are a few of our most-used “Ctrl” button functions:

• Ctrl+A to highlight all
• Ctrl+C to copy anything you’ve highlighted to the clipboard
• Ctrl+X to cut
• Ctrll+V to paste your copied content
• Ctrl+B to apply bold formatting
• Ctrl+I to apply italic formatting
• Ctrl+U to apply underline formatting
• Ctrl+Z to undo
• Ctrl+Y to redo
• Ctrl+T to increase a hanging indent
• Ctrl+Shift+T to reduce a hanging indent
• Ctrl+Enter to add a page break
• Ctrl+H to search and replace
• Ctrl+End to move to the end of the document

Tip #9: Add another language to spell check.

Are you tired of Word giving you a long errors list because you use languages other than English in your writing? Then this great feature shared by Jennifer Rizzo is just what you need!

Word’s “Languages” feature allows you to add languages to your spell checker so that they no longer come up as errors (and you can ensure you are spelling them correctly!).

To update the languages in Word:

1. Go to “Review” –> Language.

2. When the dialogue box opens, click on “Language,” and then “Language Preferences.”

3. Choose “Add a Language,” and use the drop-down menu to choose a language you want to add. Click “Install.”

4. Repeat as necessary to add more languages. Click “OK.”

Your computer will now be as multi-lingual as you are!

Tip #10: Use Notepad to fix formatting issues.

It is inevitable that, at some point, you will have problems with Word doing strange things to the format of your document. When this happens to you, this easy hack from Wintress Odom will save the day.

All you have to do is copy all of the content in your document (just use Ctrl+A, and then Ctrl+C) and then paste the entire thing into Notepad.

Then, copy it from Notepad and paste it back into your document. Just like magic, your formatting issues will have all disappeared!

We hope that these great Word hacks help make your life a little easier!

Be sure to check back in the future, as we will continue to add more tips as we discover them.

Perhaps the most confusing aspect of the English language are the words that, depending on how they are used, can be their own opposites. These words are called contronyms (also known as contranyms, autoantonyms, or Janus words after the two-faced Roman god).

Recently, one of our writers came across this great article from Pocket, that lists 25 of these incredible contronyms. And reading through them made us realize just how crazy English really is.

Take the word “off,” for example. Depending on how it’s used, it can either mean “deactivated” or it can mean “activated.”

The woman turned the alarm off, but it still went off.

Or, how about the verb “to stone?” You can stone a peach or nectarine by removing its stone or pit. However, it is frowned upon to stone a person (that is, to throw stones at them).

Bolt and buckle are other great examples of a contronyms:

The bolt failed, which caused the people to bolt.

The men buckled the logs so that the pile would not buckle

And the word “left” can be downright confusing:

After the men left the party, how many people were left?

For more examples of these mind boggling words, check out these articles from ThoughtCo and Mental Floss.