Our romantic image of the writer is one who has naturally creative abilities. He or she sits down with a feather pen at a desk lit by an oil lamp and writes a masterpiece. But in reality, the creative process is much messier than we realize at first. With draft after draft, we need tools to organize and stimulate our creative output.
While pen and paper may seem like the most natural way to write, today’s writers are using the latest digital tools to improve their writing. Here we will detail some of the new tools that have come out, where to find them, and how to use all the resources on the internet to improve the quality of your writing.
Improve your ESL skills
One important thing to do for many of us that are writing in a language that is not our native tongue is to improve the details of our grammar and word choice. We have a great guide here at Hiboox to learning English online.
There are lots of resources that you can find online for free. To start with, there are a number of apps that you can download and use to practice your language skills wherever you are. Duolingo is the most commonly used language learning app. Others, like Rosetta Stone, charge for their use but have more features to offer.
This is the same for every language. Even if you speak it very well, you may need to improve some of the fringe details. Making natural word choices, deploying correct use of subtle differences, and using complex grammatical structures are all skills that will require refining your second language skills.
Take Advantage of Online Courses
Whatever your writing style, genre, or audience, there are online courses for you. When browsing through them, make sure to pick the ones that best fit your skill needs. The catalogs of courses are huge, so you will not be able to take them all. Not even close.
You can start by collecting places where they offer courses. Some of them will be free, but not all of them. One of the most commonly used ones is Coursera. There, they have both free and paid courses for writers. You can take classes on things such as journalism or creative fiction.
Another new site is called Master Class. They specialize in collecting the biggest and most successful names in the field and having them teach master classes. You can learn storytelling from David Sedaris or how to create outside the lines with Issa Rae. The list of names is truly impressive here! Learn from the likes of Margaret Atwood and David Sorkin!
They have an entire category just for writing. That makes this platform one of the best options for writers, both new and experienced. These are courses that do come with a fee. Sign up for a Master Class membership and get these courses included.
Check Out Those Who Do It Best
Another way to use the internet to improve your writing skills is to take a look at those who do it best. Imitation is the purest form of flattery. It is also the surest route to success. One genre of writing in which there are plenty of examples online is a product or game reviews. This genre is an art in itself, as you have to deliver concrete and accurate information in an enjoyable format.
Take, for example, the reviews at ArabianBetting. They recommend great betting sites available in the Arab world based on each country. Their reviews include information on bonuses, security, deposit methods, and the variety of games.
You can also consider subscribing to some of the best publications in your field. If you are looking to improve your long-form and creative essay writing skills, you could subscribe to The New Yorker, for example. If you are more into investigative journalism, then a membership on the website of the New York Times is another great option. Both of these excellent publications also have apps for your convenience.
Distraction-Free Devices
One of the more technical innovations of the digital age has actually been a corrector to the digital age. More and more, our lives are full of distractions. On our phones, we have endless streams of digital content, be it on Twitter, Instagram, or TikTok. And our computers are full of websites to visit, tabs to open, and pictures to browse. This makes it hard to enter the deep focus state that allows for the best writing.
This is mainly seen as an advantage. We appreciate this freedom to look up any piece of knowledge and read any publication with the click of a mouse, as the saying goes. However, we are also beginning to acknowledge the drawbacks of all of this information.
It seems that more is not always better. Information overload is a real problem that can make our minds hazy and our time disappears into thin air. One way this is being acknowledged is with the invention of devices that free us from distraction, allowing us to concentrate on our writing.
Remarkable is a device that seeks to solve a number of problems. One is the distraction of a typical computer or tablet. This device is only for writing, taking notes, and marking up PDFs. They also seek to solve the problem with paper by making the text you write searchable, savable, and organizable. All of this is right on the device.
The tablet also feels like paper. It has little to no lag in the writing and a soft texture, all of which are meant to imitate the experience of writing. This is just one example of a distraction-free device. Other examples include a traditional typewriter or applications that you can install on your computer. The latter comes with the increased risk of being distracted by things on your computer, so it seems like a compromise if you really want to dive deep into concentration to improve your writing.