Mari Collier's Blog - Posts Tagged "guest-grammarly-writing-tools"
Welcome to a Guest Blogger
It’s been a very busy five months for me. The last two were interrupted by an illness and the publishing of my latest novel, Return of the Maca. There really wasn't time to do a proper blog. Someone stepped in to help me out. Please welcome Nikolas Baron, but first I’d like to tell you a bit about him.
Nikolas discovered his love for the written word in Elementary School, where he started spending his afternoons sprawled across the living room floor devouring one Marc Brown children’s’ novel after the other and writing short stories about daring pirate adventures. After acquiring some experience in various marketing, business development, and hiring roles at internet start ups in a few different countries, he decided to re-unite his professional life with his childhood passions by joining Grammarly’s marketing team in San Francisco. He has the pleasure of being tasked with talking to writers, bloggers, teachers, and others about how they use Grammarly’s online proofreading application to improve their writing. His free time is spent biking, travelling, and reading. I’ll let him tell you more in his own words.
Writing is one of those professions where learning, adapting, and maturing are critical to success. I like to remind myself that in order to grow as a writer, I must always learn. Whether it’s from my own mistakes, the corrections from an editor, a fiction book I’m reading, or a book about how to write better, learning is what improves my writing. You can write every day for one hour or write 1,000 words, submit drafts, and incorporate edits but there is a lot more to be learned about writing techniques in addition to practice. There are millions of books on how to write better, faster, longer, but which ones actually help to improve your overall skill set? Which ones can help you perfect your grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure? Which ones can help you develop theme, motif, and foreshadowing? With all of the paper fluff in bookstores, what resources are really worth your buck? After sifting through the sands of writing books time, I’ve come up with a list of resources that help writers learn more about their craft while improving their skills.
1) On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King: Not only was this book funny and entertaining, it made me take a step back as a writer, think about the craft and how I was or wasn’t using it to my benefit. Although some professional writers look down on King for his style of writing, there are tons of gems hidden within the text of this story. I realized how I was using adverbs as a crutch, how to create a better sentence, and how to appreciate what writing gives back. This book is truly an invaluable resource in my library and will help writers young and old appreciate the craft while improving their skills.
2) Sin and Syntax: How to Craft Wickedly Effective Prose by Constance Hale: If you want to spice up your writing and learn the secrets of breaking the grammar rules, this book is perfect for you. It emphasizes using traditional techniques in unconventional ways while also reminding you that similes, alliteration, onomatopoeia, and metaphors are critical to having fantastic writing.
3) Grammarly (www.grammarly.com): Grammarly is a comprehensive online tool that helps you learn more about writing while performing a grammar check, punctuation proof, plagiarism check, or while looking for other synonyms. Grammarly is exceptional at checking your work and finding errors that traditional programs miss. It also has a great community of writers to answer your questions accurately. When I found Grammarly, it was a huge time saver. I could proof my work in a matter of minutes and learn how to fix my most common errors. If you need to perform a grammar check, proofread, or want to learn more about writing, this tool is excellent.
4) Purdue OWL (https://owl.english.purdue.edu/): In college, my professors always sent us to the Purdue OWL (Online Writing Lab) for tricky grammar and sentence structure issues. Even as a full-time writer, I use this website all the time. It constantly teaches me about how grammar and punctuation are changing and how I can improve my writing. It has all the answers to your writing questions including citation information. The Purdue OWL is constantly updating its online resources and writers can feel confident visiting this site will lead them to the most up-to-date grammar, punctuation, citation, and style tidbits.
5) The Art of Fiction: notes on Craft for Young Writers by John Gardner: John Gardner takes you back to the fundamentals in this instructive and useful book on writing. Want to relearn the basics and finally craft the perfect long sentence using several different types of punctuation? This book will lead you on the path to grammar enlightenment. This book revived my love for writing when I wasn’t sure I wanted to keep writing. It continues to serve as a reference tool for my constant writing learning.
As a writer, reading and learning how to write are just as important as continual writing. A good painter constantly improves their technique, visits art exhibits, and experiments with what they've learned from others. Writing is the exact same. Read a lot, write a lot, and learn more about your craft and success will come. Utilizing these resources will not only remind you why you love writing but how you can improve through learning.
Nikolas Baron
Thanks for joining me today, Nikolas.
Nikolas discovered his love for the written word in Elementary School, where he started spending his afternoons sprawled across the living room floor devouring one Marc Brown children’s’ novel after the other and writing short stories about daring pirate adventures. After acquiring some experience in various marketing, business development, and hiring roles at internet start ups in a few different countries, he decided to re-unite his professional life with his childhood passions by joining Grammarly’s marketing team in San Francisco. He has the pleasure of being tasked with talking to writers, bloggers, teachers, and others about how they use Grammarly’s online proofreading application to improve their writing. His free time is spent biking, travelling, and reading. I’ll let him tell you more in his own words.
Writing is one of those professions where learning, adapting, and maturing are critical to success. I like to remind myself that in order to grow as a writer, I must always learn. Whether it’s from my own mistakes, the corrections from an editor, a fiction book I’m reading, or a book about how to write better, learning is what improves my writing. You can write every day for one hour or write 1,000 words, submit drafts, and incorporate edits but there is a lot more to be learned about writing techniques in addition to practice. There are millions of books on how to write better, faster, longer, but which ones actually help to improve your overall skill set? Which ones can help you perfect your grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure? Which ones can help you develop theme, motif, and foreshadowing? With all of the paper fluff in bookstores, what resources are really worth your buck? After sifting through the sands of writing books time, I’ve come up with a list of resources that help writers learn more about their craft while improving their skills.
1) On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King: Not only was this book funny and entertaining, it made me take a step back as a writer, think about the craft and how I was or wasn’t using it to my benefit. Although some professional writers look down on King for his style of writing, there are tons of gems hidden within the text of this story. I realized how I was using adverbs as a crutch, how to create a better sentence, and how to appreciate what writing gives back. This book is truly an invaluable resource in my library and will help writers young and old appreciate the craft while improving their skills.
2) Sin and Syntax: How to Craft Wickedly Effective Prose by Constance Hale: If you want to spice up your writing and learn the secrets of breaking the grammar rules, this book is perfect for you. It emphasizes using traditional techniques in unconventional ways while also reminding you that similes, alliteration, onomatopoeia, and metaphors are critical to having fantastic writing.
3) Grammarly (www.grammarly.com): Grammarly is a comprehensive online tool that helps you learn more about writing while performing a grammar check, punctuation proof, plagiarism check, or while looking for other synonyms. Grammarly is exceptional at checking your work and finding errors that traditional programs miss. It also has a great community of writers to answer your questions accurately. When I found Grammarly, it was a huge time saver. I could proof my work in a matter of minutes and learn how to fix my most common errors. If you need to perform a grammar check, proofread, or want to learn more about writing, this tool is excellent.
4) Purdue OWL (https://owl.english.purdue.edu/): In college, my professors always sent us to the Purdue OWL (Online Writing Lab) for tricky grammar and sentence structure issues. Even as a full-time writer, I use this website all the time. It constantly teaches me about how grammar and punctuation are changing and how I can improve my writing. It has all the answers to your writing questions including citation information. The Purdue OWL is constantly updating its online resources and writers can feel confident visiting this site will lead them to the most up-to-date grammar, punctuation, citation, and style tidbits.
5) The Art of Fiction: notes on Craft for Young Writers by John Gardner: John Gardner takes you back to the fundamentals in this instructive and useful book on writing. Want to relearn the basics and finally craft the perfect long sentence using several different types of punctuation? This book will lead you on the path to grammar enlightenment. This book revived my love for writing when I wasn’t sure I wanted to keep writing. It continues to serve as a reference tool for my constant writing learning.
As a writer, reading and learning how to write are just as important as continual writing. A good painter constantly improves their technique, visits art exhibits, and experiments with what they've learned from others. Writing is the exact same. Read a lot, write a lot, and learn more about your craft and success will come. Utilizing these resources will not only remind you why you love writing but how you can improve through learning.
Nikolas Baron
Thanks for joining me today, Nikolas.
