I call myself a writer, and most of the time, that’s what I do. I started this blog (almost five years ago!) specifically as a place to store things I’ve written. The last few months, though, have been crazy-busy, and while that’s good news for my resume and for my bank account, it hasn’t been so good for my blog. So here’s a compilation of things that make the writer in me smile:

One way to encourage yourself to write is to just sit down and crank out the words without worrying about typos or grammar or editing. 750words.com gives you place to do just that – it is strictly a scratch pad word counter (plus a tiny bit of incentive with stuff like a “wall of fame” for those of you write every day for a month). I signed up July 1st, but haven’t made it to 750 words on the site for the whole month yet, much less 750 on any given day.

Another fun project is Nanowrimo – or “National Novel Writing Month”. The idea here is that you start on November 1st and finish a 50,000-word novel by the end of the month, logging in every day to clock word-counts. Notice that like 750 words, they’re not looking at content or quality, just inspiring you to crank the thing out. This one also has tons of local groups who get together during the month to support and encourage each other.

I also get a kick out of “The First Line” where, as you might guess, they give you the first line of a story and you have to write the rest. Any genre, anywhere between 300 and 3,000 words. This is one I actually accomplished once!

Which are YOUR favorites?