The days turn into weeks, and then the weeks turn into months. Blogging become a chore. You realize that you are spending most of your time trying to format your posts so that they look professionally done.

Then you hire a writer, and then two. Soon, you have a team of writers sending you posts every week, and you’re now spending all of your time editing and formatting those posts to look the way that you want them to look on the blog that has become a labor of love.

The problem is that all of this editing and formatting has taken away all of the time that you used to have for what you loved to do the most – write.

WordPress is a brilliant invention, and has made it possible for more and more people to have amazing websites, with beautiful themes. However, there is still the matter of the content area, which still needs to be formatted for pictures, ads and well-spaced content.

Formatting Your WordPress Content with a Template

A while back, I described to you how you could automatically insert an ad into every single post using the In-Post Template Add-on for WordPress.

This works brilliantly if you are starting with a new blog – but if you’ve already been inserting ads into your posts, it’ll go back and re-insert a new ad and completely mess up all of your old posts.

Don’t worry – there is another solution that is even better. By simply editing one of your standard WordPress PHP files, and then creating a style sheet, you can create your very own carefully formatted content template that will appear every time you click “Add New” in WordPress. All your old content will remain untouched.

Here’s a sample of all of the formatting work that I have going on in my own blog.

I’ve got a header image that needs to be carefully sized, with padding around it and left justified. I’ve got the “more” break, followed by my in-post Google Ad. Then, throughout each post I have additional images that are sized to suit and right justified. For the most part, I’m ashamed to say, I’ve been doing all of this manually – including all articles that my writers send in.

Here’s what such a post looks like when it’s published.

As you can see, the formatting is a little tricky because in one area I have the image left justified, and in the next section I have the ad right-justified. Then all additional images are right-justified as well. I like this setup for my own blog because it’s easier on the eyes and flows well. You may have your own preference for your particular WordPress blog.

The first step to create your template is to back-up your functions.php file (you’ll find it in the root directory of your theme), and then open it for editing.

You’ll see a bunch of code in here – all functions currently used by your current blog theme. You’re going to insert a new section between those functions. Find the end of the first function, and then insert the code that I’m going to detail next.

Now, I have to give credit where credit is due – I actually got this idea from David Hansen over at Smashing Magazine, who wrote an article on this back in October. In this case I’m going to expand on his idea by showing you how to tweak that template for things like ads and pictures.

add_filter('default_content','custom_editor_content');
add_editor_style('editor-style.css');
 
function custom_editor_content( $content ) {
 
$content = '
 
    <div class="content-col-side">
 
<img class="alignleft size-full " style="margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px;" title="placeholder" src="http://www.yourwebsite.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/imageplaceholder.png" alt="content template" />
 
 
     &nbsp;
 
     </div>    
 
    <div class="content-col-main">
 
    Insert your introduction here
 
    &nbsp;
 
    </div>
 
    <div class="content-google-ad">
 
    <span id="more-98442"></span>
    <div style="float: right;">
    Enter Google Script Here
    &nbsp;
    </div>
    </div>
 
   <div class="content-section-two">
    Here is second section content
    &nbsp;
    </div>
 
    <div class="content-image-three">
<img class="alignright size-full " style="margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px;" title="placeholder" src="http://www.yourwebsite.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/imageplaceholder.png" alt="content template" />
    &nbsp;
    </div>
 
    <div class="content-section-three">
    Here is third section content
    &nbsp; 
    </div>
 
    <div class="content-image-four">
<img class="alignright size-full " style="margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px;" title="placeholder" src="http://www.yourwebsite.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/imageplaceholder.png" alt="placeholder" /></a>
    &nbsp;
    </div>
 
    <div class="content-section-four">
    Here is third section content
    &nbsp;
     </div>
   ';
   return $content;
}

Notice how the alignment actually works best using the image alignment built into your theme style, and in the case of the Google Ad, you should use the second div with the style attribute to align where you’d like it to go. It just works best. However, as far as sizing, padding and placement, you’ll need to create the css file.

Here’s the styling for each section defined above.

body {
   background: #f5f5f5;
}
 
.content-col-main {
float:right;
width:70%;
padding:1%;
border: 1px dotted #ccc;
background: #fff;
}
 
.content-col-side {
float:left;
width:210px;
padding:1%;
border: 1px dotted #ccc;
background: #fff;
}
 
.content-google-ad {
float:right;
width:20%;
padding:1%;
border: 1px dotted #ccc;
background: #fff;
}
 
.content-section-two {
float:left;
width:70%;
padding:1%;
border: 1px dotted #ccc;
background: #fff;
}
 
.content-image-three {
float:right;
width:210px;
padding:1%;
border: 1px dotted #ccc;
background: #fff;
}
 
.content-section-three {
float:left;
width:70%;
padding:1%;
border: 1px dotted #ccc;
background: #fff;
}
 
img { /* Makes sure your images stay within their columns */
   max-width: 100%;
   width: auto;
   height: auto;
}

You can use either percentages or pixels for sizing. I prefer pixels for images, but it really comes down to preference. If there’s too much space between the pictures and text, just tweak the content percentages a bit until it looks good.

After you’ve saved your .css file, open up a new post and you’ll see that your perfectly formatted content template is already in place for you.

All you have to do is click on the image and upload the one you want to use, and then fill in all of the content areas. It really is as easy as that. Everything is automatically aligned and placed where they need to go.

All right-justified Google Code or images are already there – all you have to do is update the content. The time it will take you to put together a post with all of this already done for you will drop by a huge factor, guaranteed.

Updating all of the images on the template is as simple uploading the pictures that you want to use to your blog using the media upload tool, and then clicking on the image and pasting the URL to those images in the “Source” field.

Of course you’ll want to update the title and alt tags as well. As you can see here in my test article, writing an article is now just a matter of filling in each of the content areas. I can’t tell you how sweet it is to be able to just concentrate on writing, knowing that all of the proper formatting is already in place to make the article look its absolute best.

The final result? Here is my first test article using the new WordPress content template. All images and ad code is inserted, aligned and spaced perfectly.

If you didn’t know any better, you would think that nothing at all has changed on the blog. The formatting looks identical to the way it looked when I slaved over them for an hour or more. Now, all of that effort and trial-and-error formatting is already inserted right into the WordPress content template.
So now all that’s left is sitting back and doing what you’ve always loved to do – writing.
Does this WordPress Content template lessen the load on your own blog? Do you have any other formatting tips that people can use in their own templates? Share your thoughts and insights in the comments section below.
Image Credit: Shutterstock

Apple recently introduced iBooks Author in a live presentation at the Guggenheim in New York. The software is aimed at textbook writers and publishers, but it can just as well be used for producing cookbooks, picture books, interactive fiction novels, how-to books, and the like.

iBooks Author looks to be the first consumer-based e-Pub software designed for multimedia books.

Feature Overview

E-books designed with iBooks Author are basically geared to be read on the iPad platform using the recently updated iBooks 2 reader app. iBooks Author books can however be exported to PDF format, and to plain text format—excluding the embedded images and other media.

If you’re familiar with Apple’s desktop publishing application, Pages, you’ll feel at home with iBooks Author. Both programs share a similar interface, including text editor formatting tools and page layouts, and the familiar drop and add multimedia features.

iBooks Author, however, also includes several unique features including what are called Widgets, which allow you to include interactive images, 3D objects, Keynote presentations, custom HTML, and a review study guide tool for textbooks.

iBooks Author opens with six basic templates to get you started. You can write a book from scratch, but you also can import existing Pages and Word documents.

For the purposes of this review, I imported my Awesome Guide To Mac Automation, formatted in Word. iBooks Author pretty much kept all my text, font and header styles, screenshots, and titles in place. However, it did put extra spaces between the paragraphs.

Extra Features

iBooks Author is a pretty familiar text editor, so let’s focus on some of its unique features.

Because multimedia books produced in iBooks Author are primarily designed to be read and consumed on the iPad using the iBooks 2, by default you lay out books in landscape orientation, rather than the traditional portrait view.

In either view, the content remains the same, but the landscape view provides more interactive features. You can, for example, design your book so that readers can view a gallery of photos, or tap and watch an embedded video, or use various multi-touch gestures with say interactive maps and 3D objects. Portrait view on the other hand, pushes photos and interactive media to the side and puts the focus on text, with a more Read-only format.

iBooks Author also includes a textbook Glossary feature which allows you to not only select special terms and definitions but to also include related glossary terms for cross-referencing.

As with traditional textbooks, iBooks Author enables you to create multiple-choice review questions that can be placed at the end of each chapter of your textbook.

iPad Preview

Though iBooks Author is a WYSIWG desktop editor, you have to physically connect your iPad to your Mac in order to preview your book. Unfortunately Apple has not yet created an iBooks reader for the Mac. To view your book, you launch iBooks 2 on your connected iPad and then you click the iPad icon Preview button in the toolbar of iBooks Author. iBooks Author will send a Proof copy of your book which you can update as you a make changes to your book in iBooks Author.

This preview gives you the opportunity to see how the layout and multimedia features of your book will appear and work.

The iBook 2 reader includes features specifically for iBook Author-designed books and textbooks. In this updated version, for instance, you can use the highlighter simply by pressing down and over selected text with your finger, without having to make two or three taps that are still required with regular e-books.

iBooks 2 also comes with a dedicated flash card feature (that you of course create in iBooks Author), and a notepad that lists all of your highlights and typed notes.

However, Apple still does not allow you to export and share highlighted text in iBooks, but you can e-mail your written notes.

The updated features in iBooks 2 are good improvements, but its annotation tools for studying are still inadequate. Apple would do well to learn from iOS PDF reader apps, like iAnnotate for the types of tools  and features iBooks are still missing. For instance, the bookmarking tool in iBooks doesn’t allow you to change the name of the bookmark page. So when you review your bookmarks, all you get are the page numbers, which when reading and studying large textbooks is very inadequate for studying.

Both iBooks Author, which requires OS X Lion, and the iOS 5 version iBooks 2 are available are for free in their respective app stores.

Let us know what you think of these programs. What tools and features would you like to see added to them. Do you think iBooks Author will be a game changer for education?

We have previously reviewed OmmWriter for Mac. It has since been updated with additional features and versions for Windows and the iPad have been released. This review focuses on the Dana I version of Omm Writer, as seen in Windows 7. A donation-based upgrade to Dana II is available, which comes with additional audio and visual effects.

Writing Environment

OmmWriter takes over your entire screen and fills it with a serene background image and matching ambient music. A text box area accompanied by a simple menu is your writing space. As you start writing, you will hear typing sounds, adding to the serene atmosphere.

After a while, the bar on the right-hand side and the text box with the menu will disappear, leaving you with only a canvas for your words. This is perfect bliss for creative writing.

When you move the mouse, the surrounding structure comes back on. You can minimize or close OmmWriter by clicking the respective item in the top right of the bar on the right-hand side. Minimizing the application immediately fades out the music and you’re mercilessly returned to the bleak reality of your desktop.

Features

The whole point of OmmWriter is that it has almost no features. Nevertheless, there are some options that are nice to have and good to know about. So let’s have a look at what they are.

The menu has six different items: font, font size, background image, music, typing sound, and saving your document. Each comes with very few options. More precisely, you can choose between four different fonts, four different font sizes, three different background images, three different music loops (or off), three different typing sounds (or off), and you can save, save as or open files as .omm or .txt documents.

In addition, there is a word count in the bottom center of the text field.

Of course you can resize the text field to almost any size you like, as demonstrated below. Once your text exceeds the available space, the bar on the right-hand side will offer a scroll wheel.

And after all, some additional features are hidden in a traditional Windows menu that is uncovered at the very top when you hover in that area. The menu structure is dissected below. It contains some additional options, such as exporting your document to PDF, opening a new document, finding text, or transforming text.

Missing Features

Personally, I miss the option to personalize the background and the music. Also, for the darker background image, it would be nice to choose a lighter font color. It would also be nice to do some more formatting options to make the PDF export option worthwhile. To me that includes changing the font size only for highlighted text or making highlighted text bold, underlined, or italic. Without being able to format text, I don’t see much sense in exporting the document to PDF. That said, any additional feature would take away from the simplistic experience it offers, so maybe it’s just perfect the way it is.

Conclusion

OmmWriter is a great application to find serenity and peace for creative writing. It offers a very calm and relaxing, yet inspiring atmosphere. Features are stripped down to the minimum, preventing the writer to play around with options instead of focusing on the text. I would highly recommend OmmWriter to anyone who is easily distracted and needs a clean desktop environment to write well.

If OmmWriter doesn’t quite cut it for you, have a look at these applications:

• Reduce Distractions and Achieve Writing Goals with FocusWriter [Mac, Windows, Linux]
• Four Free Creative Writing Applications For The Mac
• Two Minimalist Linux Text Editors That Make Writing Easy

Also if you’re struggling with writer’s block, be inspired by the following pieces:

• 5 Websites For Writers To Cure Writer’s Block With Freewriting Exercises
• 10 More Websites That Help Cure Writer’s Block With Writing Prompts
• A Writer’s Guide To Free Apps For Inspiration & Organization

What is your preferred writing environment and how do you get rid of distractions?

After thinking long and hard about what medium I wanted to use to keep my journal, I chose Penzu.com because it offers advantages over traditional paper notebooks and even popular blog sites like WordPress and Tumblr.

We have written about Penzu before, but it has grown since then. However, many of the features and tips I share about journal writing with Penzu can be applied in one or another to other similar online writing application sites.

Why Journal Writing?

I have a box of over a dozen journal notebooks I filled up over a ten year period, and I learned that journal writing was and is a great way to reflect upon one’s life choices, aspirations, fears, important experiences, and the like.

Though journal writing can indeed be a literary endeavor in which your life’s experiences my well be published to the world, like the Dairy of Anne Frank, that should not be the initial goal of journal writing. Instead, the journal should be a secret place to share thoughts and insights with yourself. Your journal might go way beyond what you post on Twitter or Facebook, so in this regard Penzu offers some advantages that you might consider in keeping a journal.

Privacy

Because journal writing is often for your most private thoughts, Penzu provides password protection (for both your journal and individual entries) that you might not get with paper journals or some blog sites. In order to really let loose and write in journal, you should make most of what you write private so you can really say what’s on your mind.

However, in the age of the Internet there will be times when you want to share what you’ve written. With Penzu you can selectively share entries from your online journal via email or public link. You also get the option to share anonymously, and any edits you make to your entry will appear in the public version. You can also go back and click “Make Private” and the link will be deleted.

Multi-platform Writing

Because Penzu is an online writing application, entries can be written anywhere you have an online connection. This means you don’t have to worry about keeping a paper journal with you everywhere you go.

Writing can also be done in the Penzu iPhone, iPad, and Android apps, though the writing features of the mobile program are limited compared to the online version. And you must have a Penzu pro account to sync entries between the mobile app and your online account.

Writing online or the mobile app in the long run can be so much better than pen and paper because it offers great opportunities for editing, revising, and exporting writing into different formats.

Even though Penzu provides instant backup of your journal entries, it wouldn’t hurt to export and backup your journal entries in say PDF format for safe keeping in an online locker and/or an external drive.

Journal Writing Tips

Whether your journal takes the form of a daily dairy, a collection of your deepest and most intimate thoughts, or a travel, food, spiritual or idea journal, Penzu includes some features that will come in handy for making better use of your written entries.

In her book, Leaving a Trace: On Journal Entries, Alexandra Johnson talks about the importance of revisiting the entries you write, to gain insight from your past entries, to see what themes emerge, or what topics you seem to keep coming back to.

Penzu includes what it calls a Look Glass feature which if you turn it on will email you snippets of the entries you have written. Penzu says Looking Glass is “an algorithm that chooses an entry from the past…Depending on how often you write (or have been writing), you could be receiving emails of past entries every day or a few times a month. For entries that are locked or in locked journals, we only send a link to the entry so your private writing isn’t exposed.”

Johnson also suggests in her book that journal entries be indexed as you write—keeping a list of topics, names of people, places, dreams, illnesses, stories, etc with corresponding page numbers. Well, with Penzu you can use the tagging feature which will be a lot more efficient than an index list.

In Penzu you can filter entries by tags as yet another way to go back  and read and reflect on various topics and themes. It’s even useful to write new entries based on what you wrote in the past.

In addition, Penzu has an Add Comment feature that can be used like post-it notes for later coming back and making observational notes on selected entries. It would be great if Penzu included a bookmarking or flagging feature which might be useful for revisiting important entries.

Pro Features

The free version of Penzu includes unlimited entries, the ability to embed images from your computer and Flickr, autosaving, printing and sharing via email and public link, commenting on shared entries, searching, and Looking Glass. The free features should be sufficient to get started, and may be all you need for keeping a basic journal.

Penzu’s pro level ($20 per year) features include rich text formatting, custom avatar, customized paper styles and writing backgrounds, multiple journals, the ability to export journals to PDF, XML, and TXT files, and lots more. The price of a pro account is a little heavy and I wouldn’t recommend it if you’re keeping a journal for the first time. If you get into a serious journal writing habit and you see that you need the extra features, then consider the upgrade.

Let us know what you think of Penzu and what other features you would like to see added to the service.

Giving you ideas to write about is the main reason StoryTree exists. They have many topics available to help you come up with cool stuff to write about. They make it easy to get your brain flowing in a creative direction with all kinds of topics. What you, as the writer, choose to do with those topics is completely up to you, but they move you in the right direction. They also let you share your creations with people close to you, if you should so choose.

Set Up

As with any iPhone app, you need to go the iTunes store and download it. You can click this handy link, or simply go directly on your device and search for “storytree” to download the free application to your device.

StoryTree greets you with a beautiful starting screen that gives a quick explanation of what it is. Then it will ask you to create a free account. You will need to provide your name, an email address (no verification required) and the name of your story tree. Once finished click submit, and you will be taken to the StoryTree main page.

This page features a sample post from story tree with a video attached. You can watch that video if you think you want to learn more about the app, or click the “+” to start your own story.

Writing a Story

When you open up the page to start a new story you will be given a few options. The first is the “Don’t know what to say” option. Clicking on this will provide you with a bunch of questions that will get you thinking. The next option is to take a video or photo and write about it. Pictures are worth a thousand words, and they can be a great place to find some inspiration.

They also give you the option of recording a voice note and choosing some media that already exists on your device. All of the options provide some great ways to get the creative juices flowing.

If you select the “Don’t know what to say” option, you can also choose to come up with your own question. If you know what you want to write about, you should choose this option.

Once you find an option you like, click it and the app will take you to a screen that allows you to add a photo and write the story itself. You can take a new photo or choose an existing one. The next screen will be where you can select which tree you would like to share it to (if you have more than one) and whether or not you want it to be private or shared on Twitter and Facebook.

The steps for writing something based on a picture, video or voice note are the same, but you need to provide a title for the story.

Invites

You can invite other users into your story tree so they can easily see your stories. They need to have a StoryTree account for this to work. If they do not, you can use the link on the top left corner of the screen and invite them directly from your address book.

If they choose to join, they will be able to share your stories and view them whenever they choose.

Conclusion

This is a great app for sharing photos and thoughts, and a great way to get the creative juices flowing. It has a great set of features for anyone who likes to share. If you are stuck with a bad case of writers block, you should check out StoryTree and see if it breaks you out of the slump!

Did StoryTree inspire you to write? Did you write something you want to share? Let us know in the comments!

Image Credit: ShutterStock

Today, I’ve put together a few blog types that you may or may not want to avoid. One of the first things that happens when starting a blog is not knowing the direction that you want to go in, so this may serve as a means for you to get an idea of what you want to do. Granted, like I said, if you want to be different, these types of blogs are also ones you might want to avoid entirely.

The Teen Rambler Blog

As a teen, I started blogging back when MySpace was popular (bleh), and for some reason, I thought I would get rich and famous doing it. Neither of those things happened. But if you’re a teen MUO reader, I recommend that you get out there and just start writing whatever comes to mind.

Why? In most cases, what you write now isn’t going to be huge (I’m not saying it can’t), but it’s great practice for your future to just jot something down every once in a while. Don’t hold back, and remember that you’re awesome for actually venturing out and doing it. Most people wouldn’t.

The Mom Blog

A lot of moms out there can get stressed due to the day-to-day life of raising their kids (along with work), and often, this doesn’t leave enough time for creativity. So how do we fix this? Just break out a combo attack with the Mom Blog. Simply put, you can blog about your kids, for there are certainly a lot of great stories to choose from when it comes to this subject.

What makes the deal even sweeter is that since you’ve set time out to write about your family, you will likely have time to think of those personal topics that you love writing about. So there you go – instant creativity time.

The Philosophy Blog

The Philosophy Blog goes into deep emotional thought and dives into the darker untraveled regions of the human mind. Here on these blogs, we will take simple thoughts and break them down into very confusing anecdotes.

Am I against thinking? No. I will just say that I personally have not found many philosophy blogs that have a lot of readers – maybe one or two – so tread carefully, my friend. However, I may just be looking in the wrong places.

The Tech Blog

Well, you’re on a tech blog right now, so part of me thinks I shouldn’t have even included this. However, if you’re really into techy stuff, you should go ahead and give this one a shot.

What might get you a number of readers is doing tutorials on how to fix (commonly-Googled) tech problems. However, if you have a passion for electronic devices, you might want to go that route. Either way, the Tech Blog has been on the rise for quite a while now, and you really can’t go wrong with it.

The Political Rant Blog

I don’t like politics – hate it honestly. However, if you are a politically-minded person, then why not do something about it? Simply go out and make a blog that surrounds politics, and your fiery argumentative heart will finally have an outlet. This blog could simply regurgitate your own views, or it could bash the views of others.

I couldn’t personally stand to write the Political Rant Blog, but if you feel the need to do so, then by all means do it.

The Gourmet Blog

I haven’t yet met a person that doesn’t like food, and in fact, I hear there are people that actually like making it. If you’re a blogger that happens to have a knack for fixing things up in the kitchen, I recommend that you do us all a favor and write a Gourmet Blog.

Why? With this personal publication, you can publish your recipes and tips for your delicious food, and if you have a talent for it, you should share it with the world.

The Neglected Blog

If you’re like me, you have become so busy that you can’t maintain a personal blog. However, you may still have that desire to place personal thoughts on the screen, and you still need an outlet. What I suggest is making a blog, and write on it whenever you feel like doing it. Don’t apologize to readers because you “haven’t written for so long”. They won’t care, for if they like your stuff, they are willing to wait. So go ahead. Neglect your blog.

Conclusion

There are a billion jillion types of blogs you could be writing right now, so the above items are only a small segment of possibilities. Hopefully, these may help you get started in the direction you want to go in, but they also might let you know what you don’t want to write.

What other types of blogs do you know of? Are there any types of blogs you don’t like? Are there any that you like specifically?

Image Credit: Dave

The love has endured as I have continued to broaden my career as a blogger and a voracious consumer of the English language. So, if you read and write in English, come with me as we try to align a language and some computational logic to come up with data that could help us in our reading and writing.

Word Definitions & The Story Behind It

In short, Wolfram Alpha gives you the common meaning, pronunciation, first known use, origin, inflected forms, and general usage of a word with examples. I wish it would also give me an audio of the pronunciation, but that’s a minor peeve when it gives me much more on a word. The word definitions also cover – synonyms, antonyms, similar terms, rhymes, and phrases.  If you are the statistical sort, you can also view the frequency of its usage throughout history.

Don’t Be At A Loss For Words

Wolfram Alpha is like a thesaurus, reverse lookup dictionary, anagram solver, and more. For instance, if I want a few words that end in a particular string of letters, I just type it in as above and the engine spews out quite a few that are available.

How Long Will It Take Me To Read This Book?

Planning to borrow a book from the library? Type in the number of pages, words, or characters and see the time it will take you to finish reading the book. You can just as easily find the typing time and the costs if you are planning to write a novel or just a school assignment.

Which Newspaper Should I Subscribe To?

The information is sometimes not current, and not very detailed. But you can use Wolfram Alpha to get a comparative estimate of circulation figures and maybe go for the one with the higher number of readers.

When Was This Book First Published?

Type in the title of a book and Wolfram Alpha gives you some quick facts regarding the book’s original publication date and a few more assorted data. This could be a handy reference for librarians.

Can I Understand This Book?

Readability index is a standard that measures reader’s comprehension of what is written. There are different types of readability measurement scales and readability tools. Wolfram Alpha is a quick one which gives you a few numbers according to two U.S. indices. You can try this out according to the format shown before picking up a heavy volume of a classic.

Trace The Name Of A Book

Just can’t recall the name of a book? You can turn to this previous post of ours or give Wolfram Alpha a chance by typing in ‘books with the word’ followed by the word. Clicking on the titles reveals a bit more about the book.

Who Is Robinson Crusoe?

Well, you will probably get more detailed info with a regular search engine, but Wolfram Alpha is not that bad when it comes to a brief description of a fictional character (or even a non-fictional one). Just type in the name and there it is.

Cheating At Scrabble

Enter “Scrabble” in the search box (without the double quotes). Choose – use as a computation. Enter the word for which you want the tile score. You might get a screen as shown above. You also get possible words from the tiles you have. Wolfram Alpha gives you an extra hand if you don’t mind being called a cheat at the world’s most popular word game.

Crosswords Decrypted

The same page which gives you the word definition also gives you the possible crossword puzzle clues. You can use it to make crossword puzzles of your own. Wolfram Alpha also does its permutation on a word and can be used as a handy anagram solver which gives you all the possible combinations with the word you type in. You can also find words if you know a few of the letters. This Wolfram Alpha page covers its use with puzzles.

You have to dive deep into Wolfram Alpha to really exploit it to the hilt. If you are a language worker, these are just the few ways you can use the computational engine. There are other uses of course, as outlined in our previous posts:

• 5 Weird & Wonderful Uses For Wolfram Alpha
• The True Power of the Wolfram Alpha Knowledge Engine
• Let Wolfram Alpha Create Your Password For You

But now tell us if you have this cool web app parked next to traditional search engines like Google and Bing. Tell us how you make use of Wolfram Alpha.

The web has revolutionized book publishing and promotion, and brought it within reach of anyone with an idea. There are numerous instances where a greenhorn has made a pretty bundle by offering books for the price of a sheet of paper through sites which promote fresh authors and independent publishing. Getting your first book published is no longer about a basket of rejection slips.

Thanks to author websites like the ones we profile below, the journey from a writer to an author could be a short one.

Authonomy

You won’t ask too many questions when you know that this site has been developed by HarperCollins. HarperCollins hopes to shortcut the process of finding budding writing talent by finding new literature and the new writers behind it. Authonomy is an online community for readers, writers, and generally anyone who has an interest in books. You can create a personal page and upload a raw manuscript (at least 10,000 words long) for others to read, review, and rate. The community ranks your work and puts it in the spotlight for HarperCollins to pick up and publish it through its traditional book publishing programs.

Authonomy has a few lists like weekly top rated books, Editor’s Desk, and Book Chart, which you can go straight to for viewing the work of new writers. With the help of the social networking features, you can talk to the budding writers, share tips, ask for advice, and improve your writing. Authonomy gives you a visual bookshelf which is like a watch list for the books you liked reading. Watch list also helps you keep track of your favorite books and authors.

Figment

Figment follows the same social path to discover great writing as the site above. There are few minor differences in the features as Figment brings in motivational prods like contests to push you and your writing. On Figment, you can not only read excerpts of books, you can also purchase them from sites like Amazon, Barnes&Noble, and IndieBound. The Figment Library is a cool place to browse the work of others. The library is neatly arranged around the various fiction genres.

Figment asks you to be brave and just start posting. You can start using the site’s writing tool to create your first ‘bestseller’ and come back to it when bursts of creativity hit you. Figment preserves your writing. At the end of the day, you can take the help of the community, forum, and the various groups to meet up with other ‘Figs’ and he hash it out over things you love.

Jottify

Jottify works on a similar principle of write – discover – sell. It is a neat place to share your writing and enjoy somebody else’s work too. The Jottify store allows you to publish your work in e-reader format, at the touch of a button. Jottify gives you the tools to compose your book. Jottify formats the e-book (in three e-book formats); the author picks a sale price and gets 70% commission for every book that gets sold.

Jottify again is a great place to join-up and see what others of your ilk are writing and reading. You can download a few books which are marked as ‘free’.

Libboo

Libboo is an online platform for all kinds of writing…even collaborative writing projects to crowd source a book. Each user can be given an individual profile. Libboo also is a bridge between your writing and the world of publishing. The About page says that Libboo has a fully automated copyright management policy. As an author you can completely manage the publication of your book. Using Libboo and its content creation tools (an online editor), you can create books and publish them in popular ebook formats. There’s of course, the community feel that could be helpful to the aspiring writer as he reads, writes, and connects.

For an aspiring writer or a novelist, it makes sense to try out these smaller author websites as against the bigger names in the publishing world. It’s very difficult to get your name showcased in sites like Amazon, Barnes & Noble etc. Another stumbling block comes with the commercialization of your book and the commissions you might have to forego. These five sites go a long away in helping you test the waters.

Here are a few more hints for the aspiring novelist:

• Create Your Short Stories & Novels With StoryBook
• 10 More Websites That Help Cure Writer’s Block With Writing Prompts
• 7 Collaborative Storytelling Websites to Weave Your Own Digital Stories
• 4 Of The Best Online Print-On-Demand Book Publishers
• Five Creative Writing Projects You Can Do Today

Have you dreamt of writing a book? Let us know the story of your success or failure.

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If you think that sparks of instant creativity can turn into movie magic, let these websites help you by allowing you to pitch your movie ideas to the world. I am of course not sure how far these websites will help you get that big fat pay cheque, but just like novel writing and short story websites, these movie story sites also help to put your movie ideas out there.

And who knows, your movie idea could just…just get noticed.

Note: Always read the terms and clauses which govern your submission.

Trigger Street Labs

Trigger Street Labs is a community of filmmakers, writers, readers, and film buffs who collectively share, discover, and critique. The community rates the best among the rest and it gets featured on the site. The best work gets the ‘Spotlight’ each month and that helps it to be showcased for a wider audience. You have to register on the site and send in your submissions. Trigger Street Labs does not accept unasked for submissions.

The process starts with an assignment which you have to review. An eligibility test follows the review. Credits collected so help you when you have to submit your own work to be reviewed by others. Browse through the Short Stories and Screenplays section to read recent submissions and reviews.

BBC Writer’s Room

With a broad coverage of BBC Films, TV drama, children’s drama, TV comedy, radio entertainment and radio drama, you get plenty of options to break through with a creative idea. It may be British, but those from across the Atlantic can try their writing hand.

Writer’s Room accepts only full scripts with a minimum of 30 pages. It also applies strict formatting guidelines which you can go over on their Terms and Conditions page. Here’s the complete submissions flowchart of the entire process.

MovieBytes

MovieBytes has free and Pro membership options, but the value of the site lies in the contest directory it publishes on the site. Note that contests may or may not be offering free submissions, but it’s a cool resource to check out as the page is kept updated with upcoming contests and call for submissions.

WinningScripts.com is a service developed by MovieBytes to help producers and agencies find quality material from among those scripts that have fared well in screenwriting competitions. The basic service is completely free for both writers and producers.

American Express Film (My Movie Pitch)

You probably guessed that the YouTube channel is promoted by the Credit Card Company and Tribeca Film Festival (founded by the likes of Robert De Niro). My Movie Pitch is actually a contest to bring some great movie ideas out from the closet into the public domain.  You can jump in with a 60 second pitch and a dream to see your genius spark makes it to the big screen. Viewers can rate the movie pitches as they go through the two rounds of the contest.

Last year’s finalists went on to win an American Express Filmmaker’s Toolkit, including a laptop, movie editing software package and an HD video camera. The grand winner got a trip for two to New York City and VIP access alongside his short film debut at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival. The final winner is selected by Tribeca Film Directors special panel, so it’s an honor indeed.

Make’n Movies

You can start with a 300-500 word movie idea instead of a long movie script. Movie ideas are rated by members of the forum. Those that are rated the highest are featured more prominently on the site. All movie scripts and ideas come under a Creative Commons license.

Make’n Movies says that script ideas with good ratings have a higher visibility on the site and a chance to grab some eyeballs. If it leads to an offer, the site also offers its services to negotiate the deal. I couldn’t find many media mentions about the site, though.

Movie ideas are plentiful and so are resources which will help you pitch them. If you have a ready script, take care to copyright it. Services like WGAWRegistry.org could help with that.

This list has been put together while I was researching how to take creative stories forward. They haven’t been tested across the entire cycle of submission to acceptance. So, please treat the list of movie ideas websites as such – just a list which you can try out if a great story idea strikes you. I have purposefully avoided sites which ask you register for a free or to purchase something before you submit your idea.

Also Read: 5 Online Resources For The Aspiring Scriptwriter

Do come back and share your experiences too. And let us know if you have any sites in mind that can help us get a million dollar advance (even a compliment will do!) with a great movie idea pitch.

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However, a lot of bad fan fiction isn’t popular because it’s simply bad. A lot of the time, it’s because it’s actually kind of awkward (and funny). So load up your fan wikis, because MUO is about to destroy everything you’ve ever known about story canon.

Doom: Repercussions Of Evil

Here we have it – the legendary origins of the meme-ified phrases “No, John. You are the demons” as well as “And then John was a zombie”. Written by self-confessed lulz-seeker Peter Chimera, Repercussions Of Evil was originally posted on FanFiction.net as an “attempt” at writing a story set in the video game world of Doom. From what I can tell, the story is about a marine – John – and his trials and tribulations fighting the demons with his “plasma rifle”. Oh, and he becomes a zombie. Somehow. For a more dramatic interpretation of the classic tale, watch the video below.

Halo: Halos In Space

Truth be told, I’m a hardcore Halo fan (but not-so-much a hardcore Halo player). However, Halo: Halos In Space somewhat put a weird taste in my mouth over the whole Bungie creation. The story is about Master Chief John-117′s apparent brother, Joe Chief, and his attempts to fight the Covenant. With epic moments in which “Joe Chief shot like ‘bang bang bang’” and the two soldiers who “when they left a ship landed and skwashed them”, I just didn’t really know how to take it.

As a note, this isn’t author Squirrelking’s only game-inspired fanfic. Fortunately for you, he has quite a few others, and there’s even a sequel to Halos In Space! As with Repercussions Of Evil, MUO has taken the privilege of presenting you with the film version of this classic tale.

Goku/Anne Frank: Until the End of Time

Yeah. Just look at this title –Goku/Anne Frank: Until the End of Time. Somehow, an author by the name of Gofer-Chan decided to create a Dragon Ball Z – Anne Frank crossover fanfic. On the webpage in which this is posted, he simply states that it was his brother’s idea, and that he’s a fan of both Anne and DBZ.

Assuming this is a pseudonym of a writer who is just trying to pull a fast one on us all, I can kind of appreciate it. However, if this isn’t the case, someone might want to explain to him that Anne Frank was real, or in a much more worse situation, someone might want to explain to him that DBZ isn’t real.

The plot-line is relatively straight-forward (as with most fan fiction). Goku simply ends up in Anne’s time due to a time portal mishap, and he has to wait on his power cells to recharge. In the meantime, he recognizes she is beautiful, but he also makes it clear that he is married and can’t stray from his spouse. Anne, however, swoons over his wit and charm, but almost as quickly as he arrives, Goku leaves. (Sadly, I actually think this one has a lot of potential, and I never even watched DBZ as a kid.)

Conclusion

There are dozens upon dozens of different examples of awkward fanfic that I found online. However, these three seemed about the most family-friendly options available out there. For the record, there’s a really messed up Harry Potter tale that you might be able to find simply by doing a little Googling, but I couldn’t put it on here. It’s just a little too racy, but it definitely fits the bill of being awkward.

What other fanfics do you know about? Would you consider posting your own dramatic readings right here in the comments? Tell us all about your fanfic findings.

Image Credit: dave