Besides the spell check provided by the google toolbar, I also use a variety of sources to help me write. Here are a few completely free books from Project Guttenburg that I have found to help me write (at least a little). Not only helpful (grammar and style), they also inspire and instruct and are good for that ‘perfect’ title to attract attention. By using these resources, I have no doubt that anyone can achieve serene triumph through newly found emotive power.

1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue
Reprint of the author’s Lexicon balatronicum; a dictionary of buckish slang, university wit, and pickpocket eloquence (and now considerably altered and enlarged, with the modern changes and improvements, by a member of the whip club.)

How to Speak and Write Correctly
Consider the contrast between the well-bred, polite man who knows how to choose and use his words correctly and the underbred, vulgar boor, whose language grates upon the ear and jars the sensitiveness of the finer feelings. The blunders of the latter, his infringement of all the canons of grammar, his absurdities and monstrosities of language, make his very presence a pain, and one is glad to escape from his company.

Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases
A Practical Handbook Of Pertinent Expressions, Striking Similes, Literary, Commercial, Conversational, And Oratorical Terms, For The Embellishment Of Speech And Literature, And The Improvement Of The Vocabulary Of Those Persons Who Read, Write, And Speak English

How To Write Special Feature Articles
A Handbook for Reporters, Correspondents and Free-Lance Writers Who Desire to Contribute to Popular Magazines and Magazine Sections of Newspapers

Write It Right
A little blacklist of literary faults, the main purpose in this book is to teach precision in writing — essentially, clear thinking made visible. It is attained by choice of the word that accurately and adequately expresses what the writer has in mind, and by exclusion of that which either denotes or connotes something else. The writer should so write that his reader not only may, but must, understand.

Art of Money Getting
When you find that you have no surplus at the end of the year, and yet have a good income, I advise you to take a few sheets of paper and form them into a book and mark down every item of expenditure. Post it every day or week in two columns, one headed “necessaries” or even “comforts”, and the other headed “luxuries,” and you will find that the latter column will be double, treble, and frequently ten times greater than the former.

Anyone know of some other, obscure yet interesting resources that one could use to inspire and motivate or provide reference on writing?

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This post has 4 comments.

  1. Ja
    15 Jun 06
    11:51 pm

    Besides the spell check provided by the google toolbar, I also use a variety of sources to help me write.

    Resources would work better than “sources” in that line.

    Read things you enjoy reading. Don’t read things about how to write. If you’re reading things you enjoy by various authors, after a while you’ll see that your writing has improved and hopefully you will have defined or refined your own style.

    Looking to references or instructions only serves to dilute that style.

    Don’t go looking for motivation/inspriation, let it find you.

    Above all, the best resource is an ingenious editor. ;)

  2. seth
    20 Jun 06
    5:08 pm

    As much as I want to totally agree with Ja, I will never say an unkind word about “The Elements of Style,” by Strunk & White. I love that little book. I really do; it’s like, the best thing ever! (Sniffs, dabs at corner of eye with hankey.)

  3. Eric
    17 Jun 07
    8:21 am

    This is exactly what I expected to find out after reading the title ggers Online Reference Library at MaxPower. Thanks for informative article

  4. Thanks for these useful information. :)