#atozchallenge Z is for Zee Endz

Well, I’m not making up a Z post for the sake of it. It’s been a long and windy journey, and if you’ve arrived at Z via the #AtoZChallenge, I congratulate you on your perseverance. It’s been a tough journey for all the bloggers, but I’ve thoroughly enjoyed writing out these posts, and doing the rounds of reading others.

This post will simply work as an appendum, containing a list of all the references, links, and books I’ve used in this A-Z post series on Writer’s Core Habits. But first – a video…

I’m from New Zealand so can say it’s Zee Endz, Surlyz?

One of my favourite kiwi groups from way back was Split Enz – Neil Finn then went on to form several other groups such as Crowded House, along with some Aussies, some Americans, and brother Tim Finn. To this day, ‘Don’t Dream it’s Over’ remains one of my all time favourite songs. But here’s a little bit of Split Enz reformed later on, doing ‘History Never Repeats’.

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All the References, Books and Links in One Place

Links and References

Tools Mentioned

• Subliminal Power – An app which flashes affirmations I’ve chosen for myself onto my computer screen every few seconds. I’ve written of my experience with affirmations and Subliminal Power in this post.
• 750words.com – If you want a safe online environment and are motivated by things like collector badges and line graphs of your daily accomplishments, then you may like to consider 750words.com for daily writing.
• Evernote – a database app that works across all platforms, and which I use to store my growing curration of research materials, electronic notes, journal notes, links, and clippings.
• Penultimate app takes handwritten notes and synchs through to Evernote.
• Paper by FiftyThree– a painting handwriting app.

Websites, Blog Posts and References Used

• Julia Cameron Live website – Julia Cameron’s website page on Affirmations
• References and Listings for the Best Possible Self exercise.
• The Health Benefits of Writing About Life Goals, Redirect: The Surprising New Science of Psychological Change, The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want – three papers and books by psychologists on the Best Possible Self exercise.
• Copyblogger – Why You Learn More Effectively by Writing Than Typing
• NaNoWriMo, the annual marathon challenge to start and finish a 50,000 word novel each November.
• Jill Badonsky’s website and blog.
• In the October 2012 issue of The Writer (a British magazine), the author Craig English had proposed that there are two types of writing demons.
• The colour green has lately been found to signify – and better yet, enhance creativity and relaxation. German Study, March 2012. More.
• Copyblogger – Catherine Caine: 10 Minutes of Gibberish exercise.
• Lateral Action – Four Ways to Silence your Inner Critic.
• Eric Maisel’s website.
• Carolyn Kaufman, PsyD, Archetype Writing: The Writer’s Inner Critic Part II: A Cognitive-Behavioral Approach to Dealing with the Inner Critic (or: How to Stop Awfulizing and Start Writing)
• Men with Pens – The Best – and Worst – Places to Write.
• Maria Popova, Brain Pickings – The Daily Routines of Famous Writers
• Brain Pickings – The Science of How Your Mind-Wandering Is Robbing You of Happiness.
• Brain Pickings – 7 Must-Read Books on the Art and Science of Happiness
• The Paris Review – Ernest Hemingway, The Art of Fiction No. 21.
• Apartment Therapy – Famous writers’ small writing sheds and off-the-grid huts
• Huffington Post UK – Famous Writers’ Retreats: The Rooms Where Classics Were Created
• Roald Dahl Museum – 3D tour of the Gipsy Hut
• Shortlist.com: Seven Strange Writing Rituals
• Leo Babuata, Zen Habits and The 7 Step Method for finding focus in writing and Monk Mind: How to increase your focus
• Sage Cohen, Writer’s Digest / Writing Articles, July 21, 2010, ‘Top 10 Productivity Pitfalls for Writers to Avoid’
• Dana Sitar, A Writer’s Bucket List.
• ROW80 (A Round of Words in 80 Days) – a website supporting weekly checkins and goal listing for writers.
• I posted my writing goals infographic in January
• Charles Duhigg website
• Joe’s Goals – a simple online check list or log book for your goals
• stickK – free, designed by Yale to test commitment contracts
• 21habit – create a 21 day challenge, deposit $21 and earn it back day by day
• 43Things – 3 million participants, set 3 goals, and supporters with the same goals cheer you on
• Don’t Break the Chain – check off an online calendar
• The initial 21 days idea is thought to have come from Maxwell Maltz’s self-help book, Psycho Cybernetics
• Psychology Today points out missing a day across those 66 days isn’t a terrible thing after a study of habit makers.
• Don’t Break the Chain comes from Jerry Seinfeld. Read the explanation via lifehacker.
• Joanna Penn, in a 2010 post describing the Artist Date.
• Some interesting writing prompt apps available, featured in this blog post.
• ‘To Journal, or Not to Journal—Now, THAT is the Writer’s Dilemma’, Danielle Bannister
• Journaling for the Chronic Journal Abandoner, Roni Loren.
• Easy Journaling is a website dedicated to journaling electronically, providing app reviews, tips and some ebooks on the subject.
• IAJW – The International Association for Journal Writing provides a lot of resources for members, including links for ebooks on the subject, and an affiliation with the LifeJournal 3 Software which has an addon specifically for writers.
• ‘Writers and Journals–and Online Journaling’ – Elizabeth S Craig writes about her find – OhLife – an online journaling app which sends out a daily prompt email to create an easy journaling habit.
• In the Lifehack post ‘5 Killer Online Journaling Tools You Should Try Out‘ , Hannah Braime lists OhLife, Evernote, Penzu, 750words.com and OneWord.
• Dr. W. Edwards Deming, known as the father of quality management. Along with the derivative kaizen approach of “continuous small improvements” the Deming Cycle can be applied through many facets of our lives.
• Jurgen Woolf – Kaizen writing – 2010 article which gives several small step exercises for transforming writing.
• Karn G. Bulsuk has some good articles on kaizen principles and the Toyota way, including the 5-Why analysis model for using in the Act (Assessment and Improvement) portion of the PDCA cycle.
• The website accompanying the Personal Kanban book provides several tutorials on kanban
• Everyday Kanban offers a big shelfari bookshelf on the topic.
• Million Word Challenge community.
• Erik Devers, “What Malcolm Gladwell REALLY Said About The 10,000 Hour Rule”, March 15, 2012, ProBlogService
• Dr Fiona McQuarrie, “Malcolm Gladwell’s “10,000 Hour Rule” Doesn’t Add Up”, November 21, 2012, All About Work, in which she links to the letter by Ericsson.
• NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month community – November each year.
• Chuck Wendig – Big 350 – year program for writing a novel, and 25 Things I want to say to so-called Aspiring Writers
• Blogging from A to Z Challenge – every April each year.
• Neil Gaiman (via Brainpickings) 8 Rules of Writing
• Writer’s Digest Online: Writing Rules : 10 Experts Take on the Writer’s Rulebook
• Margaret Lucke – Breaking the Rules of Writing (April 12th, The Ladykillers)
• Overcoming Obstacles to Writing at FictionWriting.About.Com – mainly dealing with time and writer’s block problems.
• How to develop practical strategies for overcoming writing obstacles – Roy Peter Clark, at the Poynter, explains his changing processes or strategies for overcoming obstacles, and in the linked to post, discusses an iPhone app created with the Help! for Writers strategies.
• Deanna Di Lello has a four post series on the four major writing obstacles with advice on how to overcome them – #1 Fear, #2 Time, #3 Money and #4 Lack of Support.
• Julie Hood has OrganizedWriter.com where an ebook is sold on the subject. This book, ‘The Organized Writer’ follows a 30 day program to organise. The site and supplementary planners haven’t been updated since 2009, but there is some information available onsite also.
• Annie Neugebauer holds an Organized Writer menu on her blog, offering several free to download templates on things like a Writer’s Resume, a Query template and an Editing Symbols chart.
• Stacey Crew, author of The Organized Mom has a guest post up at Where Writers Win – ‘The Organized Writer.’
• L.S. Taylor, in a post at AmWriting, January 2012, tells us some of the health reasons for Butt OUT of Chair.
• An interesting post at Write Anon where the author tried out Word Count Quotas vs. Dedicated Writing Time, and came up with some pros and cons on each
• Emma Newman in 2010  asks ten questions of writers, suggesting these are 10 typical questions from writers (that are really just fear in disguise)
• Susan K Perry, PhD, studied 76 award winning or bestselling novelists and poets, and asked them to describe their creative process. Psychology Today, 2009.
• Kerry McKittrick in ‘Writuals’— Scribes Reveal Daily Routines’ BBC News, 2008.
• Rich Furman, in a guest post here, suggests that a writing ritual acts as a behavioural cue or trigger – a “readiness” to act.
• Tori, in a post here, says that there are three types of writing rituals
• James Scott Bell writes of several rituals he must do or has utilized to motivate himself in ‘10 Disciplines for Fiction Writers’.
• Grammar.About.Com lists several other famous writer’s odd rituals.
• 7 Ways for Extroverts to Increase Their Writing Productivity – The Adventurous Writer.
• 7 Personality Traits of Successful Writers, Authors, and Novelists and The 7 Habits of Highly Successful Authors– Archetype Writing.
• How to Boost Your Writing Confidence so You CAN Hit Publish – Write to Done article by James Chartrand of Men with Pens.
• Ten Traits of Successful Writers – Jody Hedlund.
• Four part post series on change for writers at Genreality – Bob Mayer
• BBC Online – Short Personality test
•  Austin Kleon’s website. And Kleon has a Tumblr where he shared the above list graphic from his speech.
• Check out this list at Freelance Switch for some tech tools to track time and tasks.
• Michael Glaser, who has written for Los Angeles Times and CNET wrote about his quest for more time as he unplugged from his computer in ‘Technology Sabbath’ offers one day to unplug’.
• Janet Aronica wrote in March 2012, ‘Why Bloggers Should Actually Unplug Memorial Day Weekend’ and quotes Maria Shriver’s commencement speech which celebrated “the power of the pause”.
• Edward de Bono, author of ‘Serious Creativity: Using the Power of Lateral Thinking to Create New Idea’‘ may have first coined the phrase Creative Pause.
• The de Bono Group
• ‘Take A Hike! Unplugging And Recharging In Nature Boosts Creativity’ – Huffington Post.
• ‘How to Run a D.I.Y. Writers’ Retreat’ – WOW (The traditional form of the retreat).
• Anne R Allen’s blog post : ‘The Secret Writing Rule Book…And Why to Ignore It’, December 2012
• Writing Advice:
  • Elmore Leonard offers ten, aimed at helping writers avoid what he calls ‘hooptedoodle’.
  • Mark Twain, in his satirical essay ‘Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses‘, came up with eighteen.
  • George Orwell limited himself to six rules, the last gave this instruction: “Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.“
  • In 2010, inspired by the New York Times essay ten years earlier in which Elmore Leonard put forth his instructions, The Guardian published an article called “Ten Rules for Writing Fiction.” The editors asked twenty-eight noted writers, including Margaret Atwood, Neil Gaiman, PD James, Joyce Carol Oates, and Ian Rankin, for their writing dos and don’ts. Not everyone had ten, but the article in total provides 228 rules to go with Leonard’s. Some are wise, some witty, and some downright silly. All in all it’s a lot of writing advice.
  • For the 2013 project Shared Worlds Hand in Hand asked ‘speculative fiction’s finest artists, editors, and writers to write advice on their own hands and send a picture’.
• You can find some further questions to ask yourself as a reader from “How to Read Like a Writer” by Mike Bunn. This is an excerpt from a book, ‘Writing Spaces’. (PDF link)
• The Guardian UK ‘1000 novels everyone must read’ provides us with a large to-read list to sink into.
• Some Writer quotes on reading.
• Dean Wesley Smith dealt with the writing fast = poor quality myth, and in the post ‘Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing: Writing Fast‘ pointed out that writing one page a day equals 15 minutes equals 250 words, arriving at a 90,000 word novel within a year.

Downloads / Resources / Free and Purchased Items

• Dana Sitar’s free Workbook: Goal-setting Worksheet: 6 steps to make your Next Big Thing a success
• Writers Store has a free to download 365 day Don’t Break the Chain chart for you
• ‘Rory’s Story Cubes’ and the other dice packs in the series are good fun for story making;
• Roger von Oech, author of ‘A Whack on the Side of the Head’, also has the fun Creative Whack Pack;
• A similar card concept can be found in an iPhone app – iOblique.
• Download Hugh MacLeod’s ‘How to Be Creative’ from ChangeThis, subscribe to ChangeThis for other free manifestos, and also subscribe to Hugh MacLeod’s website Gaping Void.
• Hiveword is an online fiction organizer – owned by Zecura, LLC, and programmed by Mike Fleming. The site allows you to create characters, plots, scenes and settings online. It is free to setup a Hiveword account.
• The Writer’s Knowledge Base is  free also. The WKD can be found here, or on the Facebook page.
• There is a subscription website The Organized Writer^TM which offers a submission tracker, an idea database, and a few other services, if you like to keep these things online.
• Way of the Cheetah – How to Boost Your Personal Productivity by Lynn Viehl (Paperback Writer).  For April 2013, Lynn has kindly shared the PDF of this book, written for writers. It is shared for free.Read the details from the blog post here.
• The Pomodoro Technique website has three downloadable resources to help – A Cheat Sheet which explains the technique, a ToDo today sheet, and an activity inventory sheet.
• Research has found that having a desk job leads to a significantly shorter lifespan. Science Daily article.
• Sitting down all day doubles the risk of diabetes, heart disease and death. Daily Mail online article.
• Pomodroido app for android allows promodoro and break times to be customised to suit. The website also lists some ToDo and Get-it-Done Timers.
• More Android Pomodoro apps on Google Play.
• The Chrome browser has several Pomodoro extensions.
• Pomodoro software for the PC, and Mac (and PC version also).
• List of iPad Pomodoro apps.
• Podcasts for Writers List.
• Pick up the accompanying PDF slideshow for the Steal Like a Writer remix by Austin Kleon from the Speakerdeck WMCFest page here.
• Take this online “Time Management Assessment” test.
• A free Time Management Log in PDF form.
• Another weekly planner for documenting your time and tasks – at DuoLit (No. 2 under the 4-Piece Book Marketing Toolkit)
• A free 15 page Time Management for Writers ebook from Thursday Bram
• Prewrite and schedule your Facebook and Twitter content with tools like Hootsuite, Social Oomph, or (lately I am in love with) Buffer.
• LeechBlock (Firefox) and StayFocused (Chrome)are browser plugins which block up to six nominated sites you are allowed to use at certain times of the day.
• Self-Control (Mac app) or Freedom (PC app) blocks out distracting websites (or internet usage entirely) for a certain time.
• Thanks to Etsy, Zazzle or CafePress, you can purchase somebody else’s Writer’s mug design or make your own.

Books

	Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way		The Writer’s Workout: 366 Tips, Tasks, & Techniques From Your Writing Career Coach
	Seth Godin, Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?		Seth Godin, The Icarus Deception: How High Will You Fly?
	Chris Baty, No Plot? No Problem!: A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days		Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
	Jill Badonsky, The Nine Modern Day Muses (and a Bodyguard) Third Edition		Mark Forster, Do It Tomorrow and Other Secrets of Time Management
	Eric Maisel, Write Mind: 299 Things Writers Should Never Say to Themselves (and What They Should Say Instead		Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within (Shambhala Library)
	Rochelle Melander, Write-A-Thon: Write Your Book in 26 Days (And Live to Tell About It)		Rachel Aaron, 2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love
	Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention		Sonja Lyubomirsky, How of Happiness
	Sage Cohen, The Productive Writer: Tips & Tools to Help You Write More, Stress Less & Create Success		Brian Tracy, Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time
	Leo Babauta, Focus: A simplicity manifesto in the Age of Distraction		Leo Babauta, Zen To Done: The Ultimate Simple Productivity System
	Regan Black,Goal Setting for Writers: Making Revisions Work in Life and Art		David Allen, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
	Twyla Tharp, The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life		Charles Duhigg, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business
	Hugh MacLeod, Ignore Everybody: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity		Roger Von Oech, Creative Whack Pack
	Micheal Michalko, Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques (2nd Edition)		Betty Edwards, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain
	Daniel Mega, Writing On The Right Side Of The Brain Workbook		Monica Wood, Pocket Muse 2: Endless Inspiration for Writers
	Bonnie Neubauer, The Write-Brain Workbook: 366 Exercises to Liberate Your Writing		Brian Kiteley, The 3 A.M. Epiphany: Uncommon Writing Exercises that Transform Your Fiction
	Lynn Johnston, The Kaizen Plan for Organized Authors: Take Control of Your Writing Career 10 Minutes at a Time		Robert Maurer, One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way
	Francine Prose, Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them (P.S.)		Jim Benson, Personal Kanban: Mapping Work | Navigating Life
	Roy Peter Clark, Help! For Writers: 210 Solutions to the Problems Every Writer Faces		David Lynch, Mind Mapping for Writers: How to Improve Productivity, Overcome Procrastination, Get Creative and Finish Writing That Book – Using Your Lack of Focus as an Advantage
	Timothy Ferriss, The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich		Francesco Cirillo, The Pomodoro Technique
	Ernest Lawrence Rossi, The Twenty Minute Break: Reduce Stress, Maximize Performance, Improve Health and Emotional Well-Being Using the New Science of Ultradian Rhythms		James Scott Bell, The Art of War for Writers: Fiction Writing Strategies, Tactics, and Exercises
	Susan K Perry, Writing in Flow: Keys to Enhanced Creativity		Nick Usborne, Writing Rituals
	Richard St John, 8 to Be Great: The 8-Traits That Lead to Great Success		Richard St John, The 8 Traits Successful People Have in Common: 8 to Be Great
	Austin Kleon, Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative		Lee Silber, Time Management for the Creative Person: Right-Brain Strategies for Stopping Procrastination, Getting Control of the Clock and Calendar, and Freeing Up Your Time and Your Life
	Terri Main, Time Management for Writers		Kristi Holl, Writer’s First Aid: Getting Organized, Getting Inspired, and Sticking to It
	Laura Vanderkam, 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think		James Scott Bell, How to Manage the Time of Your Life (Short Subjects With Big Impact)
	Francine Prose, Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them (P.S.)

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This is the final post for April 2013’s Blogging from A to Z Challenge.  The challenge includes many other blogs on subjects as diverse as writing, foodie blogs or mummy blogs.

This blog post is part of a themed series or pack on Writer’s Core Habits. I acronym this as WCH or WCHP © . Do a search for these tags, and you will find more in the series. Or now, find all the posts together from the Core Habits category and menu above.

Thank you for all the new followers, commenters and those who participated on my blog, and kept me inspired enough to write for 26 days during April.

No affiliate links are used in my posts.