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Links

The following are links to things that I use in, or think is beneficial to, my journey as a writer.

Writing Contests:

As of: October 1st, 2025.

Writing contests are a great way to push yourself as a writer and to try and build up your list of achievements. Some of these contests put limits or requirements on what you can write about, which I have found to be an inspiration rather than a drawback. The following are contests that I have participated in and highly recommend. I am always open to finding new ones that are worthwhile and I will update this list if and when I do.

  • PRESS 53. This is a FREE monthly contest where you write a story of exactly 53 words from a prompt that they post on the first day of the month. You have until the 15th of the month to submit an entry.
  • Globe Soup. This site does a few writing competitions a year. Most of the time they assign you a subject or category from a list. The story lengths have been between 1500 to 8000 words, depending on the contest, since I have been participating. Based out of the UK, their entry fees are typically under $10 US.

Software:

As of: October 1st, 2025.

I have been running Linux on my computers for the last 15+ years. My current favorite is Linux Mint Cinnamon 22.2 LTS. With that being said, I have never used some of the Windows tools I hear a lot about with regards to writing (looking at you Scrivener), but I have tried a lot of different tools in the Linux world. The following are the ones I am currently using.

  • LibreOffice Writer. It's like Microsoft Word, but free. It comes preinstalled on Mint. I really like it for drafting.
  • Zim desktop wiki. It's a hierarchical information storage application. It's basically Wikipedia but private on your computer. I like its simplicity. I use this to organize my "universe" of assets for stories that coexist. You can use it for drafting but that's not my bag, baby.

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NaNoWriMo 2025

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