“Inspiration is hard to come by. You have to take it where you find it.” – Bob Dylan

Such a simple thought, yet so apt for the creative people all over. There are times when we get stuck and look for inspiration. There are times when we wish that finding help was simpler. With this newsletter, I intend to lend exactly that to the writers, a helping hand of sorts.

With every update, I will publish a curated list of the articles and tools that I believe every writer would find interesting and helpful. I will also feature one writer that inspires me to write more, along with some of their writing.

So, here’s the first update that dwells into a bit of writing history.

The Evolution of Writing →

The evolution of writing from tokens to pictography, syllabary and alphabet illustrates the development of information processing to deal with larger amounts of data in ever greater abstraction.

A Brief History of Writing →

Fascinating to learn about the evolution of the writing instruments, of the ways we share our thoughts through writing words. From Pictographs to Alphabets.

How and When Pencils, Markers, Gel Pens, and Erasers Were Invented →

Did you know Pencils got their name from the English word meaning ‘brush’, breadcrumbs were first used as erasers and early highlighters were just “a glass bottle that held ink and a wool-felt wick”?

When I was actively writing fiction at Medium, I had read a few short stories from Lizella, and I’ve been a big fan of her imagination since then. In Lizella’s own words, her writing is “mostly free fiction, mostly female protagonists, and twisty endings”. And she absolutely nails it every single time. As a short excerpt of her thoughts, here’s how she describes humour.

Humor means different things to different people. For some, it’s a hearty belly laugh. For others, it’s slowly understanding that things are not what they seem in a way that makes you smile.

A Swiss-knife of a word processor. Google Docs has all the writing and organization features that any word editor, especially Microsoft Word, would have. But it excels at being an extremely well thought of online word processor. Save it in your Google Drive, have it accessible on every device. Find meanings of the words or even explore their usage right where you write. Finally, there is the unmatched collaboration functionality - shared drafts, get feedback.

One Final Inspiration…