One GIANT list of resources!
So here I've compiled a list of useful links to websites that I've found helpful. I'll note here that some of them are actually apps I've found useful on Google Chrome. So if they don't open up and you're not using Chrome, let me know. Also if any of these links don't work anymore/ open up to the wrong site/just don't work, etc, let me know!
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This blog post is not for guest links or anything of the sort. Do not message me to be added on to it. The purpose of it is not a random collection of links. Thanks.
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Design
AIGA- The largest professional network of graphic designers
Sharpen- A website for generate design ideas.
Creative Blog- A blogging website with a bunch of useful articles related to art and design.
Behance- Adobe's professional free art portfolio site. It showcases a bunch of stunning art and you can look or post for jobs on it.
Canva- A free site for easy designs.
Artists and Illustrators- An online community and resource site for artists I think mostly based in the UK.
Design Inspiration- Think Pinterest but specific related to design.
Fonts in Use- An archive of fonts out in the wild.
Discover Typography- Look up cool typography.
Eye on Design- AIGA’s blog with a bunch of interesting information and ideas.
Design Observer- A great blog about design.
Interaction Design Association- A membership organization that supports interactive design worldwide.
Creative Mornings- Think Tedtalks but all about creativity.
Writer's Help:
Write It Sideways - This blog provides tons of helpful tips! From motivation to interviews! Highly recommended.
Writing World- A very helpful site to any budding writer. Includes articles on just about anything writing related.
For Writers - A great forum and reference site!
Fiction Writers - A good place for information on all things writing.
Writers Write - A resource for writers, books, and stuff on publishing.
Emerging Writers - A site for beginning or breakout writers.
Enhance My Writing - A useful and helpful site for those wanting to work on their writing skills or anything writing related.
Writer's Quest - A site that gives out tons of information for writers. Very nice.
Fiction Addiction- A website that has tons of useful articles.
Creativity Portal- A site with lots of useful stuff that has to do with creativity and inspiration.
Writer's Digest- This is an awesome amazing site that offers tons of advice, workshops, books, etc. It also has an awesome, super helpful magazine.
Poets and Writers- Another awesome resource for writers that has another great magazine.
Publisher's Weekly- Once again, this has an awesome magazine and its a great resource for writers. Especially helpful for anything publishing related.
LitLift- According to the website, "LitLift is a free online novel writing application built to help you research, store, organize, write, share, and get feedback on your writing."
Writer's Organizations
SFWA - The official site to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Organization.
NaNoWriMo - The official site of the NaNoWriMo (young person's edition). NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month. It is held in the month of November.
Poets - The official site of the American Poet's Academy. "The Academy is a nonprofit organization with a mission to support American poets at all stages of their careers and to foster the appreciation of contemporary poetry." - From the website's FAQ.
ASJA - The site of the American Society of Journalists and Authors.
Authors Guild - "The Authors Guild has been the published writer's advocate for effective copyright, fair contracts, and free expression since 1912." - From the website.
Novelist's Inc. - For all those novelists out there.
NASW - National Association of Science Writers. For those interested in science and writing fiction about science (aka Science Fiction).
Publishing
Writer's Market - a very helpful place for writers.
Lulu - A site for self publishing. And not only for books!
Smashwords- I've heard alot about this site. Apparently you can format your books to documents and do other stuff on here.
Publisher's Marketplace - Lots of stuff to do with publishers and publishing.
Createspace - It's like Lulu but...it's not Lulu.
Agent Query - A great place to find agents for your books.
AARonline- (Association of Authors' Representatives.)
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Journalism Sites/Resources
Center for Investigative Reporting- A nonprofit organization dedicated to investigative reporting and helping to make a change.
Investigative Reporters and Editors- Another great site/organization for investigative reporting.
Online Journalism School- A resource for learning online journalism.
Society of Professional Journalists- The organization for professional journalists, with membership benefits, free resources, and news.
Journalist's Resource- A place where you can research what's going on in the news.
Society for News Design- According to its' website, the society is "is an international organization for news media professionals and visual communicators who create print, web, mobile publications and products. Our members art direct, design, edit, report, illustrate, make photos and video, visualize data and write code."
Contently- From what I can gather, its mostly for journalists to share their articles and its kinda like maybe a professional "social media" platform for journalists.
Medium- A platform for journalists and bloggers to share writing and reader other stories, features, and articles.
Writing Websites
Wattpad - Another online writing website.
Booksie - Once again... I've never been on it.
Writer's Cafe - A good one. I've heard this one is recommended by several professionals.
Mibba - A fellow member on Inkpop recommends this site more for beginners because of "all the fanfiction".
Scribophile - It says it's a serious site for writers. But then, I couldn't tell you.
Fifteen Minutes of Fiction - This site only requires you to write for fifteen minutes a day. And once you've completed your time you can publish them to the site.
Scribd - I'm not sure if this belongs in this category or not, but anyways, you can share documents here with your friends and stuff.
Fan Fiction - The site where you can post fan fiction.
Fiction Press - Fanfiction's sister site where you can post original fiction.
Critique Circle
Fanstory
Protagonize- I've heard good things about this site.
ReviewFuse- I heard its good for reviews, although I think the forums are a little dead.
Story Bird- According to the website, "Storybirds are short, art-inspired stories you can make and share on any device."
Inked Voices- This site is still in its beta form, but its a site for critique groups for writers. It sounds really awesome. (Unfortunately, once its up and running there will be a fee to pay for its services but it isn't much if you'd like to pay $10 a month).
Camp Nanowrimo- Like Nanowrimo, but the Camp version happens in the summer, usually in June or August, where you spend a month trying to write 50,000 words!
*As of March 1st 2012, Inkpop no longer exists.
*As of 2015, Authonomy and Valorpen no longer exists.
Health/Science Related-
Psych Central - A website for all your mental health information.
Psych2go- A website that is filled with tons of interesting information by bloggers (mostly by psych students and psych bloggers) about psych information.
Reference/Research/Information-
How Stuff Works -Want to know how a holopicture works? Or how a cheetah can run over 60 mph? Look it up here! You never know what you could learn!
History - This has ton of videos and articles on pretty much anything in history. Want to know more about WWI or about Aztecs? How about dinosaurs or palaces? Come look here!
History Info - A good place to look up all things historical.
Meanings of Colors/Symbolism - A really good place for everything about color!
Color Meanings - Another site about colors. Not as good as the first one but still pretty good.
WikiHow Survival Kit- Great for anything that involves knowing how to survive things.
Folktexts- A good place to learn a ton of different folktales and legends from around the world.
TED Talks- If you haven't heard of these fantastic talks, then I encourage you to watch a few. But even if you have seen these before, I encourage everyone to watch some of the videos. They're chock full of interesting information and interesting topics.
Internet Archive: Wayback Machine- This website screenshots and saves almost any website on the web. Sometimes the "websites" are still interactive, so if you need something off an old website that doesn't exist anymore, you could try finding it on here.
Moots and Online Classrooms
Coursera- This site has a ton of free college level online courses that you can take in almost any subject and now there is a bunch of ones in different languages and you can even get credit and certificates from some of them.
Khan Academy- This is a free site where you can brush up on skills like math, programming, history, coding, science or economics or learn new ones. You can even study for tests.
Skill Share- A great site with lots of free little classes for creatives or you can pay monthly only $10 for even more classes.
Craftsy- Another site for creative learning, but more geared towards crafts and traditional art.
Digital Tutors- An online learning site where you can take lessons to learn design or coding skills.
Tuts Plus- Like Skill Share in a way, but more expensive and fancier. Although mostly similar to Digital Tutors. Although Skill Share has some neater classes in my opinion.
Udemy- An online free class learning site like Coursera in a way. Although honestly, Coursera is the best.
Programming and Coding
Code Academy- A free site where you can learn lots of coding skills like HTMI or whatever.
Code Avengers- Another site for learning how to code. It always makes me think of Marvel's "The Avengers" (if you haven't seen the movie, shame!).
Processing.org- A website where you can find tutortials, links, examples, references, etc, on learning the programming language Processing! Its a fun language that can be used to make animations and other cool stuff. Its pretty easy to learn and kinda like learning Javascript.
Hello Processing- A tutorial kinda on Processing.
w3schools- A website with a bunch of programming tutorials. Its great if you need reminders or help with anything.
Github- A popular site for open source code and code that you can share and use for your own projects.
Codrops- Another site where you can use pre-coded programming for your own projects.
Custom Tumblr Themes- If you're into Tumblr and want to learn how to code your own, Tumblr has their own variables and stuff you can use. All you really need to know is basic HTML and some CSS.
Build Themes Tumblr- There's a tumblr blog that has some good explanations for how to code your own blog theme. If this isn't as helpful there's also a good Youtube tutorial under TutsPlus Web Design (link below).
Javascript Book- I have this book and its kinda useful. It does a lot of explanations and has some good tutorials. You can download the example code without the book, but it makes more sense if you have the book to explain it more. It also has some good resources on the website.
JQuery Cheat Sheet- If you have trouble thinking of different things you can write and do using Javascript, this is a good resource to check out.
JSHint- A tool to help you detect errors and potential problems in your code.
JSLint- Another tool to help you find problems in your code.
HTML and CSS book- This is like the Javascript book. It's another good resource to check out if you like having some explanations and something more tangible to walk you through it. One of my college professors says that the best way to learn is if you have a tutorial and then a book and examples to follow along with (that's what she studied for her dissertation in grad school).
Sublime Text- This is a free text editor that you can download for both windows and mac. As far as I know, everyone seems to really like it. Its good also too if you don't want to spend the money for Adobe Dreamweaver and some people even prefer Sublime over it. (You can also use a basic text editor to write HTML. Notepad for windows and whatever the program is on a Mac.)
Bootstrap- A popular HTML, CSS, and Javascript framework for developing projects for the web.
MDN Modzilla Web Developer- A really great resource for learning more about coding.
Youtube-TutsPlus-Web Design- This and the following Youtube channels are good resources to check out if you want some tutorials on coding. I like TutsPlus one on Tumblr coding, although I haven't checked out their other ones yet.
Languages, etc.
Alternative Handwriting- A site where you can learn how to write in shorthand and stuff.
Omniglot - This site provides helpful information on languages and written scripts.
Handspeak - The official site for the American Sign Language.
Ultralingua - Information for words and language usage.
Using English - So is says it's a place for those who are learning english as a second language but for those who speak English well enough, it's a place to be used as a grammar resource.
Ancient Scripts- A great place to learn about ancient writing systems. Its really educational.
Easy Elvish- Yes, you can actually learn how to write in Elvish (From the LOTR series). Its simple and easy. Plus fun!
Merin Essi ar Quenteli - This is where you can find out your name in Sindarian.
Quenya Lapseparma - This is where you can find out your name in Quenya.
The World’s Writing Systems- Interact with any of the 292 currently-known writing systems!
Inspiration/Names
Write Or Die - This is a great website for if you're procrastinating. It has several modes, from making a beeping noise to erasing what you write. But don't worry, none of that will happen if you just keep writing for a certain amount of time!
Edit Minion -It's another great website by the same guy who came up with Write or Die. Instead of writing, this one will help you edit things! Cool right?
One Word- It gives you one word and sixty seconds to write anything that comes to mind about the word.
Behind The Name - Are you having trouble finding that perfect name for a character? Well look no farther! this website provides girl/boy names, popular names, names origin, and more!
Behind the Surname- Like its sister site, this is a great place to look for names, but instead, last names!
Name Nerds- This site is really great for all sorts of names, but my favorite is their unique names subsite.
For Videos, Presentations, Designs, or Pictures-
Prezi - Tired of PowerPoint? Try Prezi! Prezi uses zooming technology to present things. Put everything all on one sheet rather than tons of slides! Videos, pictures, text, etc.
Free Weather and other sound effects- In case you'd like to use something for videos or something.
DaFont - Where you can get free fonts for writing or book covers.
Pixlr - A free picture editing site with some really awesome features.
Picmonkey - Another picture editing site.
Deviantart - Where you can find some really amazing pictures, drawings, and pretty much any kind of 2-d art. Including some writing. Its pretty amazing.
Timeline- Every writer could use a helpful timeline for their story, right?
Notebooks/Storage Sites/Apps/etc.
Springpad- A really simple, really easy site to store a bunch of information and categorize it!
Dropbox- Honestly, the BEST online backup app I've ever seen. You get a ton of free data, install it on your computer. phone, etc and never have to worry about losing anything again. You can also access everything from any device.
Evernote- Okay, when my Onenote crashed, my computer teacher recommended this. I think it's okay, I personally found it confusing, but if you want to try it, go ahead. It's free.
Todo.ly- A site for making lists of things to do.
Zoho- Offers TONS of free applications to get pretty much anything done. I use it all the time.
Scrivener- This is an AWESOME software developed for writers. Its amazing. I haven't downloaded the free trial for Windows yet, but from what I've seen and heard, this is the best writing software out there. (You can buy the full version for $40 or download the trial versions for Mac or Windows).
yWriter5- This has been recommended for those with Windows. Its like Scrivener but not as awesome. But still cool. Its for free.
PageFour- Once again its free but not as cool as the other two writing software (in my opinion).
Focus Writer- This free download helps enable you to write distraction free.
Ommwriter- Another application to help you write distraction free.
Pacemaker- This creates a calendar or chart for any word count goal you put in.
Trello- A great tool for getting to-do lists done.
Random or For Fun
Word Dynamo- A fun site ran by Dictionary.com where you can test your knowledge and learn new things.
Sound Drown- Need a distraction? A noise in the background? Well using sounddrown you can listen to your favorite sounds, combine them, and listen to your heart's contention. I don't know, maybe you are one of those people who would like to hear a coffee shop burning in the rain?
Books/Literature
Historical Novels - This is a great site that's updated regularly for people who like historical fiction and related mysteries. Some of the books I have trouble finding but most of them I don't. The books are arranged by Era or time period and place. It also has book reviews.
Any New Books? - A site where you can receive weekly updates on new books. It's free and easy to sign up. Just enter your email and select your genres.
NetGallery- A book site where if you're a reviewer, blogger, librarian, journalist, bookseller, educator, or someone in the media, you can sign up for free and request books before they are published.
Audiobook Community- A site where you can find audiobooks and pretty much anything related.
Book Outlet- This site offers books for insanely low prices. So if you want to do some reading and are low on cash, or can't make it to the store, check out this site!
Oyster- Its like Netflix for books. You can now read online, an android, and an iphone/ipad.
Book Riot- A great place for different kinds of book blogs and other book related awesome-ness.
Project Gutenberg- This website features thousands of free classic literature and random, obscure pieces you probably won't find anywhere else. You can download the ebooks onto any reading device or read them online.
Online Literature- An online database of a bunch of different literature.
Overdrive- Access to your public library's ebooks for free.
The Writer's Digest Guide to Science Fiction and Fantasy- By Orson Scott Card, Terry Brooks.
The Idiot's Guide to Query Letters and and Book Proposals- By Jesica Faust, Marilyn Allen, and Coleen O'Shea.
Bird by Bird- By Anne Lamott.
The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook- By Joshua Piven and David Borgenicht.
The Element Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures- By John and Caitlin Matthews
A Writer's Guide to Fiction- By Elizabeth Lyon
The Guide to Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction by Philip Athans
The Idiot's Guide to Writing a Novel by Tom Monteleone
The Everything Guide to Writing a Novel by Joyce and Jim Lavene