20 Professional Writers to Follow on Instagram

Maybe you’re in it for writing advice. Or maybe you want to know what your favorite writers do in their actual lives. Maybe you just need a distraction and want to look at cats, food, or cartoons, but also want feel a little intellectual while you’re at it.

Don’t fret. Everyone looks at social media for “inspiration,” whether they realize it or not.

Whatever your motivation may be, we’ve gathered twenty of the best Instagram accounts operated by professional writers (or about or related to professional writing).

Everyday vs. Every day

• Everyday is an adjective we use to describe something that’s seen or used every day. It means “ordinary” or “typical.”
• Every day is a phrase that simply means “each day.”

Compound words, like anytime and any time, sometimes don’t have the same meaning as the individual words they comprise. It’s a case of the whole being different from the sum of its parts. Everyday and every day are like that—everyday (with no space) doesn’t mean the same thing as every day (with a space).

Writers on the State of Professional Writing

“We live in a content-saturated world,” your editor shrugs. Your coffee has suddenly gone cold, and so has the conversation.

What she means is that the commodity you’re offering – your writing – is hard to sell, because the web has made written words more readily available than ever. Honing a voice that stands out can feel like an impossible gig to take to the bank – which is where, if you’d listened to your parents, you’d be working, instead of haunting cafes and coffee shops with your laptop, trying to grind out a living as a writer.

10 Ways to Save Time Every Day That Most People Ignore

Would you like more time for family, recreation, and rest? It’s easier than you think to find time to do the things you enjoy most. Let’s talk about ten oft-ignored ways to save time every single day.

1 Keep track of your time.

“What gets measured gets done.” Though experts debate who wrote this old adage, few disagree with its wisdom. By measuring your time, you can evaluate whether you’re spending it wisely.

How to Use “Complement”

Here’s a tip: A complement is related to completion, while a compliment relates to flattering words or acts.

Everybody loves a compliment. Or is it a complement they love? If there is a published list of commonly confused words, complement and compliment are almost certain to appear. However, these two terms don’t have to be on your personal list of befuddling vocabulary! Here’s the breakdown.

How to Take a Break Without Breaking Focus

We all procrastinate from time to time and struggle to get things done. For years, much of the dialogue around procrastination has been about how to fight it and, theoretically, win. However, that approach has left a whole lot of us—included me—feeling pretty pathetic when we just can’t kick the habit. Turns out, we’ve been duped. For the last several years, experts have made headway in transforming procrastination from an evil that must be vanquished to a tool worth embracing in all its paradoxical and oxymoronic glory.

The Nobel Prize, Modern Shakespeare, and Tweeting Your Way to Better Writing

This week, Svetlana Alexievich broke new ground in the literary world by becoming the first journalist to win the Nobel Prize for her nonfiction writing. In other news, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival has commissioned a rewrite of Shakespeare’s plays and the Internet can be both a friend and foe when it comes to your writing. Check out the full stories below:

Our Favorite Stories:

1. 2015 Nobel Prize for Literature Winner Svetlana Alexievich’s Life and Writing, Explained (Vox)
2. Shakespeare in Modern English? (The New York Times)
3. How Twitter’s 140-Character Limit Made Me a Better Writer (Life Hacker)
4. Internet Distraction: The Writer’s Main Dilemma (The Huffington Post)

Staff Book Picks of the Week:

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (A Song of Ice and Fire) (Fiction) George R.

Traveling or Travelling?

How great is it to travel? To meet new people, see new places, experience different cultures, live life the way life is lived somewhere else. Plenty of good things are associated with travel, but there’s one particular issue that can make traveling annoying: the spelling. Travel is easy enough to spell and not at all confusing, but “traveling,” “traveler,” “traveled”? These words are a common cause of confusion because some people spell them with one L while others use two.

The Plural of Octopus: Octopi or Octopuses?

How do you make octopus plural? It’s simple!

The plural is octopuses. Why do some dictionaries also list octopi as a possibility? In Latin, some plurals end with an i. The problem is, octopus derives from Greek. The i was a mistake, but so many people adopted it that it became an acceptable alternative. Many people don’t like octopi, and you will rarely see it in edited works, but it does occasionally appear.