Yesterday I remembered how I used to bring my books to the dinner table and continue reading while eating at the same time. As I looked back at my childhood, I pitied my mother who was forced to eat in silence because I was unable to put down my books. So much for quality time, eh?

There were times she told me to put the book down and just eat. But often she would let me do as I pleased and as a result I ranked up an impressive list of read books. Then I went to university and topped reading literate altogether. My bachelors degree was in Biotechnology and Economics, so when I actually got around to reading my textbooks, and I was done, there was little time and energy left for one of my passions: literature.

Then technology started to catch up and I subscribed to audible. Always on the look out for more ways to get some reading done, I found DailyLit. This website sends you a short installment of a book by email or RSS feed either daily, every weekday, or three times a week. If you are already spending too much time on your computer, here is another reason to stick to your screen even more. However, it is an incredible way of getting some ‘forced’ reading into your day. The installments are relatively short, so they don’t take much longer to read than an email. The real reason I think it though is the ability to read it one a mobile device, such as a BlackBerry or iPhone. Now we’re talking literature on the go! It’s like the Fast-Food of Literature!

Although, if I’m at home, I still prefer curling up with a good book on the couch, in bed, or in a bubble bath. Reading is a treat for me, and although I don’t read at the dinner table anymore, I can still shut out the world for hours at a time with a good paperback.

One more reason to get you reading: DailyLit has a number of free books? Mostly the classics of course, but worth checking out. I just signed up to receive “Die Leiden des jungen Werther” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Which book are you currently reading?

This morning I stumbled across the Ad Generator. A nice little tool developed as part of an MFA thesis by Alexis Lloyd.

The Ad generator basically randomly pairs words from big advertising campaigns with images from Flickr. Even though the phrases are cut up and randomized, I am sure you will recognize a few famous campaigns among them.

I loved this tool because it

• It is a creative way to procrastinate
• It’s a nice way of taking a break from writing and getting some different stimulation
• Believe it or not, I find it actually inspiring.

Here are my absolute favorite randomly generated ads by the Ad Generator.

I first saw this video on Dustin Wax’s blog, and like him I think this is both tremendously sad and utterly hilarious. As a teaching assistant at the University of Toronto I’ve come across – albeit less extreme – similar works of genius by undergraduate students. Let’s all learn a lesson and edit our work a little more often…

Writing is a business, and increased productivity is as imperative to a writer as it is to any other professional. Aside from writing faster, there are other ways you can pump up your output, and keep more free time to yourself (or just take on additional projects).

1. Mobile Writing Tools

Depending on your lifestyle, you might get some good use out of writing tools you can take on the road with you. This can be simple, such as a (paper) notebook, BlackBerry, or a ‘hipster PDA keychain‘ (pictured above).

The benefits of a tool like a BlackBerry is the fact that you can check your Google Reader on it and use it to keep on top of the latest news and articles. Of course that’s aside from the benefit of being able to write down notes and even edit articles on the road.

2. Increase focus, improve your writing

I came across a neat little program called JDarkRoom. It helps for people who are easily distracted and do better when they just type without having to deal with any pop-ups or email notifications. JDarkRoom makes your screen completely black, and allows you to focus just on your writing without the temptation of checking your email obsessively.

3. Simple Accounting Tools

I recently signed up for BillingBoss, which is a fantastic tool if you routinely send out invoices. You can keep track of your income, outstanding invoices and paid invoices.

You also need to keep track of your spending. Writing related courses, office supplies, or even literature are tax deductible. Instead of dealing with an avalanche of receipts at the end of the year, just open up a separate bank account, and get a separate credit card, for your business expenses. Have financial institutions actually do some work for you by doing your bookkeeping for free. As long as you separate your finances completely, you’ll have painless tax filing, and you will know how much you are actually making.

Seems easy enough right? Well, I had not actually fully mastered this skill yet. It is my new year’s resolution though, so today I went out and opened a new account. For six years I successfully managed my business without strictly separate accounts, but tax time was never a happy time when it comes to making sense of my deductions (I did always obsessively keep track of earnings, so that’s never a problem).

4. Stay posted on Writing Markets

There are tens of thousands of writing markets you can sell your work to around the world. Knowing where to submit your articles, or other writing, if a first step to your next paycheck. Although the Writer’s Market is a fantastic resource (and the online version takes up no real shelf space), there are great free resources that supplement a Writer’s Market subscription as well. One of these is Funds for Writers

What is your favorite writing tool? There are endless things that can be put to good use by writers, and this overview is just a bare-bones beginning to the tools any writer cannot do without, but which has really fueled your productivity?

Happy new year! And happy writing in 2009! I’m setting some lofty new years resolutions for this upcoming year of writing, and I’m sure some of you are too. To help out with this, I tried introduced you to writing really fast yesterday, but today I stumbled across an interesting website with yet another strategy to get your writing. It’s called “1ne, 2wo, 5ver” and describes a strategy that helps you get started on writing. It starts with one word. Basically it sounds like it could be just any word, and is meant just to get you started onto the second word, and then onwards to the next X words.

Why I like it

I always have a lot of trouble getting started with writing. Being the perfectionist I am, I do not always follow the rules of writing fast, but use the excuse that I just don’t have the right wording to not write at all (on my own projects, of course). As a consequence, the book I’ve started has spurts of movement forward whenever I come across some good writing strategies that completely discredit my procrastination strategies.

This is one of them… it basically comes down to the advice I always give:

Just sit down and write….