Writing is a complicated task. It is challenging and sometimes painful to a lot of people. Aside from thinking of a great idea to write about, another struggle most writers go through is getting those words out and put it down on paper.

While many students cringe every time they are assigned to write an essay or a simple short story for their creative writing class, others found an innovative way to solve their writing dilemmas. Apart from a little discipline and your willingness to learn on how to write well, you can hone your skills in crafting interesting and quality academic papers through the help of these tools.

Here are some online resources that will make your writing process a little easier.

1. Grammar Girl

Before anyone can write a really good piece of writing, you need to have at least a basic understanding of English grammar and its principles. When in doubt about specific phrase, tense or sentences, Grammar girl is a quick and easy online tool that can help improve your academic writing. This is pretty useful not only to English learners but even to those grammar nazis.

2. Penzu.com

To be better at something, you must practice it regularly and writing is no exception. There is no shortcut in becoming an amazing writer. You cannot do it overnight. Even the most talented authors had to learn and master their craft for so many years. Writing in a regular basis is required in order to develop your writing techniques and style.

Penzu is a free online journal that is perfect for taking notes or daily diary entries. It is an online writing application that offers great opportunities like privacy setting, editing and exporting writing into different formats.

3. Superiorpapers.com

Asking for a professional help will do you no harm. In fact, they will save you from your creative rut. You can get exceptional and well-written papers from talented writers and skilled editors of legit writing services. If you can hardly beat writer's block and you badly need writing assistance, SuperiorPapers is the right place to be. Their extensive team is composed of experts from various fields of study.

4. Wridea

The moment inspiration hits you, record your ideas immediately to prevent it from disappearing. Wridea is an online idea management tool that provides a great choice of brainstorming and organization methods. This application gives a way to sort, categorize and process the ideas and topics that you have in mind into different pages. Creating new idea entries in this tool is very easy. You can also update other details of your topics once a new wave of creativity struck you.

5. Purdue OWL

Purdue University is the largest Online Writing Lab (OWL) available on the web. It contains helpful information that students can apply in many writing projects. You can find various exercises and writing prompts that you can use to get in-depth support to your academic writing. Users are guided in this site through step-by-step exercises and stages of preparing, organizing, writing and editing researches.

What other online tools can you recommend that can help improve student writing skills? Share them in the comment section below!

There are various ways on how you can beat writer’s block. Whenever we find ourselves in a creative rut, most of us do these things; grab a book, eat some delicious food, have a cup of coffee, take a nap, go for a walk, etc., until we find the right muse. These techniques sometimes relieve us from getting stuck in writing. However, the problem is common writing strategies don't always work the way we want it.

To get your creative juices flowing and put yourself back into the writing groove,  you have to loosen up. Do something unusual or something crazy in order to unleash your creativity. Be productive and explore other alternatives on how you can make your creative skill work on your craft. Guide your mind, find your muse, and let your creativity go for a new dimension by doing these bizarre writing practices.

1. Writing While Lying Down

Writing in this position is sometimes associated with laziness or lack of drive to work. Some who writes while lying down on bed or couch get labeled as lazy writers but for some people, who are into this habit, think that writing horizontally have creative benefits. Many famous authors practiced this habit and Truman Capote is one of them.

2. Get up at the Crack of Dawn

Some writers prefer waking up early in the morning and begin their work. They think that it is the best time to get their work done because they're less distracted. Other writers feel more productive and creative at this specific time so they take advantage of it. Do not let distractions break your concentration in writing if you can't do it in your usual writing time, you might want to try doing it at the crack of dawn.

3. Talk to a Stranger

Do not conform to the stereotype that writers are introverts. Not all writers are hiding behind their laptops or staying inside their room for a long time. Most of them are busy travelling, discovering new experiences, and meeting with new people.

Don't be shy and talk to a stranger at least once a day. Get to know people, make friends with them and dig deeper into their lives. Great ideas sometimes comes from a simple conversation with people whom you didn't know personally.

4. Talk to Yourself

Listen to your inner monologue and allow it to rush over you. This helps you to concentrate more on what you're writing. When you're totally focus, it is more easy to organize your thoughts and ideas. Self-talk is indeed helpful in writing. It can help you enhance your attention and control your cognitive and emotional reactions. This makes you stay on task. Another important thing, self- talking is also a good way in creating dialogues in your story.

5. Use Variety of Writing Tools

There are tons of writing tools and resources made available for struggling writers. if you can't think of any topic to write about try Creativity Portal’s Imagination Prompt. This can give you simple but useful writing prompts to help you get started. To check your spelling error and grammar usage, Grammarly is one of the best tools for it. But if you want a professional assistance from expert writers and editors, Bestessays.com will provide you all the writing help that you need. They are known for high quality writing and editing services.

6. Pet an Animal

Apart from writing, another thing that some of the great writers, like Ernest Hemingway, Flannery O’Connor, Virginia Woolf, John Steinbeck, and Mark Twain, loved the most is their pets. Yes, their beloved pets actually played an important role in their literary history. Their dogs, cats, birds, and peacocks have inspired them to create wonderful writings.

7. Write in a Public Place

Some writers prefer to do their stuff inside their room, alone. No distraction, no noise. But if this technique bores you, then challenge yourself to go out in public and start writing. Go to restaurants, crowded parks, or even get stuck in a traffic jam and begin writing a story.

8. The Hourglass Technique

Dan Brown, a bestselling novelist, writes his masterpieces with an hourglass beside his desk. If you're familiar with pomodoro technique, a time management method which you can use a timer to break down work into 25 minute chunks, this is pretty much similar to it. But in Brown's case, the antique hourglass is timed within 60 minutes.

You can try this technique while composing your craft. Set a specific time like 25 or 60 minutes in writing then when the time is up, get up from your workplace and do something else.

For writers, you cannot just stay in a period of creative boredom and just wait before your inspiration-to-write strikes you. Yes, lack of motivation to write is frustrating and it's no fun. Every minute is very precious so you should make the most of it. If the old writing strategies doesn't work on you it’s time to turn your ordinary writing exercises into an extraordinary writing practices.