List of resources

What would we do without the wonderful world wide web?  Here are some of my favourite sites for writers: 

Listings with jobs and opportunities:

NAWE fortnightly bulletin - Writing jobs, competitions (mostly UK)
Duotrope's Digest - submissions to American and UK anthologies
Saison Poetry Library at the Southbank Centre - regular poetry bulletin.

Journals and ezines that accept email submissions:

Words with Jam
Enigma
Smokelong Quarterly
Southword Online Journal
10 Flash quarterly
The Shine Journal
The Spilling Ink Review
Big Pulp
Inkspill
Plutonian Times
Underground Voices

Poetry:

British Haiku Society - Archive and regular competitions
http://www.poetrymagazines.org.uk - Listing and back issues 
Poetry Archive - Huge online collection with both text and audio readings 
The Poetry Society - Events, local groups etc
http://www.poetrylibrary.org.uk - News and events
http://www.everydaypoets.com/ - Daily email of a poem by a contemporary writer

Short stories:

Campaign for the Short Story - Information, advice and link.

The Short Review - reviews of new and classic collections.

Some good blogs (see my profile for many more!):

howapoemhappens - poets explain how their work was inspired & edited
strictlywriting - a group of authors tackle all aspects of the craft
sixsentences - Publishing 6-sentence pieces of writing
buried in the slush pile - Author and editor with focus on children's fiction
agentinthemiddle - Useful agent advice
stroppyauthor - Detailed articles on book-related topics
notmuchmore - Diverse articles from a short-story writer
fictionbitch - Funny and insightful
awfullybigblogadventure - Topical articles by a range of authors
writerinthestorm - Lots on poetry and events
scribblecitycentral - YA fiction
writebadlywell - Funny parodies of creative writing 
vulpes libres - Literary articles and reviews

Scotland-specific:

Scottish Poetry Library
http://scottishwriterscentre.org.uk/
http://www.scottishbooktrust.com/
Read Raw - Promoting creative writing.

Others:

WriteWords - Group for writers to share work etc
Backspace - Similar to the above
My Writer Circle - Similar, but more forum-based
National Novel Writing Month - 1-month write a novel challenge
http://www.book-in-a-week.com/about/ - Similar!
Noodle Tools - list of opportunities for young writers
Writers' Digest - Tips, prompts and publishing advice
BBC writer info - Archive interviews with big-name writers
Positivity Blog - Life, creativity, etc!

Please let me know any that I should have included.

Novelty on behalf of others

An interesting recent study published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin:  Polman & Emich (2011) found evidence that when people work on behalf of others, they can think more creatively.

The researchers gave students problems which required creative thinking, and found that they did better when they were asked to solve the problems on behalf of a colleague than for themselves.  For example, they drew more original aliens when asked to draw them for someone else's story than for their own.

This could say a lot about the benefits of collaborative writing, and of course of author-illustrator partnerships.

"According to Evan Polman and Kyle Emich, we're more capable of mental novelty when thinking on behalf of strangers than for ourselves..."  Read more in the BPS Research Digest.

What is your creative style?

A bit of fun from Psychologies magazine: 'what is your creative style?' article.

I suppose these tests take the most common answer and give you a stock response ('mostly As' or whatever), but I could be wrong, perhaps it's more subtle than that!

But what I liked best is that it does hint at different ways of being creative, which could perhaps be labelled as ideas-focused, audience focused, process-focused and introspective.

Lower image: Self Portrait by Alexa Meade