A lot of characters aren’t on your keyboard, but you might find them useful. For example, ♠, ♣, ♥, and ♦. An easy way to browse and use these hidden characters is by visiting Symbololology, a one-page site with about 500 non-keyboard characters. Symbololology,  where have you been all my life‽ — MF

My wife ordered a 24-pack of these cheap Bic mechanical pencils. I tried one out and I actually like it a lot. The lead diameter is 0.9 mm and it has a number 2 lead inside. It also contains one extra lead in the barrel. A 24-pack sells for about $.25 a pencil. They are supposed to be disposable, but why not buy a bunch of 9mm lead for cheap and keep using the pencil? You can even get colored leads! — MF

Story, by Robert McKee, is the best book written on how to construct a great story. McKee’s masterclass on story writing is well known in Hollywood. It is condensed into a 4-hour audiobook (better than the written book), performed by McKee himself. It is not just a manual for screenwriters; these short 4-hours turned me into a super fan, able to appreciate stories on whole new levels. Indeed, I found this book profound and realized that it is a useful guide to constructing an interesting life, which in the end is also a story. — KK

A while ago I recommended a pen holder strap that I was really excited about (and still am because it’s French and pink), but thanks to Rayan Parikh sharing what’s in his bag, I’ve now discovered these adhesive pen holder loops ($6/5pk). I’ve stuck these on all my notebooks so that I always have a pen ready. — CD

I like mechanical pencils, and my favorite is the Uni Kuru Toga with a lead-rotation mechanism (Model No. M54521P.24). Every time you touch the tip to the paper, the mechanism inside the pen ratchets the lead a few degrees. The result is the point stays rounded instead of taking on a chiseled profile as often happens with mechanical pencils. It’s inexpensive but very well-made. Mine has lasted for years. — MF

Earlier this month I tweeted: “I have been trying to get better at touch typing since I switched over from hunt-and-peck two years ago. I am not improving — speed and accuracy are terrible. Does anyone know of an app or method that works?” Of the many useful suggestions offered, the best app for me was keybr.com and the best advice (which is obvious only in retrospect): “Focus on accuracy when practicing. Practice every day. When making too many mistakes, slow down. Without accuracy, speed will be tricky to increase.” — MF

Ideas always hit me right before I fall asleep. So I bought these Glovion LED Light Pens ($15/3pk) to write them down without waking up my husband. The light is bright enough to write under, but not bright enough that it pulls me out of my half-awake state. I love that I no longer have to fight that nagging urge to get up and write something down before I forget. – CD

The Sakura Pigma Manga Basic Set comes with 5 pens: 4 Pigma Microns (sizes 005, 01, 05, 08) a black brush pen, and a white ink gel pen. The ink is waterproof and very dark. At $8, it’s a good deal. — MF

After reading this post on How to begin a novel using AI, I’ve been having fun using this neural network, Talk to Transformer, to come up with prompts for new poems. I’ll just type in a few lines or start with an image that haunts me, and I’m always surprised by the seemingly original imagery that it gives back to me like this one (prompted by my aunt’s back tattoo of a phoenix): The days passed like smoke under my feet. “That should be enough for now.” She paused and sighed again. But still the phoenix kept going.— CD

I’ve gotten too casual with my email correspondence, and this blog post on “How to write better emails” reminded me that I should strive to be more effective and efficient with my communication. All of the tips are useful but the ones I really need to work on are 1) Use specific dates instead of “yesterday” or “tomorrow.” And 2) Be specific on what you request from whom by referring to each recipient explicitly using the @ symbol. — CD

When I visited Paris this year, I made a pit stop at the Papier Tigre store to stock up on cool stationary things and found this pink elastic pen holder strap that I completely geeked out about. It holds two pens and can fit A4-A6 notebooks, and all the colors are great. I was kicking myself for not buying more of them, because the online shop doesn’t ship to the US, and I couldn’t find a cheaper alternative on Amazon. Luckily, I found Papier Tigre on CWPencils.com. They don’t have all the colors, but if you want one, get it while you can because last week they were out of stock. — CD

Derek Sivers was the founder of CD Baby and maintains an interesting essay blog. One of his recent posts offered good advice for writers and speakers: “People only really learn when they’re surprised. If they’re not surprised, then what you told them just fits in with what they already know. No minds were changed. No new perspective. Just more information. So my main advice to anyone preparing to give a talk on stage is to cut out everything from your talk that’s not surprising.” — MF

When I can’t find the right word or phrasing using Power Thesaurus or Ludwig, I’m on the English StackExchange searching for answers or posting questions. You can ask anything relating to grammar or usage or word choice and English experts will start responding right away. You can also check the “reputation” of any user who responds to confirm they know what they’re talking about. — CD

My friend Gareth Branwyn has been writing books and articles for top-tier publishers for decades. He recently wrote an article called “How to Be a Better Writer: Tips, tricks, and hard-won lessons: from creating drafts to working with editors,” and is a gold mine of treasure for anyone interested in improving their writing. — MF

I like this graphic shared by DailyInfographic which lists seven tips for better writing. Some advice for mastering them is to just focus on one or two at a time until they become habits. I am working on parallel construction, by taking out words I’ve listed and confirming the sentence still makes sense. — CD

My art student daughter has been using these spiral-bound Canson Mix Media 7x10 drawing pads. I started buying them for myself, too. The heavy paper easily handles ink pens, watercolor, and Copic markers, and has a nice texture for pencils. A 60-sheet notebook is only $7. — MF

Wordstotime.com is a quick way to calculate how many minutes it would take to read a specific number of words out loud. I recently needed to fill up at least 8 minutes of talk time for an audio recording, so I started with this website and aimed for 1,250 words as I typed. — CD

If I’m not confident with how I’ve used an expression, I will google the turn of phrase inside of quotation marks, and if I get Google Books results with similar examples then I know I’ve used it correctly. Lately, I’ve been using Ludwig for the same kind of phrase searches. I like that it gives me back example sentences from different sources like encyclopedias, news and science publications. — CD

I keep this crowdsourced thesaurus bookmarked. It’s easier to navigate than thesaurus.com and the fastest way to find the word I want to use. — CD

I can’t handwrite for long periods of time without some discomfort. These pencil grips are designed for kids and adults with arthritis, but they help me out a lot too. I bought a 6-pack for $11. — CD