If you are engaging in a writing career, whether full or part time, you can't do without the basic tools of the trade. Sure, you've learned to master the construction of sentences, paragraphs and have even mastered the art of maintaining a coherent line of thought for the reader to follow throughout your article or short work of fiction. I'm not referring to intellectual tools you have obtained through training or by trial and error. I am discussing, rather, the physical tools you need to get the job done. You need more than a good personal computer or laptop with a decent spell/grammar check program to succeed as a writer. You need a little help from some trusted old friends.

The first friend I'd like to re-introduce to you is the dictionary. Yes. I know your PC has a spell checker and your grammar check program might even help you out with rewording a sentence that suffers structural issues. Neither of these sources is going to provide you with the meaning of a word. You can go with the tried-and-true book form of the dictionary or use one of the on-line versions. No good writer, however, is going to be caught in the process of working without one or the other handy.

The next of your four friends is another very familiar fellow. Roget's Thesaurus has been helping us find the right word or words for a very, very long time. Any thesaurus can prove to be an invaluable tool when you are in search of a word or feel like there is a better way to phrase something. Again, you can get either a hardbound book or a piece of software, but keep the thesaurus at the ready.

One friend that might not have come so easily to mind is a good book on English grammar. I prefer a very basic one that doesn't take you too far into the "depths of literary learning" and sticks to basics such as subject/verb agreement, punctuation and other grammatical bogeymen that must be dealt with regularly in this profession. It's surprising how often you'll feel more comfortable about the quality of a sentence or phrase if you spend five minutes assuring yourself that it meets the book's criteria for good grammar. While there are some decent grammar primers on-line, I'd stick with the book in this instance.

Finally, and this might not be a help to those of you who have great memories or exhaustive vocabularies, I like to keep a book that lists synonyms. Mine is an ancient out-of-print book from the 1960s. You can probably find one more up-to-date, and doubtlessly some enterprising individual has an on-line version. I use this book when I am forced to do a lot of repetitive writing and feel as if I'm using the same terminology over and over. The use of a synonym to replace a repeated term can open the work up and enliven the flow thought. It can also get you out of a mental bind.

So, keep your four friends handy. I am old-fashioned. I like to keep mine on my desk in worn, dog-eared book form. You might prefer on-line versions or software applications instead. The point is not what form you keep them in, but that you do keep them close by for easy reference. These are the sorts of tools that, as they are used, will enable you to improve your writing skills and, as such, will help you succeed in your endeavors.

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