The 5 Best Gifts for Your Writerly Friends

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Christmas time is the happiest time of the year. Stores are decked out with pretty reds, blues, greens, fancy lights, and Christmas trees. The smell of pine fills the air—depending on where you live—snow adds an extra festive element, creating the perfect excuse to cuddle under a blanket and write with a warm glass of peppermint hot chocolate.

The holidays are the perfect time to spend with your families and friends. Take a break from the everyday hustle and bustle during the year. It’s the time of year people tell their loved ones they care about them.

As a writer, I’m sure you have writerly friends and don’t know what to get them. Or your writerly friends sent you to me for advice on what to get them. Today, I have made a list of the best gifts to get your writer friends. The list is in no particular order, and they are all items I’ve used myself.

Without further ado, let’s get started with the first gift idea.

1.Leather-bound Journal:

This journal has been one of the most useful items I purchased over the course of 2020. It helped me build this blog, organize my novel, and got me through a few depressive episodes. The pages feel good to write on, and if you don’t feel like taking the whole journal out, with the three-hole binder pages, you can take a few pages with you.

The journal has many uses in helping aspiring writers become better, and you can read all about it here. It helps practice your chops and is a fantastic tool for helping one heal. This journal is perfect for whatever use your writerly friends need. Anyone can use a journal, which makes it the perfect stocking stuffer. Their faces will light with joy as you have given them a new friend to share their innermost thoughts.

2.Fountain pen:

A good journal needs a great pen to go along with it. The pen is like a wand in Harry Potter. It chooses the writer as much as the writer chooses it. Writing with the right pen is the difference between a mediocre session and an enjoyable session.

When this pen first arrived in the mail, I was ecstatic and couldn’t stop writing with it. The pen’s weight in my hand was perfect, and it ignited a spark that leads me to write pages and pages in my journals. I generally type when I write, and this pen made me want to use my handwriting. It comes in a multitude of colors, so find one that fits your writerly friend’s aesthetic.

3.Save the Cat! Writes a Novel:

This book needs to be on every writer’s reading list.  I have written extensively on Save the Cat’s mechanics! If you are wondering what exactly that is, click here for an in-depth definition and how to plot your novels. Save the Cat! was first introduced to me in my undergrad screenwriting class. I never looked at plotting the same again.

Now, I have read the book by Jessica Brody, and it made plotting much more effortless and understandable. It gives your story direction and makes it so every scene has meaning. The author doesn’t spend time overcomplicating things and makes it super simple for readers to understand.

Save the Cat! is essential for any writer. It helps improve their skills and is an excellent guide when starting a new project. Years later, I still open the book while plotting my stories, and when I need a refresher on a concept.

4.Journal to the Self:

And now, for the penultimate gift idea, I bring you Journal to the Self by Kathleen Adams. I wrote a little bit about this book in my article on journaling, where I call the journal a writer’s most helpful tool. I read this book in my Writing and Healing graduate class, and it changed the way I view my journal.

Before reading this book, I would never journal—wouldn’t even consider it. Though, the way Adams describes the journey of journaling in this book made me reconsider. I bought a journal and made a daily habit out of it. It helped me cope and form a new relationship with my depression, helped me manage and build my website, and sped up my therapy progress.

This book belongs on anyone’s bookshelf and should be on the top of your to-read list. It is a fantastic experience and a great novel!

5.Grammarly:

Lastly, I recommend Grammarly premium. It is a fantastic tool for catching errors in your manuscript before sending it to a professional editor. I run all my documents through Grammarly, whether it is a class assignment, a new post, or my work in progress novel. I wrote a full review of the features of Grammarly here.

The short story, Grammarly changed my life. When I first got into my graduate program, I sucked at grammar. I always misplaced commas, semicolons, and colons. My teachers would send back assignments marked “great content, improve grammar.” One day, I was tired of seeing that comment. So, I emailed my professor and asked them for advice. They sent me to Grammarly, and my papers were forever changed. I noticed my grades rising from Cs to As, and it was incredible.

Every writer can benefit from Grammarly, and it is a great gift for helping your writerly friends. It will help improve their writing and give them an edge over the competition. They will see their improvement, and it feels fantastic.

Conclusion:

These are the five best gift ideas for your writerly friends. Any writer would be thrilled opening these on Christmas morning—knowing you support them on their writing journey. The greatest gift of all and a bonus suggestion is support. Writing is a long and often lonely journey that the general population often looked down upon.

It is a joke profession that people claim anyone can do, and writers should get a real job. The truth is, writing is a necessary career, and the world would not be the same without writers. Having friends and family support us helps us finish our projects and get our stories out into the world!

If you have any other gift suggestions or liked any of these, let me know in the comments below. I love to hear what you guys have to say!