darbyDarnit!

Holiday gifts for your favorite writer

The holidays are coming – faster than I anticipated. I am a terrible procrastinator when it comes to buying gifts. I now order most of my Christmas gifts online and pay extra for both wrapping and accelerated shipping. Thank you Al Gore for inventing the Internet.

If you want to get your holiday shopping started early and you struggle every year to find a meaningful gift for that special writer/reader in your life, here are some ideas:
This is a beautiful tanned, hand-stitched leather journal with French-milled paper from Renaissance Art in Seattle. I stumbled across this Web site last year and immediately ordered a journal for myself. They come in various sizes and designs and you can personalize them with someone’s name. I love this journal, but I am so fond of it, that I’m afraid to write in it until I am inspired to write something profound.

Every aspiring writer needs a sophisticated writing instrument of the highest caliber. Sure, the tools do not necessarily make the man, but pens are to writers what diamonds are to girlfriends and wives. Just the words “Montblanc,” “Waterman,” “Cross,” “Pelikan,” and “Dunhill” make me quiver. Check out Joon Pens for Web specials on all the great makes and models.
You can’t go wrong with books. New books are always great. Rare and first edition books will make him/her salivate, but that’s because they can cost as much as a car. Or, books about the craft of writing are good too. Alibris is a great online bookstore offering all of these.
The New York Times online Book section provides lists of best sellers across genres, editor’s choices, award winners and more. The New York Times also offers two great books titled “Writers on writing” that are worth checking out.
I first saw the documentary film maker/writer Michael Moore wear this writer’s hat in one of his movies. And I of course jumped online on the WritersStore Web site and ordered it. Sure it seems a bit self-reverential, but I think it’s more like a mix of proclamation (“I am writer, hear me roar”) and perpetual confidence booster (“I am a writer – I am a writer”). As a group, we writers tend to be very hard on ourselves and thoughts of unworthiness are more easily accepted than praise. So this hat can serve as a form of security blanket.

Portable USB Flash drives are useful tools for those who regularly need to transfer data such as presentations, manuscripts, music, videos, pictures or other information from one computer to the next. And you can fit them in your pocket, unlike disks, CDs and DVDs. Here is a Samsung USB Flash drive from the Tiger Direct Web site.
And honey, if you’re reading this, what I really want is this cabin by the lake. Thanks, and I love you.
There are millions of great gifts for writers. These are just a few to help you with the brainstorming.