I recommend that all writers find at least three grammar and/or style books they find easy to understand. Each should speak in plain English, meaning their explanations and examples make good, quick sense.

Why not just one? Because, as I’ve found, I need to “hear” an explanation more than once and from different angles for it to sink in. Too, what one book explains well, another doesn’t. (This doesn’t always work, however. I still struggle with who/whom no matter how many books I consult.)

Anyway, here are some of the books on my shelf. Some are no longer in print, but you might be able to get a used copy.

The Wrong Word Dictionary: 2,000 Most Commonly Confused Words

The Associated Press Stylebook

Woe is I (The grammarphobe’s guide to better English in plain English)

Action Grammar (Fast, no-hassle answers on everyday usage and punctuation)

Brief Handbook of Usage

Reference Handbook of Grammar & Usage

After a few decades of writing, I have learned to trust the creative process. Blocks aren’t solid (if, indeed, they exist); procrastination often is hibernation. To everything there is a season, and you’ve got to go with the damnable flow. Wringing your hands or railing at the heavens accomplishes nothing. You must be patient.

As you wait, send your ideas into the universe. Know that they will circle back more fully shaped. Be there to catch them. Carry them to back to your desk, then write.

Wrenching, gorgeous, brutal, thoughtful, superb, riveting — these words fall far short when describing the power of this site. Sponsored by WashingtonPost.com, MediaStorm features multimedia “narratives” that speak to the heart of the human condition. The site has won Emmys and Webbys, and for good reason.

My all-time favorite “photo-essay” is “The Marlboro Man,” which is about Marine Lance Corporal James Blake Miller and his struggle to heal the scars of war upon returning from Iraq.

Writing doesn’t require my sitting before a keyboard. What is required, however, is to think.

I tend to do my best thinking away from my desk. Snippets of dialogue and plot twists come to me while I’m in bed or the shower, or while slogging through mundane tasks like making lunches or waiting in traffic. Even when I’m not able to jot them down, they find a place in my mind. (Not that I can access all of them again; like my keys, they get misplaced.) And so, I’ve been doing a lot of writing. It’s going well, too. For example, while sitting in my optometrist’s office, I finally figured out how to murder three of my characters.

I have also been reading some great books. Right now, I’m immersed in The Metaphysical Club: The Story of Ideas in America by Louise Menand. This Pulitzer Prize winner has absolutely nothing to do with my writing a mystery, but it touches on Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson was one of my father’s favorite writers/thinkers.

My father was a writer/thinker himself. He passed away 16 years ago; I knew him well yet not at all. Reading about Emerson, however, is helping me understand my dad’s world view and, by extension, our relationship. It also is helping me shape the book I am writing about him.

All this without a keyboard.

FactCheck.org is a project of the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center and the recipient of the 2009  ”People’s Voice” Webby Award. The nonpartisan/nonprofit organization’s goal is to reduce “the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics.” In other words, it gets rid of the bull and gives you actual facts and figures. The day I visited, FactCheck cut through distortions by Democrats and Republicans regarding proposed healthcare reforms and Virginia’s gubernatorial candidates.