Tag: Review
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Inspiration: Fairy Tale
During November’s month-long rush to write a 50,000 novel, I often pick a book to read to inspire my writing. Last year it was Patrick Rothfuss. This year is Stephen King’s Fairy Tale. The book was recommended to me because of my interest in the merging of the supernatural and mundane, and since it touches…
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Inspiration: Terry Pratchett
Leave a surprise for your readers in every paragraph. This writing advice was gifted to me during my undergraduate creative writing fellowship, but I did not understand it until I started reading Terry Pratchett. His writing is brilliant, hilarious, and unique. I originally discovered Pratchett because of Good Omens, a clever and humorous take on…
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Tea, anyone?
Tea and warm drinks are one of the top rewards I use to motivate myself to write. But I love tea in general, consuming 2-3 cups per day — sometimes more when the days gets cold. Of course, each tea has a different time of day for drinking. Morning Black Tea #1 Chai is my…
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Inspiration: Neil Gaiman
I have admired Neil Gaiman for a long time, partly because we have similar hair and partly because while he was with Amanda Palmer, they presented as a sucessful artistic power couple that could do anything. Who doesn’t wish to be that? Oh, and he was a pretty good writer too. Gaiman’s works have also…
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Inspiration: Flannery O’Connor
Anyone who has ever taken a Creative Writing course knows the name Flannery O’Connor. She is known for her unique descriptions, gothic style tinged with absurdism, and stories that generally paint unflattering portraits of American life in the south. Ten years after first being introduced to her in undergrad, I read her collection, “A Good…
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The 3 Best Parts of Graphic Novels
I love graphic novels. Comic books are just another one of those nerdy things that have become more mainstream with the expansion of independant publishers and the wider circulation of Manga and Anime. Graphic Novels hit different. The visuals and color tell a story in a way that books and television can’t. The still frames…
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Audio&books
“Oh, yeah, I read that,” they say, before casually adding, “Actually I listened to it on Audible, but that’s basically the same thing, right?” To some people, this is a statement of horror, but I must admit I have been guilty of it myself. Others feel audiobooks may be the next step in reading evolution,…
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Inspiration: Lord of the Rings
At my core, I am a nerd, and that is something I have slowly embraced as mainstream culture has also slowly embraced us. There are now so many nerds running around, from Star Trek and Star Wars to Harry Potter and Supernatural, not to mention all the anime fandoms, that we have become a part…
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Ryuutama
One of my favorite hobbies is playing tabletop roleplaying games like Dungeons and Dragons, which thankfully have become much more mainstream in recent years. My preferred system has recently been Ryuutama, which is a simple, cutsy, Studio Ghibli-style world. Ryuutama means “Dragon Egg” in Japanese. The whole idea of the game is that the adventures…
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Inspiration: The Name of the Wind
I had put off reading The Kingkiller Chronicles for years: partly because everyone raved about it, partly because there was a million and a half forums discussing it already, and partly because I don’t like reading unfinished series. I had multiple friends recommend it at completely different times, and I always made an excuse to…
Grant Pearson 