Tag: Writing
-
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…
-
A Playlist for Teeth&Dreams
Music plays an important role in my writing by giving me ideas and setting a tone, so in recent years I create a playlist for each new project. My current NaNoWriMo project, Of Teeth and Dreams, now also has a working playlist. Currently sitting at just over an hour, the occassional jarring combination of indie…
-
Nanowrimo 2025
It is November again! The best month of the year because it means National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) has arrived. The time has come to buckle down and write 1666 words per day in a new novel, and I am so ready! Last year I discussed some of the details of NaNoWriMo, but more importantly,…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
Writing Habits
Words haunt the dreams of authors, asleep or awake. They are finnicky, sassy, and beautiful. So I want to share a little about how I capture them. Where: My favorite place to go, especially when starting a new project, is a cafe. Recently that place has been Peet’s: great coffee and room to wade into…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
Grant Pearson 