Valentine’s Day is over, you say. And anyway Rachel, don’t you write horror? I’m not talking about romantic love, the romance genre or even incorporating romantic elements in any genre. Rather, I mean that the impetus for writing anything comes from a desire to express and inspire love. Wait, what? How do stories about hauntings,…
Tag: writing inspiration
Top 10 Things a Writer Hears Around the Holiday Table
10. “Did you finish the book yet?” (Variations: How close are you? When will you finish? Are you actually going to finish this one?) 9. “When will it come out?” Don’t bother explaining that finishing the story is only the beginning. Folks outside the industry tend to romanticize the process: we authors toil with quill…
Embrace the Darkness
Five years ago, after only a few months of living in Colorado, I realized I’d been suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder, probably since middle school. Growing up in North Dakota, I spent the long, dark, dangerously cold months of winter indoors reading. My asthma was much worse back then, which meant I couldn’t play outside…
Don’t Toss Those Writing Fragments!
You’ve got them lying around somewhere, don’t you—one- or two-page writing scraps that you dashed off at some point? Maybe they were character sketches you wrote while working through a how-to book on characterization. Or maybe they’re tucked into a notebook you used at that last workshop you attended, where the instructor had you do…
Inspiration is All Around Us
“Everything you look at can become a fairy tale and you can get a story from everything you touch.” (Hans Christian Andersen) Inspiration can truly come from anything, if we leave ourselves open to it. Anything you see, hear, smell, taste, feel, or dream could become part of the story that you’re writing—or maybe the…