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In this online exclusive we ask authors to share books, art, music, writing prompts, films—anything and everything—that has inspired them in their writing. We see this as a place for writers to turn to for ideas that will help feed their creative process.
“I have an almost religious belief that nonfiction is built from careful observation, which reveals that almost anything—from the tree outside the window, to a horrible sandwich, to a devastating life event—has some kind of meaningful system, or structure, to it. Sometimes that structure is defined by entropy, or resembles a Greek play, or is purely Freudian in nature.
“By 10 AM I’ve been writing for a few hours, and my mind’s muddled with sentences, so I go jogging. Like most people, I don’t enjoy exercising, and I welcome anything that distracts me from the fact that I’m breathing hard and my muscles hurt. I don’t think about individual sentences, but more the overall shape of the text I’m making.
“I reread constantly for inspiration. Seek: Reports From the Edges of America and Beyond by Denis Johnson stokes my curiosity. Lidia Yuknavitch’s The Chronology of Water reminds me to own my fierceness, to conjure it onto the page. I also look for synchronicities and act on them in my writing and in my life.
“When I’m stuck or feeling unmotivated, I turn to the drawers near my writing desk. They contain notes from past English classes and old spiral-bound journals.
“I have a good old-fashioned muse—a brilliant friend who finds me music. His taste is exquisite and he takes the time to discover unknown artists, or rare, forgotten albums from long ago. I’m always hitting him up for new stuff and it’s never disappointing. Sometimes he sends a choppy track sung by two kids in Kenya. Sometimes it’s a well-known weirdo folk song, or a guitar piece from a Caracas slum, or an improvised ten minutes on jazz piano,
“I sit down in front of my computer with my first cup of coffee before I’m fully awake. I hope that something exciting will come out of these liminal moments before I’m aware of the expectancy and stress of writing.
“I am writing a serialized novel in the form of a Korean drama right now. If you aren’t familiar with them, Korean dramas are sort of all the rage in Asia. They’re melodramatic. They’re romantic. They have end points and clear arcs. When they are working well, they’re like watching sixteen-hour movies.
“Each of my novels has been unlocked by a song. Early on in the first draft I’ll hear a song—often one I’ve already known for a while—and there’ll be a sort of clicking into place, a physical sensation, and just like that I’ll have a much deeper understanding of a character or of the book as a whole.
“German composer Hauschka, a.k.a Volker Bertelmann, is a practitioner of the ‘prepared piano,’ a technique where the player places objects on the strings of the piano so as to alter the sound. Hauschka will wrap the piano hammers in aluminum foil, for example, or attach binder clips to certain strings.
“I have lots of writing rituals, but the most important time for me is late at night, when I have no business being up. Night is when the children are asleep and only insomniacs are sending e-mails. I turn on Self-Control, so I can’t compulsively check e-mail, and I listen to electronic music.
