Jump to navigation Skip to content
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.
“Every writer’s universe is a museum—there’s a permanent collection of concerns and obsessions and themes, then there are temporary rotating exhibitions, and then there are inventories of objects and curiosities that the writer has yet to employ.
“When I’m stuck and feeling overwhelmed (or underwhelmed for that matter) by my writing, my thoughts go right to water. I think I’m looking for the equilibrium of simply being whelmed, of being right in the flow of words, immersed in story.
“Staring intently doesn’t help us to see faint stars at night. We can see them better if we use our peripheral vision.
“When I’m deep in the woods of a novel and know I’ve lost my way, which has happened more times than I would care to admit, I look to the light of primary sources to see me back on track.
“In her book The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer’s Block, and the Creative Brain (Mariner Books, 2005), neurologist Alice W.
“All art has a rhythm, a pulse. Whenever I feel lost, when I seem to keep missing the beat, I find it elsewhere: in movies, music, or books.
“I used to think half the battle was simply sitting down to write, but over the years I’ve learned sometimes that isn’t enough. Sometimes inertia seeps in like the plague, my pen heavy with ink, the page blanker than it’s ever been.
“The origins of the word urge contain both the idea of pushing forward, forcing, but also to fasten or to tie. I turn to the urges of others and attempt to inhabit them through translation.
“When I was working on my novel there were two Bolaño novels that I kept returning to—not because their style or content was similar to what I was working on, but because they would get me into a sort of trance.
“In Martha: The Life and Work of Martha Graham (Random House, 1991) by Agnes De Mille, Martha Graham spoke about the process of choreography. My mother is a dancer and choreographer and would share this quote with me and my sisters when we were growing up:
