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.
“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.
“I’ll sometimes sit at my writing table and watch the trees outside—the play of sunlight and shade in their leaves. It instantly takes me back. Back to afternoons as a kid, walking home from school down a leafy street.
“I’ve had numerous writing rituals over the years. They’ve tended to change as my life circumstances have changed, but they always revolve around two key ingredients: silence and geography.
“When I’m stuck, I paint or I draw. Or I cook. Or I garden—or I redecorate a room. I get away from words, but not away from creativity. It’s a way to keep those energies moving and alive, without the particular worries about content that writing can carry.
“Nothing helps my writing, or makes me want to write, more than driving alone on lonely roads. That’s when I turn up the music—radio, scanning the stations for the surprise of what might get played. Something about this combination, the driving, the music, the landscape, feels generative.
