Author: garthswright

G.S. Wright is an author in Southern Idaho. He writes. A lot. All the time. Sometimes he watches movies, plays guitar, or sleeps. He has a beautiful wife (that keeps him from starving) and three children that he is failing to raise as ninjas. He also has a zombie survival plan.

Immerse Yourself in Art to Awaken Your Literary Muse

Writers know that surrounding themselves with artistic inspiration is key to awakening their literary muse. When your creative wells run dry, tapping into the art world can provide a flood of new inspiration.

Visiting museums, galleries, public art installations, and other creative spaces exposes you to fresh perspectives, thought-provoking messages, and new ways of capturing the human experience. What inner feelings bubble up? What memories or ideas come rushing in? Channel that energy into your writing projects.

Look closely at an artist’s use of color, texture, shapes, lighting. What descriptive details can you borrow for your own word painting? How do the compositional techniques tell a visual story? Apply those lessons to strengthen your scene setting, character descriptions, and plotting.

Don’t just observe passively; interact with art installations that immerse you and spark your senses. Touch tactile sculptures, listen to multimedia exhibits, smell botanical gardens, taste edible art. Let these experiences pour into your creative reservoir.

Expand your art analysis skills through classes on painting, photography, pottery or other mediums. Learning the craft behind great art gives you new appreciation for details you can translate into writing. Sign up for museum events or art discussion groups to exchange perspectives.

Follow contemporary artists online and let their creative process motivate your own. Check out local galleries, street art, craft fairs and find new gems and voices. The more art you open your mind to, the more inspiration you’ll uncover.

Surrounding yourself with museums, galleries, eclectic architecture and public art installations saturates you with creativity. Look, listen, feel, interact. Then return to your writing overflowing with fresh descriptive details, thematic ideas, and creative confidence.

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Tap Into Your Dreams to Inspire Your Writing

Our dreams are fertile ground for writing inspiration, providing a wellspring of settings, characters, emotions, symbols, and storylines. Keeping a dream journal and practicing lucid dreaming techniques can help writers harness the creative power of their subconscious.

Analyze your dreamscapes and extract compelling elements to weave into your writing. Turn a recurring dream figure into a complex character by giving them a name, backstory, motivations. Reimagine a dream landscape as an exotic fictional setting. Explore a dream theme more deeply through the lens of poetry or magical realism.

Vivid dreams often connect back to what already preoccupies our waking thoughts and emotions. A dream about getting lost in a forest may represent feeling directionless in a current project. Recurring nightmares of being stuck in traffic could indicate frustrations over something moving too slowly. Interpreting these symbols and metaphors can provide insights to inject more authenticity into your writing.

Some authors have credited entire books to inspiration derived from a single vivid dream, like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Keep a notebook and pen next to your bed to capture your most memorable nocturnal adventures before they fade away. Upon waking, jot down any impressions, dialogues, sensations or symbols you can recall. These snippets often unfurl into full stories or poems when explored creatively.

With practice, you can even take charge of your dream narratives using lucid dreaming techniques. As you become aware that you’re dreaming, redirect the plot to a scene that supports your current writing goals. Adventure through wondrous dreamscapes and consciously plant inspiration that your subconscious will later uncork.

Our minds are at their most uninhibited and creative while dreaming. Learning to remember, record and interpret your dreams provides a wellspring of original inspiration. Now excuse me while I take my own advice and go dream up my next story!

Be a part of my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/gswright

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Use Music to Inspire Your Writing

Every writer knows the struggle of summoning the motivation and imagination needed to make words flow onto the page. Sometimes, our muse needs a little ignition to get the creative juices pumping. One powerful way to inspire focused, emotive writing is through music.

Turning on some tunes that awaken your imagination can work wonders when writer’s block strikes. Upbeat songs provide energy and drive to power through difficult projects. Melancholic melodies summon pensiveness and sensitivity needed for heartfelt scenes. Your own personalized playlists can become a vital part of your writing ritual.

In addition to setting the mood, attentive listening to music unlocks new depths of inspiration. Analyze song lyrics for ways to convey themes more poetically in your prose. Study how musicians build tension and interest with their instruments. Allow the emotions of a chorus to unlock hidden feelings in your characters.

You can even match musical genres to different writing styles. Classical music promotes fluid, elegant passages. Punk drums up gritty, visceral action scenes. Try writing a setting while listening to music native to that location, like Argentinian tango for a Buenos Aires backdrop.

While writing, music provides a productivity-boosting cadence to match the rhythm of your typing or scribbling. Let the melodies and beats flow through you into the language. But for editing sessions, opt for instrumental-only tunes — lyrics can be too distracting when you require focus.

Build playlists that speak to the tone and themes of your current projects. Are you writing a steamy romance? Queue up some sultry R&B. Drafting a spooky thriller? Assemble eerie, atmospheric movie soundtrack hits. Treat your writing like the sensorial experience it is by letting music infuse your creative process.

Don’t feel confined to traditional genres either. Follow your distinctive musical tastes.

What are some of your favorite tunes, artists, or playlists for writing? Share your top musical inspiration hacks below!

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Elevate Your Descriptive Writing: Crafting Vivid Sensory Details

The key to immersive, transportive writing is top-notch descriptive skills that allow readers to fully visualize and experience each moment. Descriptive prose engages the senses to make settings, characters, and moments come alive. But taking your descriptive writing to the next level requires finesse and precision. Follow these tips to write rich, vivid sensory details.

Choose Strong Verbs and Adjectives

Reach for specific, impactful verbs and adjectives that convey clear sensations and qualities. “Sprinted” packs more punch than “went.” “Glistening” creates a distinct visual rather than “shiny.” Precision descriptors place readers in the scene. Avoid generic terms when more exact words exist.

Use Metaphors and Analogies

Crafting apt metaphors and smart comparisons elevates descriptions. For example: “The moonlight reflected on the water like a shining path of diamonds.” Metaphors make writing more vivid and memorable through unexpected associations.

Activate All Five Senses

The most immersive descriptions incorporate more than just the visual. Include details of smells, sounds, tastes, and textures. Allow readers to fully experience a scene through the protagonist’s senses. Sensory variety paints a multilayered mental picture.

Show, Don’t Just Tell

Allow well-chosen descriptors to demonstrate a quality rather than bluntly stating it. For example, show a character’s exhaustion through drooping eyes and sluggish gestures rather than outright saying “she was tired.” This makes the writing more dynamic.

Use Descriptors Judiciously

Adverb and adjective overload leeches power from writing. Be selective about which details to include. Crafting one or two vivid descriptors is better than cramming in generic adjectives. Precision beats quantity.

Polishing your descriptive writing skills takes time, but applying these tips will take your prose to the next level. Immerse readers by engaging their senses and abilities to visualize each moment. Vivid details invite them into the story’s world. What descriptive writing tactics do you find most effective? Share your thoughts in the comments!

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Our Final Days Now on Patreon

I’m excited to announce that my zombie apocalypse serial, Our Final Days, is coming to Patreon! Starting today, I’ll be posting a new episode daily (on weekdays) until all 11 of the first episodes are available.

After that, new episodes will release first on Patreon 2 weeks before they become available to read on Vella. This means Patreon members get exclusive early access to new chapters of Our Final Days before anyone else!

If you want to dive deeper into the story and stay ahead of each new terrifying chapter, now is the time to pledge!

PATREON

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The Art of Blackout Poetry

Blackout poetry is a unique literary artform that creates new poems and meaning from existing texts. The concept is straightforward – take any text, whether an old novel, magazine, or even road sign, and redact words with a black marker. What remains becomes a found poem distilled from the source material.

Part of blackout poetry’s appeal is how it lets anyone find poetry in unexpected places. You don’t have to be a talented wordsmith to craft a blackout poem. Simply scan a text, manually blacking out words or using digital tools, until only an interesting poem remains. The selected words present themselves in new, surprising arrangements.

Blackout poetry is also a powerful critical thinking exercise. It pushes readers to closely analyze a text to determine which words carry the most meaning. By redacting language, you reveal the hidden poetical essence buried in the original. The remaining poem may convey a very different tone or perspective than the full text intended.

Educators often use blackout techniques to engage students with analyzing literature. Students can create their own blackout poems from classic texts as a playful way to distill themes and literary devices. The hands-on process sticks with them better than standard annotation or explication.

Blackout poetry is endlessly variable. You can create erased poems from a single page or passage. Or ambitiously redact entire novels, newspaper archives, or other collected works. This variability keeps the practice fresh and challenging.

If you want to experiment with this compelling poetic form, simply grab a text meaningful to you. Scan for words and phrases that jump out, tell a story, or convey emotion. Blackout the rest, and shape what remains into a found poem.

Did’ja know that I’m on Patreon? Check out the benefits you get by joining the inner circle…

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Blackout Poetry from Soul Sister

Occasionally, I’m going to share projects that I’ve been given by students who’ve studied my books. I’m going to leave the poet anonymous as this was schoolwork. 🙂

Blackout poetry is a creative literary form where writers take an existing text and selectively redact words, bringing forth poignant new poems from the underlying work. This artform has become popular in classrooms as a way for students to engage with literature in an imaginative, hands-on manner.

Earlier this year, a student at Wakapa Academy here in Buhl crafted a blackout poem by reinterpreting passages from my novel, Soul Sister. 

As an author, I’m always humbled to see my writing used as raw material for another’s artistic expression. The student’s blackout poem is a reminder that storytelling is collaborative. While I put my vision down on paper, readers complete a book by bringing their perspectives and finding personal meaning. This interplay further validates writing as a powerful tool for human connection.

 I hope their example will inspire other young readers to experiment with blackout poetry using my writing or any fiction they deeply enjoy.

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A New Chapter: Relaunching My Patreon and Inviting You to the Inner Circle

You may remember that I’ve had a Patreon page for a while. Well, I’ve been hard at work behind the scenes, and it’s time for a grand relaunch! My Patreon is not just getting a facelift; it’s evolving into something magical, something that allows us to connect on a whole new level. The Inner Circle.

Why a Relaunch?

The truth is, I’ve been neglecting Patreon, and the world of storytelling is as expansive as the universes I create in my novels, and Patreon can be a sanctuary for us to explore these universes together. I wanted to offer you something that’s not just exclusive but also deeply personal and enriching.

What’s New: Enter the Inner Circle

The Inner Circle is not just a name; it’s a promise of intimacy and exclusivity. As a member, you’re not just a fan; you’re a treasured collaborator on this incredible journey of storytelling. Here’s a sneak peek of what awaits you:

Tiered Rewards

From the Circle Initiate to the exalted Circle Archon, each tier offers a cascade of exciting benefits. Imagine receiving a free eBook each month or an autographed paperback delivered right to your doorstep.

Discord Community

I’m also offering a private Discord server, another extension of the Inner Circle. This will be a vibrant space for discussing your favorite characters, plot twists, and even getting writing advice directly from me.

More than Just Books

Your support goes beyond the pages and even the screen. It fuels a creative journey that I couldn’t embark upon without you. That’s why I’m committed to offering more than just books. Expect behind-the-scenes access, writing tips, and answers to all your burning questions about writing and self-publishing.

How You Can Join

Becoming a part of the Inner Circle is as simple as heading over to my Patreon page and choosing a tier that resonates with you. No contribution is too small, and every bit of support is a cornerstone in this community we’re building together.

A Heartfelt Thank You

Your presence, whether as a reader, a follower, or a patron, is the magic that makes my storytelling journey possible. With this relaunch, I’m inviting you to step closer into this world we’re creating together.

Thank you for being a part of this adventure. I can’t wait to see where this new chapter takes us.

https://patreon.com/gswright

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The Haunting Melodies of Elysia Noctura

By now, you might have encountered eerie urban myths about cursed games, haunted websites, or malicious AI. But what about the enigmatic artist known as Elysia Noctura and her unnerving playlist? A compilation that’s said to draw the line between this world and something far more sinister?

Who is Elysia Noctura?

Elysia Noctura is a mysterious, elusive figure. She’s not famous for chart-toppers or scintillating music videos. Instead, her notoriety stems from a playlist of songs that reportedly transcend the barriers of reality, pulling listeners into a nightmarish realm that merges dreams with disturbing phenomena.

The Unheard Playlist

Here’s where it gets weird. The playlist consists of ten tracks, and here’s the kicker—there are no lyrics. None. You might find yourself listening to seemingly innocuous and hauntingly beautiful instrumentals that could set the backdrop for an art film or indie project. But this is where the haunting part comes in.

Hearing The Unhearable

Numerous reports have surfaced from individuals claiming to have heard Elysia’s voice as they drift into sleep with the playlist still playing. As soon as you hear her voice, it’s said that you’ve attracted her attention, and that’s when the nightmarish ordeal begins.

The Vanishing Lyricists

Some have claimed to hear lyrics in the songs, lyrics that should not exist. These people have vanished without a trace, their social media accounts going dark and their physical selves never seen again. It’s as if hearing the words makes one susceptible to something far more ominous, something irreversible.

The Nightmares and The Curse

Those who’ve drawn her attention by hearing her sing speak of waking up with marks on their bodies, bruises and scratches that eerily resemble experiences in nightmares they cannot fully recall. And always, without fail, Elysia Noctura is there—impossibly beautiful, unnervingly unnatural, observing with a ravenous gaze that suggests an insatiable hunger.

The Last Unheard Track

The playlist’s tenth and final track, “Siren’s Silence,” has taken on an almost mythical status. No one can quite recall what it sounds like, but it’s purported to hold the key to either breaking the curse or plunging the listener into an abyss of eternal nightmares.

Where is She Now?

Attempts to locate any information about Elysia Noctura lead to digital dead ends: disappearing web pages, suspended accounts, playlists that vanish into thin air. It’s as though she, and her victims, have been swallowed by the void.

Proceed with Caution

If you’re tempted to seek out Elysia Noctura’s soundless playlist, think twice. This is one legend where the silence speaks louder than words. Whether you risk drawing her attention or choose to remain blissfully ignorant, know this: the haunting enigma of Elysia Noctura serves as a warning. Some melodies, even those unsung, should remain unlistened to—lest you wish to vanish into a silence that echoes forever.

You’ve been warned. Listening might just make you another part of the unsolved mystery that is Elysia Noctura.

The Playlist

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Unveiling the Next Chapter: An Eerie Evolution on Haunted Chill

You might remember a few weeks ago when I dipped my toes into the unsettling waters of creepypasta music — complete with an intricate backstory. Now, we’re delving deeper into the shadowy world of Elysia Noctura, and this time, it’s not just about the music.

To begin, we’ve launched full-fledged videos for each track on the album. These are carefully curated to add another layer to the spine-chilling ambiance of each composition.

The Narrative Unfolds

If you’ve been following the journey so far, don’t stop now. Make sure to read the descriptions accompanying each video. Why? Because every description pulls back the curtain a little more on the enigmatic Elysia Noctura, revealing her haunting story piece by piece.

Join the Haunted Chill Community

I’d be remiss if I didn’t say this—be sure to like and subscribe! By joining the Haunted Chill community, you’re not just listening to music; you’re becoming part of an unfolding narrative, one that explores the boundaries between the real and the supernatural.

Elysia Noctura: The Journey Continues

Elysia Noctura’s narrative is branching out. Over the next few months, we’ll be expanding her haunting story across various platforms. Trust me, you won’t want to miss a moment of this chilling adventure.

There you have it. Haunted Chill is more than a YouTube channel; it’s a voyage into the unknown, and you’re cordially invited.

Haunted Chill

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