I blubbered through the last few chapters of The Nightingale (Kristin Hannah) last Saturday. Let me set this up for you. I was in the middle of a coffee shop because I like checking out cute little places that can serve me caffeine on the weekend. I had just finished an amazing cinnamon roll and then I turned the page…and teared up. Then it continued. It seemed better for a second and it made me laugh, then it got worse. And worse. And then happy-sad. Tears. Lots of them. Did I mention I was in the middle of a coffee shop?
So here I am wiping my eyes in public, trying to see straight to finish the last few pages. After I was able to process this, I thought that I really want my readers to have this sort of reaction when they read my works, too. I want them to feel something. Historical fiction is still one of my favorite genres, but this confirmed it. I am eager to get back to writing my historical fiction manuscript, but that will have to wait until I’m done with my graphic novel, the “work-in-project” for the year. This amazing read reminded me that there have been so many other works of literature that have inspired my writing and the creative process in general. I want to share these with you in case there are any budding artists out there just looking for a creative nudge. Here it is!
I started The Artist’s Way (Cameron) about a year ago and have recently re-started the journaling process she describes, called morning pages. She encourages each person to write *whatever!* as long as it is three hand-written pages. She also recommends that these pages are written first thing in the morning so that it is full of more possibilities, rather than things that happened during the day. I started this before I hiked the Appalachian Trail and used the motivation to continue throughout my summer journey, so I have some good journaling footage that I might have otherwise been “too tired” to write. Currently this process is ideal because I don’t have a whole lot of people to chat with about anything and everything, so journaling is a good alternative in the moment.
The idea for my manuscript that I’m finalizing actually started when I read a book that I really did not like at all, but the concept behind it captured me. That was the push I needed to write my first full-fledged book, and it was still many years, more than I would have liked, to finish the words for my that manuscript. I laid this project down for close to three years. Just a couple of years ago, I picked it back up again to revise and send off, in the hopes that it might one day be published. Some of the books that inspired my writing for this book are the following. I’ve included a few marked NF for non-fiction and the amount of stars that I gave each on Goodreads. Since these lists are pretty lengthy, I’ve included in bold my must-reads from this list (contemporary fiction manuscript) and the following (graphic novel manuscript). I’ve also split this up into two blog posts, with the next to come in a couple days.
Story structure:
- House of Leaves (Danielewski) – 3 stars
- Handcrafted: A Woodworker’s Story (Harp) – 5 stars
- Life after Life (Atkinson) – 4 stars
- NF Bird by Bird (Lamott) – 4 stars
- A Snicker of Magic (Lloyd) – 5 stars/favorite)
- Station Eleven (Mandel) – 5 stars/favorite
- NF The Weekend Novelist (Norris) – 5 stars
- NF Stealing Hollywood: Story Structure Secrets for Writing Your Best Book (Sokoloff) – 4 stars
Characters:
- Speak (Anderson) – 5 stars/favorite
- Harry’s Trees (Cohen) – 5 stars/favorite
- Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Foer) – 5 stars/favorite
- A Snicker of Magic (Lloyd) – 5 stars/favorite)
- Bird Box (Malerman) – 4 stars
- Long Bright River (Moore) – 5 stars/favorite
- All the Bright Places (Niven) – 5 stars/favorite
- Where the Crawdads Sing (Owens) – 5 stars
- A Spark of Light (Picoult) – 4 stars
More to come!
Always learning,
Hannah Marie.
