General - Blog Posts

Game-Changing Sites for Writers

A recent search for a specific type of site to help me build new characters led me down a rabbit hole. Normally, that would make me much less productive, but I have found a treasure trove of websites for writers.

Bring Characters/Places to Life

There are a few different places you can use to create a picture of something entirely new. I love this site for making character pictures as references, instead of stock photos or whatever pops up on Google Images.

thispersondoesnotexist: every time you reload the page, this site generates a headshot of someone who doesn't exist. This is great if you're thinking about a character's personality or age and don't have specifics for their facial features yet.

Night Cafe: this is an AI art generator that takes your text prompt and generates an image for it. I tried it for various scenery, like "forest" or "cottage." It takes a minute for your requested photo to load, but no more than maybe five for the program to finish the picture.

Art Breeder: this website has endless images of people, places, and general things. Users can blend photos to create something new and curious visitors can browse/download those images without creating an account. (But if you do want to make an account to create your own, it's free!)

Find Random Places on Earth

You might prefer to set a story in a real-life environment so you can reference that place's weather, seasons, small-town vibe, or whatever you like. If that's the case, try:

MapCrunch: the homepage generates a new location each day and gives the location/GPS info in the top left of the screen. To see more images from previous days, hit "Gallery" in the top left.

Atlas Obscura: hover over or tap the "Places" tab, then hit "Random Place." A new page will load with a randomly generated location on the planet, provide a Google Maps link, and tell you a little bit about the place.

Random World Cities: this site makes randomly selected lists of global cities. Six appear for each search, although you'll have to look them up to find more information about each place. You can also use the site to have it select countries, US cities or US states too.

Vary Your Wording

Thesauruses are great, but these websites have some pretty cool perspectives on finding just the right words for stories.

Describing Words: tell this website which word you want to stop repeating and it will give you tons of alternative words that mean the same thing. It typically has way more options than other sites I use.

Reverse Dictionary: type what you need a word for in Reverse Dictionary's search box and it will give you tons of words that closely match what you want. It also lists the words in order of relevancy, starting with a word that most accurately describes what you typed. (There's also an option to get definitions for search results!)

Tip of My Tongue: this website is phenomenal. It lets you search for that word you can't quite place by a letter in it, the definition, what it sounds like, or even its scrambled letters. A long list of potential options will appear on the right side of the screen for every search.

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Hope this helps when you need a hand during next writing session 💛

plot feeling a little empty in the middle? here’s some food for thought.

actions have consequences. things that your characters do inevitably can affect other people around them. what might they have done in the past that could come back and serve as an obstacle? or, maybe, what could they do now that could possibly raise the stakes just a little bit more?

subplots! be mindful of the subplots you’re adding - but sometimes it might be a good idea to include one if your plot is feeling a little bit empty. not only can it tie back into the overarching struggle, but it could also serve as a way to explore one of your characters or points further.

character exploration. get to know your characters a little bit better! let your readers find out something new. connecting and understanding the people within your story is important if you want your readers to grow attached to them.

world exploration. similar to the previous point, with the addition of creating a greater sense of familiarity of the circumstances that your story is taking place in. remember that nobody else knows the world of your wip as well as you do - illustrate it even further so everyone else can grasp it even better.

let your characters bond! maybe there’s a lull in the plot. if your characters have the chance to take a breather and get to know the people around them, let them! it might help flesh out or even realistically advance their relationships with each other.

Deity: The Walker of the Wheel

“ Traveler! Why don’t you pull up a stone and rest your weary self, Come share a tale, join me in a song.  Between us there are as many miles to go as there are stars uncounted, but maybe we can number a few of them before we’re through”. 

Setup: There are some gods that demand the worship of all, who seek to spread their gospals to the four corners of the earth. Then there are the small gods, the humble guardians who preside over their little corner of reality and ensure those who journey through it are well taken care of. 

The Walker of the Wheel is one of the latter, a guardian god of roads, travelers, and the infinite horizon who protects those who venture far from home. Appearing as a broken down tramp, a traveling mapmaker, or an adventurous youth, the Walker eschews a concrete identity or even a name, preferring to intercede in the guise of a fellow wanderer rather than act through miracles or celestial agents. 

Holding no temples save for the small roadside shrines erected by fellow travelers, the existence of the Walker is lore held only by those who live their lives on the road, cobbled together out of scraps of road-lore and tales of secondhand encounters. 

Astral travelers are also known to draw the attention of the Walker, who holds stewardship over forgotten gateways between the realms. 

Adventure Hooks: 

Exhausted and woefully lost with darkness closing in, the party hears the plucking of an old guitar drifting across the landscape, leading them to a small campsite and the hermit who presides over it. The old codger offers them hospitality and a drag off his jug of barleywine, in exchange for their tales of adventure and woe.   When the party awakes in the morning, they’ll find the Walker gone and themselves a stonesthrow from their destination, having crossed valleys and rivers in the span of a single night. 

Those that impress the Walker are likely to be rewarded with good luck charms touched by a bit of his divine grace. Dented compasses that point the way home, guitar picks that conjure visions of the past when used to strum a nostalgic song, well worn walking sticks that allow for tireless travel over harsh terrain. These items all show evidence of having many owners in the past, as well as handetched patterns of stars and constellations. 

While generally a god of good spirits, the Walker cannot stand those who prey upon travelers, and woe to any robber or highwayman who draw his attention.  The party bears witness to this wrath when bandits attack their inn, hoping to kidnap and ransom a merchant who also happens to be staying there for the night. The Walker appears partway through this standoff, and with a strike of his stick dissolves the bandit’s leader into a pile of road dust. 

Titles: Our Old friend, Master Dust, The Starry Hermit, Wornboot Bill, The Roadwarden

Signs: Whirling Stars and Nebulas, music on the edge of exhaustion, dreamlike landscapes.  

Symbols:  Hobo Marks, Migratory birds, A long road beyond a gateway. 

do you have any resources or guides for worldbuilding and reimagining the feywild? not looking for adventure prompts or npcs just your thoughts on setting and how to make the feywild feel dangerous and mystical

Planescape: The Feywild

I won’t lie,  the introduction if the feywild is one of the best additions to the default d&d cosmology in a while, not only from a thematic perspective, but gameplay aswell, as it allows any podunk patch of land to act as a doorway to wild adventure. That said, too often this wonderland is treated as a place where things are just wacky, without real attention paid to the narrative possibilities introducing the feywild into a story can have. 

To that end, I’m going propose a few different aspects of the feywild, different visions of how things could be drawn from different mythologies and storytelling conventions:

The feywild has no geography: like the notes of a song or the lines of a play, the reality of faerie is reinterpreted with every visitation, Coloring itself based on the expectations and emotions of those exploring it. This is why a child can stumble into a mushroom ring and have themselves a whimsical romp full of talking animal friends and life lessons, whereas adults tend to find themselves ensnared by echoes of their deepest desires and why adventurers ALWAYS find something to fight.  If you want to go anywhere in the feywild you don’t need a map, you need a thematic structure that will carry you to your destination: whether that be staying on a yellow brick road through a number of distractions and tribulations, or winning a game of riddles against a talking bird who’ll swear to drop you off at your destination. 

The feywild is a place of stories:  When a peasant family leaves out milk and performs small acts of thanks for the brownie, they are unwittingly inviting the primal energies of the feywild to fill the space they have made for it, creating a creature that had always been there, looking out for them. Likewise, when folk tell of wonderous places just beyond the edge of the map, the feywild becomes those places, taking solidity from repeated tellings of the tale and incorporating different interpretations to give themselves depth. This is not to say that the translation is perfect, as one can’t simply make up a story, tell it to an audience, and expect it to suddenly become true as it takes a powerful and engrained sort of lies, embelishment, or folktales to give shape to the otherworld.  When populating your local fairy-realm or those areas near enough to it, consider what sort of stories people tell about that place, whether it be about monsters that gobble up wayward children or treasure hidden there by bandits long ago. 

The feywild responds to your emotions: When your party takes a rest, ask them how they think their characters are feeling. Consider whether they are frightened or foolheardy, adventurous or avricious, and then sketch out some random encounter to spice in along the way as the realm of whimsy responds to the vibes they’re putting out.   A party that’s feeling hungry may encounter a friendly fey teaparty or a dangerous lure disguised as a snack, a group that’s feeling pressed for time may hear the horn of a savage hunter stalking them, or a parable about stopping to help others can actually speed you along your own path.  In this way, the fairyland is in diolog with the party’s desire to press their narrative forward, and will test or reward them according to its whim. 

The feywild is everywhere: one of the underutilized aspects of having the feywild in our games is that a portal to the “shallower” areas of the otherworld can pop up anywhere overtaken by nature, allowing fey beings and other oddities to cross over in a way that creates all manner of adventure hooks. If I’m building a dungeon in the wilderness, I’m personally fond of having a mounting fey presence the deeper in you get, replacing the normal ruin dwelling hazards with troops of hobgoblins, odd enchantments, and various tricksters. For smaller dungeons, the closed off fey portal can be an adventure hook for later, encouraging them to come back when they need to delve into whimsy, whereas for the larger dungeons,  a non contiguous fey realm connecting multiple points can serve as a combination of fast travel AND bonus stage. Even for non dungeon locations, consider how much fun of an adventure it’d be if someone discovered that their cellar had been replaced with a fairy’s larder, or that the vine-covered lot where neighborhood kids play during the day transforms into a vast battlefield for sprites during the night. 

On TikTok : boy this only has a couple thousand likes, must not be that popular

Meanwhile on Tumblr: holy shit! The post has over a hundred like. What a popular post.

Want to learn something new in 2022??

Absolute beginner adult ballet series (fabulous beginning teacher)

40 piano lessons for beginners (some of the best explanations for piano I’ve ever seen)

Excellent basic crochet video series

Basic knitting (probably the best how to knit video out there)

Pre-Free Figure Skate Levels A-D guides and practice activities (each video builds up with exercises to the actual moves!)

How to draw character faces video (very funny, surprisingly instructive?)

Another drawing character faces video

Literally my favorite art pose hack

Tutorial of how to make a whole ass Stardew Valley esque farming game in Gamemaker Studios 2??

Introduction to flying small aircrafts

French/Dutch/Fishtail braiding

Playing the guitar for beginners (well paced and excellent instructor)

Playing the violin for beginners (really good practical tips mixed in)

Color theory in digital art (not of the children’s hospital variety)

Retake classes you hated but now there’s zero stakes:

Calculus 1 (full semester class)

Learn basic statistics (free textbook)

Introduction to college physics (free textbook)

Introduction to accounting (free textbook)

Learn a language:

Ancient Greek

Latin

Spanish

German

Japanese (grammar guide) (for dummies)

French

Russian (pretty good cyrillic guide!)

Want to learn something new in 2022??

Absolute beginner adult ballet series (fabulous beginning teacher)

40 piano lessons for beginners (some of the best explanations for piano I’ve ever seen)

Excellent basic crochet video series

Basic knitting (probably the best how to knit video out there)

Pre-Free Figure Skate Levels A-D guides and practice activities (each video builds up with exercises to the actual moves!)

How to draw character faces video (very funny, surprisingly instructive?)

Another drawing character faces video

Literally my favorite art pose hack

Tutorial of how to make a whole ass Stardew Valley esque farming game in Gamemaker Studios 2??

Introduction to flying small aircrafts

French/Dutch/Fishtail braiding

Playing the guitar for beginners (well paced and excellent instructor)

Playing the violin for beginners (really good practical tips mixed in)

Color theory in digital art (not of the children’s hospital variety)

Retake classes you hated but now there’s zero stakes:

Calculus 1 (full semester class)

Learn basic statistics (free textbook)

Introduction to college physics (free textbook)

Introduction to accounting (free textbook)

Learn a language:

Ancient Greek

Latin

Spanish

German

Japanese (grammar guide) (for dummies)

French

Russian (pretty good cyrillic guide!)

I believe in free education, one that’s available to everyone; no matter their race, gender, age, wealth, etc… This masterpost was created for every knowledge hungry individual out there. I hope it will serve you well. Enjoy!

FREE ONLINE COURSES (here are listed websites that provide huge variety of courses)

Alison 

Coursera

FutureLearn

open2study

Khan Academy

edX

P2P U

Academic Earth

iversity

Stanford Online

MIT Open Courseware

Open Yale Courses

BBC Learning

OpenLearn

Carnegie Mellon University OLI

University of Reddit

Saylor

IDEAS, INSPIRATION & NEWS (websites which deliver educational content meant to entertain you and stimulate your brain)

TED

FORA

Big Think 

99u

BBC Future

Seriously Amazing

How Stuff Works

Discovery News

National Geographic

Science News

Popular Science

IFLScience

YouTube Edu

NewScientist

DIY & HOW-TO’S (Don’t know how to do that? Want to learn how to do it yourself? Here are some great websites.)

wikiHow

Wonder How To

instructables

eHow

Howcast

MAKE

Do it yourself

FREE TEXTBOOKS & E-BOOKS

OpenStax CNX

Open Textbooks

Bookboon

Textbook Revolution

E-books Directory

FullBooks

Books Should Be Free

Classic Reader

Read Print

Project Gutenberg

AudioBooks For Free

LibriVox

Poem Hunter

Bartleby

MIT Classics

Many Books

Open Textbooks BCcampus

Open Textbook Library

WikiBooks

SCIENTIFIC ARTICLES & JOURNALS

Directory of Open Access Journals

Scitable

PLOS

Wiley Open Access

Springer Open

Oxford Open

Elsevier Open Access

ArXiv

Open Access Library

LEARN:

1. LANGUAGES

Duolingo

BBC Languages

Learn A Language

101languages

Memrise

Livemocha

Foreign Services Institute

My Languages

Surface Languages

Lingualia

OmniGlot

OpenCulture’s Language links

2. COMPUTER SCIENCE & PROGRAMMING

Codecademy

Programmr

GA Dash

CodeHS

w3schools

Code Avengers

Codelearn

The Code Player

Code School

Code.org

Programming Motherf*?$%#

Bento

Bucky’s room

WiBit

Learn Code the Hard Way

Mozilla Developer Network

Microsoft Virtual Academy

3. YOGA & MEDITATION

Learning Yoga

Learn Meditation

Yome

Free Meditation

Online Meditation

Do Yoga With Me

Yoga Learning Center

4. PHOTOGRAPHY & FILMMAKING

Exposure Guide

The Bastards Book of Photography

Cambridge in Color

Best Photo Lessons

Photography Course

Production Now

nyvs

Learn About Film

Film School Online

5. DRAWING & PAINTING

Enliighten

Ctrl+Paint

ArtGraphica

Google Cultural Institute

Drawspace

DragoArt

WetCanvas

6. INSTRUMENTS & MUSIC THEORY

Music Theory

Teoria

Music Theory Videos

Furmanczyk Academy of Music

Dave Conservatoire

Petrucci Music Library

Justin Guitar

Guitar Lessons

Piano Lessons

Zebra Keys

Play Bass Now

7. OTHER UNCATEGORIZED SKILLS

Investopedia

The Chess Website

Chesscademy

Chess.com

Spreeder

ReadSpeeder

First Aid for Free

First Aid Web

NHS Choices

Wolfram Demonstrations Project

Please feel free to add more learning focused websites. 

*There are a lot more learning websites out there, but I picked the ones that are, as far as I’m aware, completely free and in my opinion the best/ most useful.

vaguely academic things to do to keep yourself entertained

go down a wikipedia research hole by clicking the first term you don’t understand

binge a crashcourse series end to end (personal recs: world history, history of science, big history, philosophy)

find free books on project gutenberg

download some western classics for free

borrow books and audiobooks from the libby app or borrowbox

start a commonplace book

take a khan academy course

browse MIT’s free online course materials

teach yourself to code

go on a google scholar essay dive

try the open access button to avoid some paywalls for academic media, or install unpaywall that does a similar thing

research the history of the place you where you live

tempt the wrath of the duolingo owl and learn a language

search for online streams of the local tv in your target language’s country and use as background noise for immersion points

print and scrapbook favourite poetry and literature quotes

improve your handwriting by doing handwriting exercises

learn philosophy with the philosophize this! podcast. actually just check out all the educational spotify podcasts there are many good ones

start a weekly club with friends to share new and interesting things you’ve learnt that week

clean and reorganise your study space, physical or digital

check out online museums

fave educational youtube channels that I adore: vsauce, crashcourse, smarter every day, kurzgesagt, school of life, tom scott, r. c. waldun, vsauce3, primer, mark rober, veritasium, asapSCIENCE, scishow, TED-ed

hopefully you’ll find something to enjoy! happy learning x

Journals, articles, books & texts, on folklore, mythology, occult, and related -to- general anthropology, history, archaeology. 

Some good and/or interesting (or hokey) ‘examples’ included for most resources. tryin to organize & share stuff that was floating around onenote.

Journals (open access) — Folklore, Occult, etc

Culutural Analysis - folklore, popular culture, anthropology — The Mythical Ghoul in Arabic Culture

Folklore - folklore, anthropology, archaeology — The Making of a Bewitchment Narrative, Grecian Riddle Jokes

Incantatio - journal on charms, charmers, and charming — Verbal Charms from a 17th Century Manuscript

Oral Tradition — Jewish Folk Literature, Noises of Battle in Old English Poetry

Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics — Nani Fairtyales about the Cruel Bride, Energy as the Mediator between Natural and Supernatural Realms

International Journal of Intangible Heritage 

Studia Mythologica Slavica (many articles not English) — Dragon and Hero, Fertility Rites in the Raining Cave, The Grateful Wolf and Venetic Horses in Strabo’s Geography

Folklorica - Slavic & Eastern European folklore association — Ritual: The Role of Plant Characteristics in Slavic Folk Medicine, Animal Magic

Esoterica - The Journal of Esoteric Studies — The Curious Case of Hermetic Graffiti in Valladolid Cathedral 

The Esoteric Quarterly

Mythological Studies Journal

Luvah - Journal of the Creative Imagination — A More Poetical Character Than Satan

Transpersonal Studies — Shamanic Cosmology as an Evolutionary Neurocognitive Epistemology, Dreamscapes

Beyond Borderlands  — tumblr

Paranthropology

GOLEM - Journal of Religion and Monsters — The Religious Functions of Pokemon, Anti-Semitism and Vampires in British Popular Culture 1875-1914

Correspondences - Online Journal for the Academic Study of Western Esotericism — Kriegsmann’s Philological Quest for Ancient Wisdom 

— History, Archaeology

Adoranten - pre-historic rock art

Chitrolekha - India art & design history — Gomira Dance Mask

Silk Road — Centaurs on the Silk Road: Hellenistic Textiles in Western China

Sino-Platonic - East Asian languages and civilizations — Discursive Weaving Women in Chinese and Greek Traditions

MELA Notes - Middle East Librarians Association

Didaskalia - Journal for Ancient Performance

Ancient Narrative - Greek, Roman, Jewish novelistic traditions — The Construction of the Real and the Ideal in the Ancient Novel

Akroterion - Greek, Roman — The Deer Hunter: A Portrait of Aeneas

Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies  — Erotic and Separation Spells, The Ancients’ One-Horned Ass

Roman Legal Tradition - medieval civil law — Between Slavery and Freedom 

Phronimon - South African society for Greek Philosophy and the Humanities — Special Issue vol. 13 #2, Greek philosophy in dialogue with African+ philosophy

The Heroic Age - Early medieval Northwestern Europe — Icelandic Sword in the Stone

Peregrinations - Medieval Art and Architecture — Special Issue vol. 4 #1, Mappings 

Tiresas - Medieval and Classical — Sexuality in the Natural and Demonic Magic of the Middle Ages

Essays in Medieval Studies  — The Female Spell-caster in Middle English Romances, The Sweet Song of Satan

Hortulus - Medieval studies — Courtliness & the Deployment of Sodomy in 12th-Century Histories of Britain, Monsters & Monstrosities issue, Magic & Witchcraft issue

Annual of Medieval Studies at CEU

Medieval Archaeology — Divided and Galleried Hall-Houses, The Hall of the Knights Templar at Temple Balsall

Medieval Feminist Forum  — multiculturalism issue; Gender, Skin Color and the Power of Place … Romance of Moriaen, Writing Novels About Medieval Women for Modern Readers, Amazons & Guerilleres

Quidditas - medieval and renaissance 

Medieval Warfare

The Viking Society - ridiculous amount of articles from 1895-2011

Journals (limited free/sub/institution access)

Al-Masaq - Journal of the Medieval Mediterranean — Piracy as Statecraft: The Policies of Taifa of Denia, free issue

Mythical Creatures of Europe - article + map

Folklore - limited free access — Volume 122 #3, On the Ambiguity of Elves

Digital Philology -  a journal of medieval cultures — Saracens & Race in Roman de la Rose Iconography

Pomegranate - International Journal for Pagan Studies

Transcultural Psychiatry

European Journal of English Studies  — Myths East of Venice issue, Esotericism issue

Books, Texts, Images etc. — Folklore, Occult etc.

Magical Gem Database - Greek/Egyptian gems & talismans [x] [x]

Biblioteca Aracana - (mostly) Greek pagan history, rituals, poetry etc. — Greater Tool Consecration, The Yew-Demon

Curse Tablets from Roman Britain - [x]

The Gnostic Society Library — The Corpus Hermeticum, Hymn of the Robe of Glory

Grimoar - vast occult text library — Grimoires, Greek & Roman Necromancy, Queer Theology, Ancient Christian Magic

Internet Sacred Text Archive - religion, occult, folklore, etc. ancient texts

Verse and Transmutation - A Corpus of Middle English Alchemical Poetry

— History

The Internet Classics Archive - mainly Greco-Roman, some Persian & Chinese translated texts

Bodleian Oriental Manuscript Collection - [x] [x] [x]

Virtual Magic Bowl Archive - Jewish-Aramaic incantation bowl text and images [x] [x] 

Vindolanda Tablets - images and translations of tablets from 1st & 2nd c. [x]

Corsair - online catalog of the Piedmont Morgan library (manuscripts) [x] [x]

Beinecke rare book & manuscripts  — Wagstaff miscellany, al-Qur’ān—1813

LUNA - tonnes from Byzantine manuscripts to Arabic cartography

Maps on the web - Oxford Library [x] [x] [x]

Bodleian Library manuscripts - photographs of 11th-17th c. manuscripts — Treatises on Heraldry, The Worcester Fragments (polyphonic music), 12 c. misc medical and herbal texts

Early Manuscripts at Oxford U - very high quality photographs — (view through bottom left) Military texts by Athenaeus Mechanicus 16th c. [x] [x], MS Douce 195 Roman de la Rose [x] [x]

Trinity College digital manuscript library  — Mathematica Medica, 15th c.

eTOME - primary sources about Celtic peoples

Websites, Blogs — Folklore, Occult etc.

Demonthings - Ancient Egyptian Demonology Project

Invocatio - (mostly) western esotericism

Heterodoxology - history, esotericism, science — Religion in the Age of Cyborgs

The Recipes Project - food, magic, science, medicine — The Medieval Invisible Man (invisibility recipes)

Morbid Anatomy - museum/library in Brooklyn

— History 

Islamic Philosophy Online - tonnes of texts, articles, links, utilities, this belongs in every section; mostly English

Medicina Antiqua - Graeco-Roman medicine

History of the Ancient World - news and resources — The So-called Galatae, Gauls, Celts in Early Hellenistic Balkans; Maidens, Matrons Magicians: Women & Personal Ritual Power in Late Antique Egypt

Διοτίμα - Women & Gender in Antiquity

Bodleian Library Exhibitions Online — Khusraw & Shirin, Hebrew Manuscripts as a Meeting-Place of Cultures

Medievalists — folk studies, witchcraft, mythology, science tags

Atlas Obscura — Bats and Vampiric Lore of Pére Lachaise Cemetery 

in all seriousness it’s very alienating knowing theres Something Wrong With You. like seeing your mental illness come through in your behaviour and thought processes and knowing it’s irrational and unhealthy, knowing other people are reading you as weird or stupid, and not being able to do anything about it is such a lonely experience

the idea that meds/therapy can’t fix problems caused by situational/societal issues can coexist with the idea that meds and therapy can be very helpful for many people and shouldn’t be demonized or presented as useless for risk of scaring people away that might really benefit

i talk a lot of shit for someone who has to take 6 pills a day so they dont blow their brains out

Does anyone have same problem?

Uhm... I don't know how to describe it properly but I eventually had this problem for months.

But basically the tag thing when you try to look at specific post at the creator search that show the post you want. But only to found like some of them from the old post, but not ALL of the post regarding the post. Like you knew the creator known for the random fandom, you search of the specific post (like for example you looking for that character, only to found like 10 post on that tag. But you spend your time scrolling the blog, you found that there's more than that.)

I did tried to deleted and uninstall it, but it didn't work. Can anyone solved this problem?

4 Queen Beds | High Speed Wifi | Private Parking

Sleeping Arrangements: ✔ Primary Bedroom - Queen-sized bed with memory foam mattress (Sleeps 2) ✔ Second Bedroom - (2) Queen-sized beds (Sleeps 4) ✔ Third Bedroom - Queen-sized bed (Sleeps 2) ✔ Living Room - Sectional Queen Pull Out Couch (Sleep 2) Key Features: ✔ Professionally Cleaned & Sanitized ✔ Easy Self Check-in w/ Keypad ✔ Private, Fully Fenced Backyard ✔ Free Private Parking for 3 Vehicles ✔ Smart TVs in Living Room & Bedrooms ✔ Fast Wi-Fi ✔ Laptop Friendly Workspace ✔ Plenty of fresh towels, linens, and bathroom essentials ✔ In-home washer and dryer ✔ Fully equipped gourmet kitchen (cookware, silverware, drinkware) ✔ Fully stocked coffee station ✔ Custom Guidebook w/ Local Recommendations and Tips ✔ In-unit Washer & Dryer ✔ Pet Friendly Nearby Attractions: • 4 min from Fort Worth Stockyards • 8 min from Downtown Ft Worth • 9 min from Dickies Arena • 12 min away from Magnolia Ave • 13 min away from Fort Worth Zoo Midterm stays are now being conducted.

Hi do you mind if I ask how you deal with loss of creativity in writing? Lately, I’ve noticed that all my ideas nowadays are unoriginal and bland and I feel helpless about it. I finally have the motivation to write but no inspiration. Is there a way to improve creativity in my stories?

Guide: Filling Your Creative Well

Whether you’re an artist, singer/songwriter, sculptor, or writer, ideas don’t come out of thin air. If you put a pair of shoes, a sweater, a ziplock bag of clothespins, and a hat into a box, shove it into the garage and let it gather dust, you can’t expect to open it up in six months and find some amazing new thing. You can only get out of that box what you put into it, and our storytelling brains work the exact same way. If you’re not constantly feeding other stories and inspiration into your brain, you’ll never have new ideas to pull from when you write.

Thankfully, even if you’re in a rut or a tough place in life, there are a variety of accessible ways to feed new ideas into your creative well. Here are some things you can start doing to fill it back up again. But don’t expect a barrage of great ideas just because you took a walk or watched a movie. Filling up your creative well takes time, so start now and before you know it the ideas will begin to flow.

1. Consume Other Stories

read a variety of fiction, including novels in different genres, short stories and micro-fiction, poetry, essays, and fan-fiction.

read about myths, legends, folk tales, faerie tales, and ghost stories. See if you can find any that are relevant to your area or your ancestry.

watch a variety of different TV series and movies, leaning a little heavier on things that will inform what you write in some way.

watch documentaries on a variety of subjects. These can be found on TV, OnDemand, streaming, on YouTube/Vimeo, and at your local library.

stay up-to-date on local, state, national, and global current events. When a story strikes a chord with you, research it further.

take an interest in real life stories of total strangers. Look for interesting blogs and vlogs. Spend some time on pages like Humans of New York, Humankind Stories, The Dodo, or 60 Second Docs. Listen to podcasts like This American Life and Radio Lab.

play board games and video games, especially ones with a story or that allow some level of role playing.

go to a public place, sit on a bench, and discreetly observe the people around you. Don’t be a creeper, obviously, but see if you notice any interesting stories unfolding around you. If you see an interesting person, without staring at them, see if you can imagine who they are or what their life might be like.

2. See the World

Before you panic, this doesn’t have to mean traveling abroad. It doesn’t even mean you have to leave home…

if you can travel the world, by all means, do that! If you can’t, try planning out a trip you’d like to take someday. Figure out where you’d want to stay, where you’d eat, and what you’d see while you’re there. Then get online go to the web sites of those places, look at pictures, walk around on Google Street View. Look for video and video tours on YouTube.

if you can travel around your country, state, province, region, etc. Do that. And again, if you can’t, try planning a trip you’d like to take someday, then see how much of it you can experience from your computer screen.

try choosing a random location and go “walk around” via Google Street View. Click on photos. Sometimes there are walk around photo tours of places.

watch travel shows, travel documentaries, and travel movies. You can find them on TV, OnDemand, streaming, YouTube/Vimeo, and at your library.

see if your friends or family member have any travel books or travel-related coffee table books you can borrow to flip through. Or go to the bookstore or library to flip through some. If nothing else, think of interesting places, then do a Google Image Search to find photos of that place.

follow facebook pages, instagrams, and tumblr blogs dedicated to a particular place. If you have friends and family who are from different places, or have traveled to different places, ask them to tell you about it.

take a short road trip, or a “Sunday drive” as they used to be called. Be safe about it, of course, but just get in the car and explore some local roads you’ve never traveled before.

visit a nearby town you’ve never been to. If you can’t do that, find someplace in your town you’ve never seen. If nothing else, take a walk in your neighborhood and try to walk down a block you’ve never been down before. (Again, make sure you’re being safe about it.)

ask some friends or family members to go visit a local state park with you. Take a short hike or walk and enjoy that time in nature.

see if there are any interesting street festivals to attend in your town. Many towns do sidewalk art festivals, craft fairs, food truck rallies, carnivals, and seasonal or cultural events.

go spend a few hours walking around a local museum, botanical gardens, or other local attraction.

3. Learn About History

watch TV shows, documentaries, and movies about different historical figures, events, and time periods.

choose a person, event, or time period that interests you and research it thoroughly. Think about ways you can incorporate those ideas into whatever you write–no matter how far your usual genre may be from that event.

learn about the history of your town. See if your town has an historical society. Go to their web page. See if there are any interesting local sites to visit.

research your family tree. Ask family members about family history and see if they have interesting childhood memories to share. See if anyone knows interesting stories about parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents.

choose an historical figure or event that interests you, then try to re-imagine their life or that event in a different time period or setting. What if Henry VIII was the king of England now? How would that have played out differently? 

learn about daily life and survival in different time periods. Learn what people ate, how they passed the time, how they dressed, and what traditions and rules they lived by.

choose a subject matter like music, fashion, dance, or food, then research how they’ve changed through the ages.

4. Learn About the Future

think about an element of your daily life that either frustrates you or that you deeply rely on. Do some research to see how this thing is projected to change in the future? What advances are expected to be made? How might this thing be different in twenty or thirty years?

learn about the different ways people are planning for the future now. Cities that are implementing green technology, people that are finding interesting new ways to combat pollution or the effects of climate change, and organizations that are planning to colonize the ocean, space, or even other planets.

think of a notable person you’re interested now, like perhaps a pop star or a political figure, then imagine what their life would be like if they were alive in a futuristic city 100 years from now.

watch TV shows and documentaries about the future, or watch movies that take place in the future.

I think I’m going to make a list of recommended TV shows, movies, books, and other resources one of these days. I will eventually link that here. So if you come to this post as a re-blog, click on the original post to see if I’ve updated. Or you can look on my main site. I’ll try to have it up by the end of September 2018.