10 Badass Heavy Metal & Alternative Tracks to Fuel Your Wicked Writing
Put these songs on when you want to slip into the zone
By David M. Swindle
For this list, we’re going heavy — these are the metal and alternative tracks to help you get focused and creative while writing. Presented in no particular order, save for my pride for my brother’s debut album…
20 Basic Law Lessons For Writers
On Behalf of All Lawyers, Never Put These Mistakes In Your Writing Again!
By Amie Gibbons
Have you ever watched a show or read a book where the characters are in your profession and the writers just get so many things wrong? I don’t mean tiny details, I mean the big things that everybody in the profession knows because they are so basic. Almost like people who make the most obvious of grammar mistakes. It just makes you twitch to read it. (No, ending a sentence with a preposition does not count as grammatically incorrect anymore, so don’t nail me on that one!) I read a post recently from a doctor criticizing doctor shows for what they get wrong and just went, “Yes, exactly!”
A 25 Song Playlist to Energize Your Writing
These are the tracks I return to regularly when I’m trying to create
By David M. Swindle
Yesterday in an online writing group, one sci-fi author wrote, “I am writing a chapter where the protagonist is (finally) leading a mutiny against her spaceship Captain. I need a playlist to write to. Taking all song suggestions!”
I threw a half dozen youtube videos at him and then decided that it might be worthwhile to compile a longer, more complete list of favorite tracks and explain how they assist me. So here you go.
I believe that essential to creative writing is the ability to shift and re-focus one’s normal state of consciousness — embracing the altered state. Thus, when I’m going to seriously write for a number of hours chances are it’ll be aided by some combination of caffeine, alcohol, sugar, exercise, and yes, specific songs. The objective of these varied methods is to prevent the mind from growing distracted and wandering to non-writing subjects. Music of numerous genres can contribute toward this shifted consciousness effect. Thus, I have chosen 25 tracks from throughout history and genres — from the Baroque era on through classic rock of the ’60s and ’70s, heavy metal and rap from the ’90s, and onto this century’s often more electronic pop songs.
I hope you find at least some of these tracks both useful and entertaining.
What ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ Can Teach Us About Winning The Culture War
Big budget superhero films can still have emotional depth and thematic substance
By Josh Lieblein
With Avengers: Infinity War, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has actually reached two milestones. Not only does this film complete the evolution of the comic book movie from niche action flick that barely respected its own source material to movie industry staple, it makes the case that a summer blockbuster can deliver a complex emotional experience.
Even if you haven’t seen the film, you probably know that the deaths are particularly resonant (to the point that there has been a proliferation of “[X], I don’t feel so good” memes, which show characters from different franchises fading away), that Josh Brolin’s Thanos is the Marvel villain that we’ve all been waiting for, and that even with the loads and loads of characters, nobody feels overlooked or half-baked.
Reading Klavan In Canada
Part 10 of the Andrew Klavan Symposium
By Josh Lieblein
Sometimes the path to inspiration doesn’t go the way we think it will… I had traced the sole copy of Andrew Klavan’s Werewolf Cop – the only book by him available, anywhere in the vast expanse of the province of Ontario, apparently – to a Chapters bookstore in the mid-sized town of Waterloo…
Mike Baron on the Secrets of Plot and Voice
A prolific writer contemplates the author’s art
By Mike Baron
Huck comes alive through his words, which are fresh and immediate. We feel we know Huck. Same thing with Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe. It’s that world-weary, cynical with a heart-of-gold voice whispering in your ear. “He looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food.”
