Creative Writing – Ideas & Characters

Here’s some more creativity and inspiration videos. Today’s post is focused squarely on writing and writers.

Both of these podcasts are by Keith Gray and are part of a series. The rest of the series can be watched on YouTube, courtesy of the Scottish Book Trust.

How to be more creative

Check out these videos I stumbled across!

Inspiration Resources

The internet has some wonderful databases if you’re looking for inspiration for specfic stories. This week I’m starting with a few I use quite often – for both study and pleasure. These resources are free to use even though they are more academically inclined than some. This week’s resources have to do with Germanic myths and legends as well as fairy tales and folklore. Enjoy!

Reading the Past
Folklore and Mythology Electronic Texts
This database was created by Professor D.L. Ashliman (retired) of the University of Pittsburgh and contains links to folklore, fairy tales, Germanic myths and as well as stories from various different cultures. Most of these texts are in English. The navigation is also quite user-friendly.

Eddas, Sagas and Vikings, oh my!
Heimskringla.no 
Heimskringla (taking its name from the work by Snorri Sturluson) is a wonderful archive of Old Norse sagas, Eddas and secondary works about this subject. Texts and translations are available in a range of Germanic languages. The format is also that of a wiki, which makes it very easy to navigate and to make downloads.

Books, old books and online books
Septrionalia
This is a wonderful archive if you’re searching for old text in various languages; from Old Irish to Latin. The site also contains various dictionaries in addition to mythological texts and other tales. It may not be that exiting to look at, but it is quite easy to navigate and the content more than makes up for it.
Until next time, Á Agrai tellarias or s'agrélar silássa

Photos courtesy of Stock Exchange.

Reads and sites: Worldbuilding with Words, Paint & Pencil

I’ve found some great resources for worldbuilding this week and visited John Howe’s website again. I also took a peak at writer’s notebooks…

Worldbuilding Resources

You can now download the Magical Worldbuilder Guide by  Stephanie Cottrell Bryant in PDF, ePub or MOBI formats:

“… give yourself 7 and a half hours this month-- 15 minutes a day-- to build a world. It's not going to be Perfect or Set. Why would it be? You haven't actually written the story yet, you haven't tested its limits. But it'll give you something to start with, something to feel comfortable about when you start.”

I also came across an interesting interview about worldbuilding on www.writerswrite.com – I always love to hear how different writers go about writing.

John Howe

John Howe is truly one of my favourite artists – and he is a talented wordsmith as well. Enough to make you dark green with envy!

I love notebooks!

What can be better than a brand new notebook? One filled with scribbles, stories and pictures… I came across this link in a tweet by @thecreativepenn – “For the love of Moleskine journals”. My notebooks are usually a mix of ideas, glimpses of stories, the names of books or sites I want to read, doodles and scribbled maps and even the odd feather, leaf and pressed flower… How does yours look?