How do your other interests/hobbies bleed into your writing?

[whaley]

🥳 Restoring Topic of the Week! 🥳 I will try to as amazingly consistent as Kathleen, and if anyone should find me wanting of this doctrine, thou may-est smite mine head off.

How do your other interests/hobbies bleed into your writing?

Art will always mix with my stories. When I write a complex feeling in a character, I try to draw that feeling as an expression, and my art improves. When I draw a well-silhouetted/shaped character, I start writing them with their features in mind, and my story improves. That’s a win-win situation. ;]

I love to read history. It’s my favorite subject in school and there’s always new inspiration to be had – how events blended into each other, slowly changing over time. Even the fashion and architecture of an era are so cool. I don’t think any of my stories are fully contemporary; even if they aren’t obvious fantasy, I can use stuff from previous decades to make it feel fantastical.

I love music and dancing, too. Most of my friends enjoy Regency line-dancing and swing. It is not exactly a hobby, but lots of my best memories happen with some movement-inducing beat in the background. I often picture my characters dancing, and it helps to understand their gait and body language, which gives me ideas for character traits in the future. Pretty strange, but helpful. XD

What about you? Have you ever thought about this before?

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[Keilah H.]

@whalekeeper

 

well, my stories are mostly fan fiction anyway so that could be considered a part of it—like, I love (insert fandom) so much I can’t help but write stuff for it. Even in my original works, this bleeds through—Headstriker, Coal, and Chisel, some OC’s I created for a story I’m writing with a friend, were based off various combinations of TF2 and Star Wars characters.

 

apart from that, I’d say I too work art into my stories a lot. I love to draw characters in various poses, and sometimes I take inspiration from places I’ve been or things I’ve done.

 

Music too. When I hear music, I can imagine quite vividly what I’d write and draw for that particular song. Sometimes it actually kinda annoys me that I have so many good ideas to draw and animate for a particular soundtrack, but since that soundtrack was created for another movie or show I obviously can’t use it in my own stuff….lol that’s a really weird thing to be annoyed over but it’s just me.

 

I love animals, and biology, and that bleeds into my creature design. I’ve gone down rabbit holes trying to figure out the specifics of winged humanoids like my dragons or the Ornithiforms, or how Argonites would take stairs due to their talons being jointed differently than a human’s, or how exactly an Icewraith would be able to blast ice from his throat without freezing his whole mouth. I also think that my human-animal hybrids were probably inspired by all the Wild Kratts episodes I used to watch when I was like 8. (anyone remember that show? Oh man, that was a fun time. My favorite episode was Cheetah Racer, although they almost never showed that particular one on PBS where I always watched it.)

"When in doubt, eat cheese crackers."-me to my charries who don't even know about cheese crackers

[Trailblazer]

@whalekeeper

I’m not super artistic, but I do enjoy photography, which is a form of art, so sometimes I like to mess around with photo editing to create potential covers (but the editing softwares I have don’t have great font options, so I don’t usually put any writing on them).

I also like hiking/mountains, so you won’t be as likely to find my characters vacationing at the beach. There are definitely more references to cabins/woods/wilderness in my stories!

And I also like history, so some of the things I write are historical fiction… not all, but that’s one of my favorite genres, and I love a good historical movie with positive themes!

"Real love is for your good, not for your comfort." -Justin Whitmel Earley

[Elishavet Elroi]

@whalekeeper

Oh, good one! I recently learned a lot about how my brain works by comparing my drawings to my writing style. For instance, I like to find little details that describe a whole, whether that’s in water color or prose. Then I realized that I notice little things in my environment, to the point that I might miss something obvious because the crystal suncatchers on the chandelier are so fascinating. XD

So yeah. Back on topic.

I suppose my hobbies like art and music make me think more about the details and mood I am setting in a story. I don’t often listen to music while I write because I am usually writing between busy times at work, etc.. However, the music/mood behind a scene is often as important to me as the things that happen, whether I manage to capture it in the writing or not.

I LOVE historical clothing and culture. This means that I know more about Eirtanian dress and burial customs than how many Ra’ahri have been on the throne. In fact, one of the first things I knew about the story was that Yartass and Eirtan had some really great embroidery.

It also means I am seriously considering making myself some Eirtanian traditional garb. Maybe even wearing an Eirtanian vail to my wedding if I ever get married. XD

You have listened to fears, child. Come, let me breathe on you... Are you brave again? -Aslan

[-GRCR-]

 

I only have a few hobbies tbh, but I don’t know how many of them bleed into writing. I do know a lot of the things I do revolve around my characters and their world. To be honest, I feel like writing bleeds into my other hobbies more than others do to it, especially considering my writing is the base for the future animations I plan to make.

I draw my characters a lot, but I don’t quite know how much of that trickles over to my writing stuffs.

I, too, love music. Most of the songs in my personal playlist are songs I’ve chose for my characters. I usually imagine the singer’s voice (as it sounds in the certain song) as what my character sounds like, because I enjoy knowing such things. Voice claims, people—voices are everything. Music also helps me find a character’s vibe.

Researching. That does count as a hobby, right? I like to research almost anything and everything, and it always inspires my writing or aspects of my books. It fuels my imagination, and I learn so much. If I’m not drawing or overthinking, I’m researching ancient civilizations, random cultures, fooooood, different types of homes and how they’re built, traditional clothing, animals, and lots of other things. I love discovering what is eaten around the world and different methods of cooking, hunting, gathering, fishing and all that fun stuff. (I’m learning to cook so that I can try to make my characters’ cultures’ foods, too.)

Not a big hobby of mine anymore, but I used to sew dolls with my siblings. We would sew our characters and role-play with them. Some of the roleplaying was the start of my story. And it also helped develop the gang, I suppose. Every once in a while, I get an urge to sew again, and one day I would like to try to make the traditional clothing of my characters’ cultures. (…maybe… if I can get my hands on llanchama tree fabric…heh heh)

Yikes, I overtalked…

 

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[Andrew]

I like fire, so I have a MC who is a pyromancer :}

I have sagely sageness everyone!
#AnduthForever (Lord Willing)

[Koshka]

I love historical clothing and culture, so I know know how clothing, and culture, and the rule of law change over the ages in my WIP world’s. I’m also a decentish seamstress. I may or may not have constructed my characters wardrobes in my head. Although…I don’t think I’ve really described them…so I don’t think that’s really influenced my writing.

I seriously enjoy studying random instruments (such as viols, two tones flutes, lites) so there’s usually a musical character who somewhere to be found.

I bake and cook (although this is more just part of life than a hobby). I know how my characters get food/resources.

Archery! Surprise surprise, there are arrows. (And the nerd in my gets so worked up over which style of shooting which culture should use…)

First Grand Historian of Arreth and the Lesser Realms (aka Kitty)
Fork the Gork

[hybridlore]

@whalekeeper

Great topic!

I don’t know, I’m sure they affect my writing a lot more than I realize. The one that has the most is obviously reading but I don’t know if that counts. XD

A lot of my projects for a while had something to do with space and flying starships, because I read Skyward by Brandon Sanderson and loved it. I guess that’s an interest of mine. Writing itself has managed to find itself into my current WIP, TCoH, since Sara’s a writer and loves words, although she likes nonfiction and journalism and I would much rather make up my own stories. Another one of my big interests is music, but weirdly that hasn’t really made a huge impact on my writing. I do have some musician characters, but not many. I also love genealogy and heritage stuff. A few of my ideas have had characters with mixed-blood or dual-heritage, especially parents who come from two different cultures. I do enjoy playing video games sometimes too, so that definitely inspired Cole’s obsession with Warrain. And of course, God. That’s probably the one thing that’s affected my writing in general the most. 😜

@keilah-h

I also think that my human-animal hybrids were probably inspired by all the Wild Kratts episodes I used to watch when I was like 8. (anyone remember that show? Oh man, that was a fun time. My favorite episode was Cheetah Racer, although they almost never showed that particular one on PBS where I always watched it.)

Oh my goodness… I used to watch that so much with my siblings 😂 You’re right, it was a good show.

@elishavet-elroi

For instance, I like to find little details that describe a whole, whether that’s in water color or prose.

I can totally see that in your writing. For some reason that sentence just sounded a lot like some of the shorter snippets I’ve read from you.

'Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.'

[hybridlore]

@elishavet-pidyon Umm… I think I just tried to tag you by your CWW name…? 😅

'Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.'

[Author]

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