When I sit down to draft a poem, it is almost always in silence, headphones in to dampen the noise of whatever coffee shop I am in. Which is funny because I get so much inspiration from listening to music— especially metal. I listen to metal any time I am able, constantly absorbing the atmospheres of the different albums and sub-genres I enjoy, and think about them when writing. I always try to remember that art forms of different kinds will always blend into each other— Chance the Rapper references the poetic form of “couplets” in his song “Blessings (Reprise)”, and Opeth’s lyrics on Blackwater Park (2001) read like poetry. With this blending of art forms in mind, here is a list of three albums I listened to in 2016 that inspired a lot of my writing.

The important thing is to listen to the lyrics as just another instrument— whenever I listen to music with noticeable vocals while writing the motifs and words in the lyrics end up in my poetry, which a lot of the time is okay, but I feel too influenced by the actual lyrics of the songs. With metal, the vocals become another instrument and melt in with the rest of the music. I listen to metal before writing, or whenever I need inspiration, for the atmosphere that the music brings. To me, one of the most important things about poetry is it’s an emotional snapshot of a moment, and the albums I listen to are emotional atmospheres that I can go in and out of and use in my writing.

1. Chthe’ilist’s 2016 release Le Dernier Crépuscle from Profound Lore Records

One of my favorite albums this year, and my first foray into atmospheric death metal. Whenever I listen to it while taking a break from writing I feel drawn into a wet cave, the slow trickle of water echoing into the depths of the earth.

2.  Immortal’s 1993 release Pure Holocaust on Osmose Productions

Although the band is no longer together, this is a hallmark of Immortal’s style of black metal: a blizzard of drums and guitar riffs punctuated by Abbath’s screeched vocals. True to the contemporary rendering of the word “holocaust”, destruction on a mass scale especially caused by fire or nuclear war, Pure Holocaust never lets up an onslaught of high tempo songs. I will listen to this album on warmer days when I end up writing about winter, as it always takes me back to the middle of January nights.

3.  Oathbreaker’s 2016 release Rheia on the label Deathwish Inc.

Every fall I take the time to walk a lot, and I listened to this album consistently throughout. It has shoegaze elements I was really surprised in a metal album and threw me back to high school when I wrote and drew to Elliott Smith’s posthumous album From a Basement on a Hill and Low’s I Could Live in Hope. The shoegaze combined with the really hollow sound— ala black metal— felt super fall to me, which ended up in some really introspective poetry and exploring the connection between my body and the season I was walking through— the changes, the colors, the transition from fall to winter.

Last summer I stepped away from labor and academia to visit my girlfriend in the German town where she lives. Not everyone is lucky enough to cross the pond and get the European experience, but I spent two and a half months busting my tail on demolition sites to save up the money. (Living under my under the roof provided by my parents helped too, I guess. Thanks Mom and Dad…) After four weeks, four countries, and a few thousand dollars, I had what can easily be classified as the best month of my young life. And while I didn’t have time to develop as a writer while abroad, I did notice that it changed my writing after I came back.

How Travel Helps

1) New Things to Write About

Face it: As college students, it’s difficult to think up original and invigorating content for our next-best, would-be stories when we’re confined in our dorms and barricaded behind our books. Exploring foreign places and experiencing new cultures can lead your mind to thoughts that you never could dreamed up. What better way to explore those new ideas than through the wonderful process of discovery that is writing?

On the way home from Berlin, as an example, our six hour drive actually took ten when traffic stopped, due to the discovery of an old, defunct firebomb from WWII near the Autobahn. This in particular got the creative juices pumping through my neural pathways, and I spent that extended ride reflecting on this new plot device that may yet become my first true masterpiece of short fiction. Only time will tell.  

2) New Places to Imagine

If you’re at all like me, developing a setting for your fiction can be difficult. I ask myself, “How many more times can someone write the suburbs with a fresh perspective?” Whether it be through supplying a romantic backdrop for a story, or by providing inspiration for the creation of your own world, touring any of the historic cities that are so plentiful across the Atlantic will be the perfect panacea to this creative obstruction.

(My Personal favorite was Amsterdam—those canals made the city streets twinkle in the most beautiful light. John Green did no wrong using that place as the setting for his YA classic, The Fault in Our Stars. I couldn’t help but fill the space with half-baked characters with stories that were begging to be realized.)

3) Time to Reflect (and Relax!)

Ask George R.R. Martin: You can’t rush art. Every artist needs time to think about what they’ve written before it can be any better. And unless you’re Stephen King, the odds suggest that you won’t be publishing bestsellers annually.  Being out in the world and away from your work will give you the perspective and the temporal distance required to see your work objectively.

Besides, if your semesters are as hectic as mine are, you’ll be screaming for the time off. The stresses of the university require a strong mind and an unbreakable will. Which brings me to the next part of this list…

How Travel Hurts

1) Back to Reality

“Yeah Connor,” you’re probably saying, “we get it. You had an amazing month in Europe. Good for you.” Well, it isn’t all good. Because I spent so much time in paradise with the beautiful girl I love, coming back to Hamline was a difficult transition. After spending nearly all of my summer earnings on memories that only traumatic brain injury could manage to take away, returning to the white space of a blank page is more intimidating than I remembered. And all that effort I put into making economic use of my time last Spring? Yep, that’s all gone.

2) Duller than Fiction

It’s a common mistake of young writers to rely on the actual events that inspired them while fictionalizing a real-life story. When I was in Europe, I was overwhelmed by my experiences, and in those moments I felt they all might looked good on paper. But what makes fiction fun is its ability to transcend reality and still unveil an astounding human truth. Don’t make the mistake of sacrificing what could make your story great in order to stay true to the memory in your head.

Hopefully the knowledge I gained during my travels in Europe can help you realize some of the pros and cons that tourism can have on your life as an artist. For those of you that have been out of the country, help me make this list longer by sharing how your travels have affected you as a writer.

I was struggling with my writing, frustrated that none of my images were accurate or vivid enough. I asked my poetry professor, Gretchen Marquette, if she had advice on how to practice my images in poetry. She gave me a copy of Jim Moore’s Invisible Strings and told me to write two poems a day only from observation.

In visual art, image is what grounds any piece to the audience. Fine art classes begin with still life: set up objects to practice drawing strictly from the eye and noticing every detail of the set up. In my first drawing class, way back when I was thirteen, I drew assorted bones with charcoal for a month straight.

Image is what grounds poems to readers. By writing from observation I trained my eye to truly notice the world, the tiny details in everyday objects. The brain automatically glazes over these details in order to make shortcuts in object recognition. Undoing these shortcuts takes time, but it’s worth it.

Eventually I began to pick apart single objects in images to find what pieces of the image are really important to the poem. Instead of seeing three tints of brown in a wooden table, I notice the small black lines that look like ants top of the patchwork of milk and dark chocolate browns. Which part of that image is important to me depends on how much I can see.

Here is an example of an observation I made as part of an exercise, that eventually made its way into a poem. I wrote this after watching a dog play in a yard for about 20 minutes, picking apart what I was looking at until I found what I was really interested in.

I purposely didn’t draw out the details of the fence or the sky in order to keep the focus of on the dog playing. In a way I blurred the details of the fence and the sky into the background to put the dog playing into the “foreground” of the poem.

When I first started doing observation exercises I sat outside the coffeeshop I go to and described people: what they were wearing, who they were with, what they were drinking or eating. I find people to be a good starting point because there are less clichés associated with people than, say, trees or weather. I specifically wrote in very short lines, loose emulation of haiku, which really helped keep me from going on tangents of inferring things about people. But, once I started getting the hang of descriptions the tangent came, filling the gaps between images in poems.

Image is the cornerstone of poetry and the cornerstone of image is observing the details. I still practice every day.

Seasoned writer or a newcomer, workshops are great places helping you see needs improvement from fresh perspectives. However, there are a few things you need to be aware of before you get into one.

1. Don’t Share a Piece Without a Middle

In my final year of undergrad, one of my classmates turned in a piece with a beginning and a conclusion. No middle. It’s like structuring an argument without supporting details. The best kind of critique you’ll get is what I gave my classmate: “I’m sorry, but you need the rising action.” This has strengthened my resolve to have a beginning and middle by the time I’m up for workshop. Sure, it’s better to have a fully complete short story or chapter, but at least be sure to stick with having that middle.

2. Don’t Hand Back A Bag of Vague Compliments

A comment like this: “I like this. Good job,” doesn’t tell an author anything. I’ve gotten these comments on my fanfiction stories. I’ve told this to other writers. They’re nice. Just, really damn nice. But they don’t improve anyone’s work. Instead, as my friend Christina Marie of the blog, Dragons, Zombies, and Aliens says, “Put it into a sandwich critique.” How this works is that you first state what you liked about the piece. Then, follow it up with what needs improvement, followed by another round of what worked well. Be sure to cite examples from the draft for both praise and critique. I’ve been following this idea for a few years, and it’s helped me become more detailed and effective when workshopping.

3. Listen in Workshop

Getting advice or hearing people misinterpret a work can be difficult to take in, but there are things you need to hear. Sometimes, there are just ways to make a piece stronger. Just in a recent workshop, I was told the stakes weren’t clear enough in my opening chapter. At the time, I thought the stakes were pretty clear–there was a “clear” suggestion that something was after the character. In the next draft, I realized my readers were right. Instead of having danger hanging in the background, I moved them forward. Even weirder, a character in that draft came in earlier and provided so much more tension. It came out stronger than the original draft, so be sure to never discount a piece of advice.

4. Take Some of the Advice

To be clear, not all advice will work for a draft. In an extreme case, someone might suggest a piece of advice that’s more fit for a work of fantasy than a piece of literary fiction. Other times, you’ll just have too many voices saying contradictory things. Having been in these large workshop situations, it really helped me to learn where to let advice go—such as when many a few voices say one thing—and when to accept—when many people agree on something. It does take some time to figure out what to take and what to leave in critiques. The more you practice, the better you get. Trust me.

So, what now? Find a workshop group. Really. There might be other Dear God Please, Do Not Do These Kinds of Things Ever moments you learn from. Be sure to be open, be kind, and not afraid to wrangle that NaNo behemoth.