Eight Creators to Follow in 2018

The internet is a vast source of inspiration, but with the seemingly endless access to creative people and their work, it can be difficult to find the ones who are doing the things that truly inspire you. I spent most of 2017 being inspired by other people - mostly artists and writers and youtubers - and I felt like I should honor that inspiration by writing about them. I think they're all going to do great things in 2018.

1. Fran Menses: I tend to admire people who make a ton of stuff, and Fran definitely falls into this category. The sheer amount of things she creates on a daily basis - youtube videos, drawings, zines, travel journals, stickers, you name it - is mind boggling. I love her aesthetic - all pastels all the time - but more than that I love her quiet encouragements to her followers, her love for illustration, and her relaxed sense of humor. Plus she recently debuted a planner in her online shop, and it's literally the best planner I've ever owned.

Where to follow: Youtube
Favorite Videos:
A Week in the Life
Organization
One Scary Thing Every Day
Kew Gardens
Other links:
Blog
Instagram
Shop
Patreon

2. Synchronized Swim (Jessie Epstein + Amy Bornman): I've been following this blog since its inception, and oh. my. goodness. it is wonderful! Jesse and Amy write gorgeous, tremendously thoughtful personal essays about life, books, music, and faith (among other things). They are both so observant of their emotions and what it means to be a fledgeling adult, and every post has this richness to it that's hard to describe. If you read any blog in 2018, it should be this one.

Where to follow: Blog
Favorite posts:
Green Light by Jess
The Braid by Amy
Airplanes, Revisited by Jess
Practice by Amy
Other links:
Instagram
Sync Swim Shop
Amy's Shop

3. Ariel Bissett: Ariel has enough energy and enthusiasm for twelve people. When it comes rushing out of her, usually in the form of a video, it's impossible not to feel inspired. I've been following her Youtube channel for a while, but the past year has brought a noticeable change: the the quality has gone up, and she's branched out from solely talking about books to talking about her creative endeavors as well. Since then she's created a zine, launched a podcast, and started freelancing. Ariel is the kind of person who bravely follows her curiosity wherever it leads, and I can't wait to see where it takes her next.

Where to follow: Youtube
Favorite videos:
No Longer a Student
Writing a Book
Taking a Gap Year
Deep Talks
Other links:
Website
Podcast
Patreon

4. Robin MacArthur: Surprisingly, this is the only published author to make the list. I first discovered Robin's work at the Texas Book Festival last year, when I read the first couple pages of her short story collection, Half Wild, and couldn't leave without buying it. I don't usually fall in love with short story collections, but Half Wild was different. The stories seeped under my skin and settled there. I've since learned that the author lives in a cabin she and her husband built from scratch on land that has been in her family for generations. Her first novel Heart Spring Mountain comes out this month and I can't wait to be swallowed whole by her words again. In the meantime, I'll keep myself occupied by enjoying her cozy Instagram feed.

Where to follow: Instagram
Favorite posts:
This one and
This one and
This one and
This one
Other links:
Website
Design Sponge Profile

5. Fran Cacace: Fran is amazing. She's a filmmaker, writer, and youtuber who's putting herself through school with a full-time job. On her youtube channel she talks frankly about creativity and mental illness, and doesn't sugar coat the difficult parts of creativity. I love re-watching her old nanowrimo videos, where she filmed her progress every day while working on her novel. I've honestly learned a lot of things from her, not the least of which being that it's possible to write a ton of words AND watch a lot of television, and that it's important to prioritize mental wellbeing over productivity. Also be sure to watch her awesome web-series about working in a library: it is funny and true and heartfelt.

Where to follow: Youtube
Favorite videos:
NanoWriMo Day 7
2017
I Wrote A Scene
Finishing A Book
Other links:
Blog
Web Series

6. Delita Martin: Delita is an amazing artist who makes beautiful, mixed media prints showcasing African American women. She incorporates pattern, fabric, and hand-stitching into her work in such interesting ways, and her portraits feel personal and moving in ways that floored me when I happened to discover her work in a show at the Galveston Art Center. If you can find a way to see her work in person, do it, because the scale makes them even more stunning.

Where to follow: Instagram
Favorite Pieces:
This one and
This one and
This one and
This one
Other links:
Website
Behind the Scenes

7. Ashley Mary: I love Ashley's colorful abstract paintings, but I especially love watching her instagram stories, where she shows closeups of her work. Her instagram feed makes me want to take up oil paints, if only for the amazing textures and colors she creates.

Where to follow: Instagram
Favorite Posts:
This one and
This one and
This one and
This one
Other Links:
Website
Online Shop

8. Leena Norms: Leena is another youtuber that I've been following for years, and I just can't get over her videos. My favorite series she's done is called 40 Questions with Leena, where she made an astounding 40 videos in 40 days answering questions posed by her viewers. I aspire to Leena's level of curiosity and playfulness, and I can't wait see what she does next.

Where to follow: Youtube
Favorite Videos:
Is it Bad to Age?
The Five to Nine
Congratulations, You Did Nothing
How to Get Everything Done
Other Links:
Podcast
Patreon

I encourage you to check out the work of these amazing women. I hope that you will watch their videos and read their books and appreciate their art, and if you can, support them buy buying something they made. Making it as an independent artist, wether you are freelancing or doing side projects alongside a regular job, is one of the most difficult things you can do, and it's even harder to constantly self promote. These women manage not only to make the things they love, but also to share the behind the scenes progress of almost everything they do, and to me that's what makes them so inspiring. I hope you enjoyed this list, and that it leaves you ready to take on the new year!

Some Thoughts on Instagram

Today I finally updated my Instagram app. Goodbye classic logo; hello new, boring one.

Okay, so I know I'm woefully behind on this one. Most people have already updated Instagram (like six months ago) and gotten used to the new features, but switching over today got me thinking about Instagram as a whole, as well as the impact it's had on my life. Here are my thoughts, loosely organized:

Part 0: Meta Ramblings

It feels kind of ridiculous to even be writing about an app. I still have a tendency to see internet culture as something less real, or less "worthy" than culture that has its origins in the "real-world." But of course that's ridiculous because the two are, more than ever, inextricably linked. I also feel hesitant to spend so much time contemplating and interacting with an app which could theoretically go extinct. Think MySpace. Think Vine. Think about your favorite website ten years ago: does it still exist? So much of that time and creativity, obsolete or completely gone. Still, Instagram feels important, and I don't think it's in danger of dying out any time soon. It's been a major source of creativity and inspiration to me since I first got a smart phone my junior year of high school. So I'm going to put aside my initial reservations and give Instagram the thoughtful consideration it deserves. 

Part I: Background

First of all, let me just say, I love Instagram. It's by far my favorite social media platform. I think the reason I fell in love with it is because it's one of the few social sites that feels truly creative. Not only does it satisfy my itch to see the world through other people's eyes, but posting to Instagram feels like an act of creation. You're not just telling people about your day or sharing a funny meme. You're actively noticing the world around you, capturing it in a way that only you can, and sharing it with other people. Instagram feels like an experience in a way that Twitter and Facebook don't. You open the app in the morning and see twelve different sunrises, breakfasts, and cups of coffee. No two photos are the same, and yet we're all experiencing the same morning, the same sunrise. Instagram brings everyday to the level of an art form.

Part II: Criticisms

That's not to say that Instagram is perfect. The plethora of sunrise, breakfast, and coffee photos is both a blessing and a curse. There are entire Instagram accounts devoted to Instagram cliches. Over the years the platform has become less a place where people post photos from their everyday life and more a glossy silkscreen designed to make their life seem more perfect than it is. The act of adding filters to your photos was already an act of enhancement, but look at enough Instagram accounts and you'd think most people were living lives filled with travel, adventure, and gourmet food. Most of the time I see Instagram as a source of creative inspiration, as a way to experience beauty through other people's eyes. But I'd be lying if I said I never fall into the trap of jealousy, based on the false notion that someone's Instagram feed is an accurate representation of their daily life.

Part III: The New Instagram

This leads me to the update. Part of the reason it took me so long to switch over was that I didn't really care about the "story" feature in the first place. For those that don't know, your story is a way to upload photos and videos that are separate from your normal Instagram feed. They disappear after 24 hours, and they play in succession, so if you want you can see moments from someone's entire day at a glance. The feature comes almost directly from Snapchat, complete with a similar option to write captions over the photos and add cute overlays and graphics. 

I wasn't expecting to like Instagram's story feature. I'm still not sure that I do, but it certainly got me thinking. I found myself fascinated by the difference between what people posted on their stories and what showed up in their normal feed. The same thing that bothers me about Instagram, the tendency for it to feel overly perfect and contrived, was suddenly enhanced by the existence of the story feature. Here, the same person who posted a stunning photo of themselves on a beach at sunset to their regular Instagram, could also post a video to their story about running out of gas near that same beach. The Instagram story is anti-filter and anti-perfection. If your Instagram feed were a movie, your story would be the "behind the scenes" featurette. It draws attention to the artistry required to post a beautiful, filtered photo to your feed. 

Part IV: Authenticity and Artifice

This dichotomy has been bothering me all day. With the new update, Instagram has tried to put two opposing forces in the same place. Instagram stories are all about immediacy. You only see photos and videos for a few seconds at a time. You get the sense that they were created quickly, too. It's life in rapid fire. By comparison, regular Instagram forces you to really look at a photo, take it all in. It is a perfectly curated snapshot, something that was composed and edited rather than simply captured. 

What I like about the stories is that they're personal. You're not just seeing this person through their photographs anymore; you're hearing their voice, seeing how they move in the world and interact with others. But if stories are somehow more "authentic" where does that leave your regular feed?

Does seeing "behind the scenes" make your photos more beautiful or more fake?  Does it matter that everything we put online is curated in some way? 

I don't know the answers to these questions. All I know is that seeing a video of someone I'd only ever known through photos was a profoundly strange experience. I immediately revised my original view of that person based on their voice and their mannerisms. It made it harder for me to idealize them, because now I know for sure that they are just a regular person living a regular life. Maybe Instagram stories does the much needed work of breaking the facade. But maybe it also turns the thoughtfulness behind each photo into a display of its curated-ness.

Part V: Conclusions, If I have Any

Basically, Instagram's story feature is weird, but I still like Instagram as a whole. I wrote this post not to bash Instagram or the people who use it, but to think critically about the way we portray our lives online. I'll probably have more thoughts on this in the future, and I'm curious to hear yours. I thought I'd end with a list of my favorite Instagrammers, the people who inspire me daily to see the world through a creative lens. 

@rachelcokerwrites - One of my favorite people on Instagram. Rachel sees a world full of color. She always seems to turn small outings into mini adventures, and she excels at appreciating the little things. Follow for vintage fashion, sisterly love, and thoughtful musings on art.

@hellopoe - This lady has some serious photography skills! She travels constantly for her job as a freelance photographer, but her photos don't feel postcard-perfect in the way that a lot of travel photography does. She has an incredible eye for color and line, and every time I see one of her photos I want to set out on my own adventure.

@ashleymaryart - One of the many artists I follow on Instagram. I love her unique, geometric style, and the best part about her Instagram story is getting an in depth look at her process and watching her work come to life!

@jedediahjenkins - It's hard not to admire someone with such profound curiosity and unbridled joy. I also wish I was half as good a writer as Jedediah. His (long!) captions make me revaluate my reality every. single. time. His most recent posts regarding politics and how to bridge the gaps between people are a balm for the soul. Come for the photos, stay for the words.

@thiswildidea - Okay, I'll be honest, I mostly follow this guy for his dog. (As I think most people do - she's in almost every photo) She is supremely cute and also probably the most well behaved dog on the planet. One resounding pro of Instagram stories: you get to see her in action!

@laurenmarek - Another fantastic photographer who happens to also be based in my hometown. What a cool thing it is to see the city you grew up in through the eyes of another person. She's made me see Houston in a whole new light. 

Phew! I think that's enough for one post. Let me know if you think this hard about social media, too.

A Drop in the Bucket: Making a Collage

I've been thinking a lot lately about the way that I prioritize my creative projects. Often I catch myself putting my ideas into arbitrary categories. Writing fiction trumps blogging. Working on the dessert cookbook I want to make trumps painting in my watercolor notebook. I want to do all of these things equally, and yet I still catch myself assigning value to things, often based on what I think other people  expect. I've told people I want to write fiction, so doing anything else feels somehow less important. That's why, today, I decided to make something that didn't have any perceived importance attached to it.

I've been daydreaming about working with paper recently. I love the idea that you can create a picture out of shapes alone, so I decided to try my hand at making a collage. The inspiration for the subject matter came from two of my favorite things: soft, warm light that stretches across a room at sunset, and succulents.

Source

Source

Source

Of course, creating the illusion of light falling on anything with paper alone was an ambitious task for a novice collage-er like me. It took a little while to separate out what papers I should use for different areas (especially that parts that fell into the light), and building a semi-realistic looking cactus out of shapes was no easy task either. Once I had the most important shapes cut out I had to figure out what order to glue them down in. It should have been simple, but one wrong move and I had to peel up the shape and move it without ripping the layers underneath it.

I have so many big, long term ideas in the works, that I think I'd forgotten you could still make something in a single day. By all accounts, this little project should have been last on my list of priorities. It has nothing to do with anything else I'm working on. I don't know what I'm going to do with the finished product. And yet, I got to reconnect with what it feels like to make for the sake of making. One of my favorite quotes about the creative process comes from the writer Brenda Ueland, and while it's specifically about writing, I think it applies to all creative acts: "I learned that you should feel when writing, not like Lord Byron on a mountain top, but like a child stringing beads in kindergarten: happy, absorbed, and quietly putting one bead on after another." This is how I felt while I was gluing paper today. And if I can feel that way while gluing paper, then maybe I can feel that way while writing a novel and making a cookbook and juggling all the things I want to do.  We all have to pick and choose how we spend our time, so there should be joy in the decision making, and joy in the doing.

** A Drop in the Bucket is a series of posts where I complete one item on my creative bucket list, and share the results **

Currently...

Photo by Indigo

Making: A lot!
-A slow, atmospheric music video to the song Artifact 3 by Ryan Teague
-A 6' by 9' canvas mural that's going to brighten up our patio
-A joint Tumblr with my friend, where we share our daily progress on our respective creative habits. Me with my favorite sentence from the day's writing, Indigo with the newest page from her sketchbook. (Our most recent post can be seen in the sidebar!)
-My first couple articles for the Houston Chronicle, where I'm lucky enough to be volunteering this summer
-Savory popcorn via Alisa Burke

Planning: 
-A bunch of future blog posts, including:
    -More recap posts about my trip to Paris
    -An update on my creative bucket list
    -Maybe some book reviews...
-A dessert cookbook based around my summer creative writing club, Words for Dessert

Pondering: What the words "growth" and "change" mean to me. It feels like I have a million plates in the air right now, but it also feels like this summer and all the creative stuff I'm doing might be a transformative experience.

Reading: The Girl Who Slept with God by Val Brelinski

Watching: I watch movies more than I watch TV shows, so here's some of the best films I've seen  recently:

Love and Mercy
This is the story of Brian Wilson, lead singer and main innovator behind The Beach Boys. Sometimes  films just come out of nowhere and completely blow you away. This was one of them. It is a beautiful, suspenseful, and heartbreaking look not only at Brian Wilson's life but his creative process as well. Also the sound design/soundtrack is absolutely superb.

Testament of Youth
Based on the memoir of Vera Brittan, this is the story of an extraordinary woman and her efforts to make sense of the relentless brutality of WWI. It's a tremendously sad story, but there are moments of beauty throughout. One of my favorite things about it was how close all of the cinematography felt. There were very few wide shots, and when they were used it was for a specific and powerful effect.

Listening: to Darlingside's new single, on repeat. It's that good. (Also, their new album comes out in September!)

Enjoying:
-Iced coffee with breakfast
-Stepping into the air conditioning after being out in the heat and humidity
-Long afternoon photo shoots with my best friend
-Driving at night with the windows rolled down, music blasting
-Sunrises and sunsets
-New dresses

Everyday Magic

Sometimes I fall into a rut of thinking that I've seen all there is to see. I open a book hoping that it will make me feel something, but what I'm actually hoping for are the normal feelings, the quickening heart beat countered by the knowledge that it will work out in the end. And then something comes a long that completely cracks open my world view. It makes me feel something I didn't even know it was possible to feel. It makes me see the world just a little bit differently.

Last night I had one of the most intense movie-watching experiences of my life. My friend and I watched the latest Studio Ghibli film, The Tale of Princess Kaguya. This movie will lift you up and break your heart. It will will make you feel peaceful and anxious, bitter and and full of wonder. It made me cry big, ugly tears.

The film is based on a Japanese folk tale, and the animation style reflects its origins. The colors are subdued, and the figures are less defined than they are in other Ghibli films. It contains some of the most beautifully animated sequences I've ever seen. It baffles me why it didn't win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature (and lost to Big Hero 6, for that matter).

A friend and I were talking recently about how we usually feel a stronger connection to books than we do to films. I think about my favorite books on a daily basis, but I rarely contemplate movies I watched a long time ago. I have a feeling this film will be different. I feel different for having seen it.

Before watching this film I was so used to stories making me feel the same way that I had begun to take them for granted. I was certainly not expecting to end up in a puddle of tears, or to still be thinking about Princess Kaguya when I woke up this morning. Sometimes it's hard to believe that the things I love - my favorite books, films, and poems - were created by another human being. They feel too much like a gift from the universe, sent to me right when I need it most. I think Charles de Lint said it best with this quote:

"I do believe in an everyday sort of magic - the inexplicable connectedness we sometimes experience with places, people, works of art, and the like; the eerie appropriateness of moments of synchronicity; the whispered voice, the hidden presence, when we think we're alone."

I'm not sure if what I've learned from Princess Kaguya has to do with the film itself or that I happened to see it at this point in time, but I do know that I'm not going to take stories for granted anymore. I've learned to always seek out the things that make you feel vulnerable, the things that lift you up and tear you down and ultimately change your perspective. This is the everyday magic, and it doesn't matter where you find it as long as you don't fall into the trap of forgetting that it's there.

ps. If you noticed that I didn't give you a film synopsis, it's because I went into this movie not knowing anything about it, and I really think it's better that way.

Go-To Inspiration

This blog post is coming to you from my messy brain in my messy dorm room in the midst of my messy life. I've been feeling a little overwhelmed lately. I have so many projects I want to work on. There's school of course, but I'm also trying to step up the discipline in my writing routine. I'm working several work-study jobs, writing for two different blogs (this one and my college's English department), and beginning the search for a summer job in my hometown. Plus, there's a super secret project I can't stop thinking about, and I don't know if it's really worth the time to undertake it or if this is just the honeymoon period. Maybe the excitement will wear off and I'll start hating it, and hating myself for not committing to it, and end up more stressed than when I started.

All of this was causing some creative burn-out, until I stumbled upon this blog post from The Secret Life of Writers. The question it asks is simple: What images will always make you want to write? I've always loved the idea that inspiration is everywhere, but I assumed it was something you had to wait for, that you'd never see it coming. I guess I'd picked up on patterns in the past, but I never saw them as something reliable to turn to when I was at a loss for ideas. Following in the same vein of Heather's post, I thought I'd share a few images that continually make me want to open up a word document and pour my heart out:

1) These paintings by Cy Twombly that hang in The Menil Collection in my hometown:

2) Medieval Tapestries

3) Open windows with white curtains

Photo by Sarah Jane on Flickr

4) Lone canoers on a lake 

5) Road Trips

6) Obscure vintage photography

7) Abandoned houses

I really enjoyed compiling this list, and I hope you find some of these things inspiring as well! Lightning strikes of inspiration are great, but remember, there are always things in your life that inspire you simply because you are drawn to them over and over again. Use these things to your advantage!

Lastly, I would just like say thanks to Heather Marie for her original post. While I too am inspired by things like castles and statues in cemeteries, I had never really dwelled on the mystical qualities of the lighthouse.

Let me know what things inspire you in the comments, and as always, thanks for reading!

Introducing: Letters to October

Dear Readers,
       Hello there. This is different, isn't it? I am writing to inform you of a new project I am starting. It's called Letters to October, in which I write a letter to the month of October on each day of the month. Each letter will be accompanied by a picture and a song of the day. This project was mostly inspired by my favorite Youtuber Emilieofnewgloom's Letters to July series. If you watch her videos (and you should!), you have some idea of what I want to accomplish with these letters. I have always been partial to keeping journals and diaries, but they always seemed to diverge into a boring or bland recounting of events. With Letters to October I hope to capture the essence of each day, and what better time than during my favorite season, Fall. One of my favorite parts of Emilieofnewgloom's series is that we got to see July through both her and other's perspectives. I would love, LOVE to see some of you undertake this project alongside me. Consider this your formal invitation to participate and share your Letters to October on your blog or through other forms of social media. And, if you decide not to participate, I hope you will enjoy seeing October through my eyes. I, for one, am SO ready to see what it has in store.

Laura

The inspiration:

Song of the Day: 1234 by Feist
(Oh, and at the end of the month I will make a spottily playlist of all the songs from October!)

I will see you on October 1st!

Waking Up to Stories

If you have not heard me wax poetic about why you should be listening to the New Yorker Fiction Podcast, you haven't been following me closely enough. Basically it's a podcast in which a well known author reads their favorite short story from the New Yorker archives, and then talks about it with the magazine's fiction editor, Deborah Treisman. I usually listen in bed, with ear buds tucked into my ears, staring up at ceiling of my darkened room and letting the words fill my head. There is something immensely therapeutic about falling asleep to someone reading a story, and I highly recommend it to everyone, not just fellow writers. But what I want to talk about today is waking up to stories.

Recently I got an alarm clock that doubles as an ipod player. For I while I set it so I would wake up to my movie themes playlist, but one night when I had been listening to the New Yorker Fiction Podcast I plugged my ipod in an fell asleep without resetting it. The next morning I woke up to the same story I'd been listening to the night before, which happened to be Miranda July's "Roy Spivey", as read by David Sedaris. It's a strange feeling, waking up to David Sedaris's voice, reading a story in which, in one instance, a celebrity pumps Frebreeze onto the underarms of the woman he's sitting next to on an airplane. But what I realized was, that in the space between waking and sleeping the context of the story fell away. I paid attention to the sound of the words. Strange images flashed through my dreams, while all the while the voice of the reader cut through my mind like water. Eventually I woke up enough to identify what I was listening to, but I realized that the important part had already taken place. The words were already in my subconscious.

"Subconscious" may seem like a loaded term for you. I'm not saying that your "inner mind" is going to write your books for you, or that doing this randomly and without thinking about it will make you a better writer. But it's been my experience that you have to pay attention to how stories work, and listening to them, especially in this half-conscious state, allows your brain to detach itself from the emotional context and just listen to the words. It lets you hear the way sentences flow together. It shows you how the emphasis falls on some words and not others. Maybe your dreams change when you wake up listening to a certain story. Pay attention to what happens in these dreams, because that's the kind of vivid and visceral reaction we writers are trying to get from our readers. There is a reason that so many writers make writing the first thing they do in the morning after waking up. In this space we are closer to our subconscious, and when we wake up to stories we wake up with words already in our heads.

Inspiration: Jane Eyre

Something unusual happened to me last weekend. I was inspired...by a movie. In our household this should not be an uncommon occurrence. My parents are documentary filmmakers. Our DVD collection takes up two shelves in our bookcase, stacked. I doubt we could survive for long without Netflix. And yet, few movies have affected me in the way that the 2011 version of Jane Eyre did. I can list my favorite films (that's for another post), but its harder to think of films that have actually inspired me to go out and make something. I think I can say that Jane Eyre was one of these films.

(Note: This post is not a movie review. I will not be evaluating the casting, storyline, or the adaptation of the book. I should also say that I haven't seen any other adaptations of Jane Eyre-to date-and I am only part way through the book, which I am enjoying.)

Lighting/Cinematography

Basically every scene in this movie has the same effect on the viewer as a Vermeer painting. The lighting is so beautiful, especially natural light that comes in through the large windows. The whole time I was watching, I kept thinking: "If only I could capture this atmosphere in words." Story aside, just the feel of this movie is enough to make me love it.

Music
As you probably know by now, I've always been a lover of movie music. I have a whole playlist dedicated to it on my ipod. But until now I never thought I could write with a movie soundtrack in the background. In the past when I've done so, the music is too engrained in the film, and I can't separate them. I'll start immediately visualizing scenes from the film in my head, or worse, writing them down. The music becomes the words, not the guiding force behind them. 

Unlike some of my favorite soundtracks, I did not consciously notice the music while watching the film, which often happens if a score is particularly beautiful. However when I listened to the Jane Eyre soundtrack on its own I realized just how emotional, raw, and eerie the music is. Even better, my mind's eye was not overrun with scenes from the film. All that was left was the feel of the film, which was what drew me to it in the first place. I still have some experimenting to do, but I think this is one soundtrack that I will be able to write to.

If you would like to hear a sample, click here.

Other Notes
It's hard to pin down why we are inspired by some things and not by others. Something just has to speak to us at the core of our being, like a silent understanding. The list above talks about two main reasons I love this film, and as for the third, it's hard to say. There is just a feeling, an atmosphere, to this film that I can't quite put my finger on, but I know that I love the vibe that it gives off. Jane Eyre made me want to write. It made me want to travel to England and wander the moors. It made me see light differently.

I encourage you to see this movie if you haven't already, and if you have, I'd love to hear your thoughts. What other films have you been inspired by recently? 

Also, expect a review of Jane Eyre (the book) soon!