nat weaver

Author of dark fiction with character.

Tag: writing workspace

  • What inspires your writing?

    What inspires your writing?

    This anonymous question was submitted to me on July 11, 2025. I answered it then, but I’d like to share my response to this question once more here. It’s a great question and I enjoyed answering it. If you’re an author reading this, answer the question in the comments. I’d love to hear what inspires your writing, too.

    You can ask me questions with my Ask Nat form linked below and I’ll answer them on the blog.

    Ask Nat

    Answer:

    Lots of things. In terms of inspiring my writing, I’m gonna answer this as both what informs my ideas and what gets me excited.

    I tend to turn to a mixture of things for inspiration regarding ideas. History (especially ancient history), folklore, other media (like film and music), and real-life crimes and social issues tend to cause sparks to fly.

    Some examples:

    • Sweet Sixteen Killer was born out of listening to “sweet sixteen” songs of the 1950s as an adult and realizing how gross they were,
    • my current work is a gothic horror piece set in Victorian era England that germinated as an homage to Universal monster and Hammer Horror films,
    • I have an upcoming Mercedes novel that’s inspired by an FBI report published during the Bush administration about white nationalists infiltrating the police to recruit members,
    • Jonah of Olympic has a subplot about an old dying Hollywood actress who has remained a closeted lesbian her whole life (for this I researched a number of Hollywood actresses from classic Hollywood who were closeted lesbian or bisexual — Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo, Katherine Hepburn, etc.),
    • and many of my works have hints to ancient or obscure folklore — two upcoming Mercedes Masterson stories, Aibell and The Book of Jude, delve into Irish folklore.

    But also, movies and music. Movies inspire me a lot when it comes to writing. Some of you may not know, but I did a lot of indie film work in my early 20s. I love movies — especially horror (all kinds), action, noir, and some sci-fi. I think what I love most about films is how you can get sucked into a world for a very short amount of time and just be absorbed by its aesthetic and mood. Often times I’ll watch a collection of movies that have the vibe I want right before starting the first draft of writing. I’m a very visual person, so being able to absorb a lot of visuals before the writing process begins is important. I do this with Pinterest as well. I use Pinterest to create a mood board before I start writing. And then, there’s music. I can’t overstate its influence in my writing. I build playlists for my novels. My longest one to date is for Jonah of Olympic, which is over 10 hours long. I explore music I know, but also discover a lot of new music. I can often sit with a song on repeat while my mind creates a scene or character. It’s a very meditative process.

  • First post! and a glimpse at my writing space

    First post! and a glimpse at my writing space

    Black and white image of author Nat Weaver sitting a basement. He has long, black hair is wearing a beanie with black-rimmed glasses and a hoodie jacket. He sits at a computer desk in a gaming chair and has his giving a right-handed thumbs up while making an expression that involves big eyes and a funnily twisted smile.

    Hello everyone. This is my first post here on my author website. Be sure to head to the comments below and say hi.

    Thought I’d talk a bit about my author photo (above). Took this one in our basement. I tend to do most of my writing (and schooling) from the basement. I have a desk setup down here — yes, I’m in the basement now.

    It’s a large unfinished basement so there’s plenty of room to get up and stretch around. We have a home gym we’ve been slowly putting together behind me, you can see a few pieces of equipment behind my large, two-sided whiteboard which is great for writing. Over my right shoulder is a small living space with a sectional couch and tv with all our old retro video gaming consoles hooked up to it.

    I also film most of my videos from down here. The dance ones I do way off in the corner behind me, for example. And I’ve made a few videos with me sitting on the couch, which is fun and I think they turn out nice. I’ll post one of those to YouTube soon.

    Speaking of YouTube… be sure to head over to my channel and subscribe for a mixture of content. I’ll be posting some author interviews, me blabbing about different things, book trailers, and of course the dance videos. I’ve also turned on the Community, so we can all make posts to the Community and leave comments.

    Check out my YouTube Channel

    Last but not least, the framed movie poster over my right shoulder in the photo is from the Swedish mini-series adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. His books are some of my favorites. When I went to buy a movie poster, I wanted one that emphasized his character Lisbeth Salander. But most didn’t. I eventually found this one which is the Greek movie poster. In case you didn’t know, different countries will often have very different movie posters and cover art — what marketing works in America won’t work in Japan and so on. This movie poster is a simple photo of Lisbeth leaning against a concrete wall. It’s very noir and nice.

    Keep writing. And reading. 📖