Couch Potato Author: In Search of the Elusive Inspiration: Couch Potato Author, #1

By Arushi Raj

You love writing, you want to write, but when you sit down in front of your laptop your mind goes as blank as the screen.

More than ever before, we are swamped by writing advice. From how to finish a book in just a month to how to become a bestseller, GUARANTEED! Yet, writers have been feeling more lost and confused than ever. So what gives?

Obviously literary blogs and videos can be useful to learn some quick tricks. But those don't work until and unless the writer has a strong literary foundation. If you want to pump out content in the hopes of making it big, then a how-to article is the way to go. But if you are looking to build your creativity and hone your writing skills, then you need a creative writing guide.

This is where Couch Potato Author comes in. With my experience as an author of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction books, which have been translated into Italian and Portuguese as well as a literature and creative writing teacher, I have put together a unique creative writing guide that delves into both theoretical and practical aspects of writing.

Couch Potato Author tackles the biggest bane of all aspiring writers - THE INSPIRATION. Some might believe the writers are born with creative genius, but I can attest that there is nothing more powerful than hard work. In this book, I will demonstrate 4 simple steps that anyone can use to find their creative inspiration.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arushi Raj
• Release date: Jun 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201082703

Book preview

Cover Credits:

Cover Design by Arushi Raj

Watercolor Background in order

by In736637

by GulArt

by stux

Clock by sketchify

Woman & Sofa by sketchify

Cat by Canva Layouts

Preface: From Liar to Writer

As a bored child with a penchant for mischief, I reveled in creating my own reality. There was also an added bonus of having one-upped the adults whenever I duped them with a convincing story. Surely a testament to my great wisdom and wit.

Alas, those tricked didn't seem to acknowledge my artistry and instead turned on me. No doubt fueled by their embarrassment at being fooled by a child. That was my first lesson about adulthood, mask your indignation with pompous self-righteous anger. I was bombarded by the same uncreative platitude honesty is the best policy.

Sniveling through the morality maze, I finally found fiction. Lies packaged as a form of entertainment, an entire industry whose goal is to sell falsehoods under the honorable labels of great works of art.

In a moment of pure epiphany, I realized that writing is my dream job. Being an author meant I will be paid to lie and to my five-year-old rebellious troublemaker self, nothing could have been better.

Now as a twenty-six-year-old still rebellious still troublemaker adult, being an author still seems like the dream job. And while lying for a living continues to be the ultimate perk, over the years my relationship with literature has deepened where it has now become my confidant and comrade.

The landmark book in my literary journey was incidentally Judy Blundell’s What I Saw and How I Lied. It was the first time in my very young teenage life that I was in love with a book not only as a reader but was overwhelmed by an unquenchable thirst to write.

My reason to be an author changed with that book. From then on, all I hoped for was making at least one person on this earth feel as creatively inspired by my book as I felt after reading Blundell’s.

Come to think of it, both my writing philosophy and style is inspired by my literary loves. This is why it shouldn't come as a surprise that my literary publications are a long list of genre-hopping. After all, isn't it a commonly accepted wisdom that we write what we read? And what I read was an eclectic mix of genres and forms of literature. From horror to romance, classics to YA, plays to manhwa, epic poetry to autobiographies, and everything in between and beyond. In a world that celebrates specialization, I find myself oddly drawn to variations.

Though J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series wasn’t the first story I have ever read, it had a huge impact on my writing. So much so that the first story I wrote as a twelve-year-old was outright plagiarism, about a young kid who was taken to a magical school where people flew on brooms. But knowing that Harold Bloom[1] has written an entire book on poets struggling with the weight of their predecessors’ influence on their work, thus making their own work derivative, I feel a bit better about my