Same, kinda. This year I’ve been leaning into recreating that sense of childhood creativity in my writing/art; for me, it’s about bringing back the earnestness and enthusiasm that got dulled in my teen/adult years. I think we’re all still the same creative kid inside, we’re just embarrassed now about our ideas being “cringe” or “unoriginal”. Or we’re making stuff to appeal to an audience instead of ourselves.
Foo Fighters - There Is Nothing Left To Lose
Mitchell, Manos, and Pod People are probably a three-way tie for me. Some of my underrated favorites are Girls Town, The Incredible Melting Man, The Giant Spider Invasion, Teen-Age Crime Wave, and Kitten With a Whip.
Presto is amazing!!! So much of their 90s-00s discography is so slept on.
Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti
Tool - 10,000 Days
Rush - Test for Echo
Metallica - Metallica
Rush - Clockwork Angels
Michael Jackson - HIStory
BIGBANG - MADE
[bodyendtag] - Information Superhighway
Kumi Koda - BEST 2000-2020
A Perfect Circle - Mer de Noms
I’ve never done “complete” worldbuilding (cause it’s never been that interesting to me) so maybe I’m out of my depth here. I do enjoy worldbuilding when I tweak something about “our” world: adding soulmarks, magic systems, etc. It gives me a base to start with, and then I can extrapolate things from there. What would change? What would stay the same? Human greed and fallibility always shape the world, even if you have supernatural elements or beings in your story.
But my worldbuilding is usually “start writing and figure things out as I go along”. Sometimes you only realize what your story/world needs when you’re writing and run into a roadblock.
I love Rose Madder. Such an underrated King novel.
Just off the top of my head:
-The Woman in the Room -Gray Matter -I Am the Doorway -Gramma -Umney’s Last Case
honorable mentions: The Ten O’Clock People, The Jaunt, The Gingerbread Girl, A Very Tight Place, Dolan’s Cadillac, The End of the Whole Mess
though Night Shift really is a superb collection of stories overall.
It’s been ages since I read it, but I remember really liking Cell and also feeling underwhelmed by the ending. I had to read over the last few pages to remember how it ended. Yeah, still not a huge fan of the cliffhanger. Although King’s sort of notorious for his lackluster/disappointing endings. I think it can be hard to tie up such a long book in a satisfactory way, and I can see the appeal of an ambiguous cliffhanger ending, but ehh… I’m not really sure it worked here. I should definitely reread it though because I did enjoy most of the book, and I wonder if my thoughts on the ending would change after a second read.
(though if you thought the book ending was bad, wait until you see the movie)
I’ve gotten way more sensitive to clothing textures as I get older, and I don’t remember having too much texture sensitivity as a kid (except for hating itchy tags). I’m also way too aware now of my clothes when I sleep, so sleeping in any kind of pajama bottoms or socks is impossible for me. That never used to be A Thing for me until a few years ago. It doesn’t really impact my life very much though.