I love the form of letters, so it’s not too surprising that a lot of my inspiration lately has come from the alphabet. I have hopes of getting crafty with an alphabet-inspired collage project over the holiday break, but in the meantime, I’ve been enjoying the eye candy from these works that range from mixed media to embossing.

Alphabet paper bird sculpture by cottonbirddesigns

A lesson in creating type from the ever-so-talented Jessica Hische, who recently launched a gorgeous website redesign

Let it S-N-O-W — Anthropologie display via Heart Fish

Alphabet button magnets by luv4sams

The ABC’s of Branding by The Best Part, via design work life

I immediately starred this poster series from graphic designer Albert Exergian when I saw it on Owltastic. Exergian has done a fantastic job of taking popular TV shows and creating modern posters that reduce each show to a single, powerful graphic.

Full collection

A few of my favorites

For more of Exergian’s work, check out www.exergian.com. The prints are also available for sale here.

This short film from the New Zealand Book Council combines the art of paper cutting with stop-motion animation to promote books and reading.

Drawing inspiration from Maurice Gee’s classic New Zealand novel, Going West, the intricate video took eight months to complete. More about the inspiration behind the project from Book Council chief executive Noel Murphy:

The idea that lies at the centre of this project is that reading is an activity that surprises, delights, challenges and ignites the imagination.

We wanted to grab people’s attention for just one moment in the hurly burly world of modern media and direct them to the adventure that can be had in one’s own head at the flick of a page.

via Book Cover Archive blog

This renews my desire to make a crane mobile.

By Stephen Beckly, via Oh Joy!

One of my dreams is to learn about printmaking and book arts, so when I saw the video for The Complex of All of These, it took my breath away with its letterpress, handmade paper, and handsewn bindings. The project was done at the Women’s Studio Workshop, a visual arts organization in New York.

via The Ministry of Type

via random inspiration

If I make the clackity noise long enough every day, the ‘writing’ seems to take care of itself.
- Merlin Mann

National Novel Writing Month 2009 is finished, and I ended with a final word count of 65,194. I still have some sections to write and I expect a large chunk of what I have written to be either completely thrown out or heavily edited, but I enjoyed the writing process this time around much more.

When I participated in NaNoWriMo in 2006, I knew a few people who were writing, and I knew there were local write-ins happening, but I flew solo. I struggled to reach 50,000 words and the final novel wasn’t something I was satisfied with at all — to the point that I put it away and haven’t looked at it since.

One of the key factors in this year’s success was that I participated with people. I got active on social networks, drawing a lot of inspiration and motivation from fellow writers through Twitter and Facebook. I also organized a handful of write-ins, which not only helped me stay accountable, but also gave me the chance to make new friends. While the writing was still a solo act, it was something that I could experience with others, even if we were just silently typing away as fast as we could.

So now that November is over, what’s next? My plan is to shelve this book for a bit, let it breathe over the holidays before I go back and finish. March is National Novel Editing Month (NaNoEdMo), which may be good inspiration for that part of the writing stage.

And the first novel, the one that I haven’t revisited since 2006? I had an “aha!” moment during a write-in this year and realized how to rewrite the ending to make it work, so I’m looking forward to tackling that as well.

Thank you to everyone who kept me motivated, from family to friends to fellow writers. You helped make this a successful NaNoWriMo, and I appreciate you putting up with me over the 30 days of madness.