TLG Blogpalooza: Thank You for the Music

ONE WEEK TO GO!

So, that title. Yeah. I am cringing, if you were wondering. Quoting ABBA in a blog post title has to be my lowest point thus far.

And can you kneel before the king

And say 'I'm clean, I'm clean'?

-Mumford and Sons, 'White Blank Page' 

I've never made a secret of the fact that I need music to write. It's like a magic wand, music: it can set a mood, define a scene, inspire a whole emotion. Sometimes I use instrumental, movie-soundtracky stuff. Sometimes it's a pop song. It varies and THE LOST GIRL's playlist was no exception. Some songs define a character's relationship with someone else (usually Eva with someone else). Some songs fit a character's thoughts at that point in the story. Some songs kind of even tell you what's going on (like the lyrics I used above this paragraph). Well, they do a little. Whatever they do, they all have one thing in common: they helped me shape this book.

I've had the playlist posted on my website for a while now, so that's nothing new. But I'm going to repost it here today because, like Friday's word cloud, it teases.

1. Francois-Paul Aiche – Chimerical Dream
2. Michael Jackson – Beat It
3. Plumb – In My Arms
   
4. Coldplay – Fix You
5. Fleetwood Mac – Go Your Own Way
6. Florence and the Machine – Rabbit Heart
7. Snow Patrol featuring Martha Wainwright – Set the Fire to the Third Bar
8. Madonna – This Used to Be My Playground
9. Lenka – Trouble is a Friend
10. AFI – This Time Imperfect
11. Damien Rice – 9 Crimes
12. Adele – Set Fire to the Rain
13. Declan Flynn – Ease My Pain
14. Death Cab for Cutie – Soul Meets Body
15. Oasis – Stop Crying Your Heart Out
16. White Lies – Farewell to the Fairground
17. Trading Yesterday – For You Only
18. Jessie J – Nobody’s Perfect
19. Snow Patrol – Run
20. Mumford & Sons – White Blank Page
21. Adele – Someone Like You

 
If you know any of these songs, you're already one spoiler up! They're arranged in order, to match the book, so it's almost like a story in songs. Oh, they won't give a whole lot away, but they will give you hints about relationships, about the mood, and about what may or may not be happening at that point of the book. Hopefully it'll drive you crazy trying to figure out what each one really means.

TEASE OF THE DAY

“Where are you?” I ask her. “You haven’t really gone, have you? I had this idea that I might be free if you were dead. But I’m not free, you’ve managed to trap me anyway. I’ve got to live your life and be you better than you ever were. Are you laughing? You’ve done it, you’ve died but you’ve stayed. You must be laughing. . . .”

-THE LOST GIRL 

And, just in case you missed it before:  

ONE WEEK TO GO!

The Sad Songs Blogfest! (a.k.a Shed Tears Now)

Brace yourselves for some serious boo-hooing. What better way to celebrate the end of the week, right? Today is the Sad Songs Blogfest, hosted by Spunk on a Stick, so pop over to the link to see her song choices and the list of fellow boo-hooers!

(Sorry if it takes me a while to visit everyone on the list. I'll do my best!)

What the blogfest is about: list the songs that move your spirit, cut deep into your soul, and threaten to break your heart.

I love this theme! Some of the greatest songs in the world are sad songs. I sing to my baby (whether he likes it or not is another question, but that's neither here nor there), I yowl in the shower, I listen to the radio in the car, and, most importantly, I write with music. All of my books/stories/projects have a playlist (in fact, you can see THE LOST GIRL's playlist here.)

Which means picking just a few songs was almost impossible, but here we go. They're in no particular order. 

What these songs are about doesn't really matter. The only thing they have in common is all of these have made me cry. Yes, I am a sap.

1. Someone Like You, Adele

Ah, Adele. I'm sure this song is supposed to be as hopeful as it is sad, but I bawl. Bawl like a baby.

2. White Blank Page, Mumford & Songs

If you haven't heard this one, go do it. It's amazing.

3. Now We Are Free, Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerrard

Okay, so I don't even know what Lisa's singing about, but if this song didn't make you weep copious tears at the end of Gladiator, you're not human. I'm just sayin'.

and finally

4. My Heart Will Go On, Celine Dion

I know. Cheesiest choice ever, right? But I can't help it. There's that bit at the end, where everything crests, and I shed embarrassing tears every time. (Seriously cannot believe I'm admitting this...)

What are your favourite sad songs?

Watching Willow Websplash!

 
Today is the official launch day of Talli Roland's second novel Watching Willow Watts - and she's hosting a fun 'If I Could Be Anyone, I'd Be...' websplash to celebrate! If you have a minute do pop over to her blog and celebrate with her, if you haven't already!

Here's a little bit about Willow's story-

For Willow Watts, life has settled into a predictably dull routine: days behind the counter at her father's antique shop and nights watching TV, as the pension-aged residents of Britain's Ugliest Village bed down for yet another early night. But everything changes when a YouTube video of Willow's epically embarrassing Marilyn Monroe impersonation gets millions of hits after a viewer spots Marilyn's ghostly image in a frame. 

Instantly, Willow's town is overrun with fans flocking to see the 'new Marilyn'. Egged on by the villagers -- whose shops and businesses are cashing in -- Willow embraces her new identity, dying her hair platinum and ramming herself full of cakes to achieve Marilyn's legendary curves. 

But when a former flame returns seeking the old Willow, Willow must decide: can she risk her stardom and her village's newfound fortune on love, or is being Marilyn her ticket to happiness? 

You can buy the Kindle edition on Amazon UK here or Amazon US here. 

I'm halfway through the book right now and loving it - honestly, it's so fun! - so GO! GO CHECK IT OUT! Inhale. Exhale. I'm calm. Don't worry. 

And on to the websplash... 

I can't think of anyone I'd want to be! At least not permanently. But if I could be anyone just for a day, I'd be Kurt Cobain.

Yeah, weird choice, right? I mean he was a boy, for a start. Which I am not. And he didn't exactly have the happiest life either. But I find him pretty darn fascinating anyway. I love music but have no musical talent, so I am always in awe of it - and I think I would have liked to spend a day in Kurt Cobain's head. Just to see where those songs came from; or how it felt to have calloused fingers and a desperate itch to play. Maybe I'd be happy being any musician for a day - I'd love to be Adele! - but I'm choosing Kurt for this websplash. 

That's my pick! Who's yours? 

If you're interested in taking a look at other bloggers' choices, Talli has a list up here. Happy mid-week, everyone!

The Soundtrack of Your Life

It's a Friday. It's not a day for deep thinking. My brain is aching enough from intensive revisions and the knowledge that it's a gorgeous day outside, but I am stuck indoors. So here, I'll throw out a fun and random question instead: 

If you could pick any musician/composer to write the soundtrack of your life, who would it be?

Extra points for giving your reasons too, like explaining the mood you'd see your soundtrack setting and giving us examples of the musician's/composer's work!

My pick? Hans Zimmer.

For those of you who don't know who this is, he composes music for movies. Some of his soundtrack hits include Gladiator, the background music in The Lion King, Angels and Demons and pretty much every other amazing piece of film music ever. Yeah, I love him a little bit. His soundtracks are always so emotional and sweeping - moving from light to heart-pounding to angsty - and he often has an awesome violinist playing along.

Then again, maybe it's my book's soundtrack I'd like him to compose, not my life's. I suspect this may well be a case of author-character confusion. So feel free to choose the soundtrack for your book instead of your life if that's more appealing!

Who's your pick?

"Wake up, open the door, and escape to the sea"

My new song obsession is Blaqk Audio's 'Wake Up, Open the Door, and Escape to the Sea'. The song does not at any point use those words, but it's a lovely, lovely song anyway. Any fellow fans out there? 

I've been listening to it so much, I'm probably going to hate the very mention of it in a few days. I hope not, though, because it's done such an amazing job of inspiring me! The moment I started listening to it, about a thousand images from Book Two of ECHOES leapt into my head, and my characters started talking to each other, and it was just wonderful to sit there and listen.

What song can't you stop playing today? How has it inspired or moved you?

I read Maggie Stiefvater's Shiver for the first time this week. If you haven't read it, do. It's amazing. I read like a maniac, but even I haven't read a book I've loved this much in a while. I've also been reading some retellings of 'Beauty and the Beast', like Robin McKinley's Beauty and Alex Flinn's Beastly, both of which I really liked.

I'm going to stay at Steve's for a couple of weeks on Monday, so my blogging might be a little erratic, but odds are it shouldn't change.

I've created a new page for the blog, where I describe each of my present and ongoing writing projects. I thought this would be nice to have, but also useful for any of you who are new to the blog or who lose track of what I'm referring to when I mention a certain book. The link's at the top, right beneath the header, next to the 'Home' page. Hopefully it's bright and noticeable, and I do hope you'll take a peek sometime!

To any aspiring writers who are daunted by the finding-an-agent process, Roland has a great post about how to get yourself out of the slushpile over here.

Finally, just a reminder about the Character Interview Blogfest on the 15th of June. Do join in, I'm sure we'll all have lots of fun getting our characters to be cooperative! The signup sheet's in the sidebar, below my little greeting. If you're interested, pop your details in the linky stuff and you're good to go!

F.E.A.R

If you're in the mood for a quick laugh as well as in the spirit to admire a bit of cleverness, have a look at the following song: 'F.E.A.R' by Ian Brown. Every line of the song has four words in it, and each of those words follows the pattern of beginning with F, then E, then A, then R. For example: "(F)orget (e)verything (a)nd (r)emember..."

What's amazing is, it makes sense.

It made me laugh and it also made me wonder: could I pull such a feat off? Probably not, but let's all have a try, shall we? Pick a word, and write four lines of a song that make sense, each line of which must follow the above pattern. Post it into the comments! I'd love to see somebody else try this and probably do better than I will.

My attempt: L.O.V.E (yep, I'm a cheesy sap, why not?)

Lucky Oliver volleyed everything,
Losers out, victory everywhere,
Lucky Oliver's victims eschewed
Lovely outraged vindictive [grr, no words come to mind here]...

So that was tripe, wasn't it? But it was the best I could do. Clearly, cleverness with words is not my thing. A worrying omen, for a writer...  Still. I do enjoy entertaining myself with things like this.

Does love ever die?

To follow on from two recent posts, I thought I'd talk about new music that's helped me get a better handle on the tone and mood of my works-in-progress. 

I'm obsessed with musicals. I'm not kidding about this, some might argue it's a clinical, fundamental kind of obsession. My mother is hugely musical, and her love of musicals crept into the womb and into my childhood. While I can't sing a note, I'm more than happy to run through entire musicals anyway. My favourite is Jesus Christ Superstar, followed closely by Les Miserables and The Phantom of the Opera, both tied in second place. Wicked comes in at third, missing the cut to second place only because I like fewer actual songs. I think I know every word of Jesus Christ Superstar, and most from Les Mis and Phantom. I know I've certainly driven poor Steve mad because I've often started singing a musical from beginning to end, and refused to stop.

Which makes it rather astonishing that it was only about a week ago when, courtesy of my mother of course, I found out about Love Never Dies, the sequel to The Phantom of the Opera. I downloaded the album yesterday, started listening to it, and bam! Musical inspiration.

It was rather funny, actually. Because all those scenes that had been writing themselves in my head? Well, when I started listening to 'Beneath a Moonless Sky', I sort of jerked upright and thought but this is just what I was thinking about earlier, about [insert my main characters' names here].


Other recent musical inspiration: 'Another Heart Calls' by the All-American Rejects, 'All The Right Moves' by One Republic and the music from the Doctor Who episode 'End of Time' (the bit where the Master saves the Doctor. Sorry if I just spoiled that for you.)


Any suggestions? What do you listen to when you need inspiration?

Setting the Scene... to music

I'm not the first writer to confess that music helps me write, nor will I be the last. I'll admit that there are times when I want/need nothing more than silence to be able to concentrate on a particularly difficult scene. More often than not, however, a particular song or piece of music will do wonders in helping me set the tone and mood of a scene. And tone and mood is so important to me... I can't write if either feels flat.

For instance, while writing ECHOES, there's a certain 'death scene' towards the end of the novel (no, I will not be mentioning who, what, when or how). And listening to Snow Patrol's 'Run' was absolutely perfect. Admittedly, writing the scene made me tear up anyway, but the song just amplified the mood and helped me construct the words better. I think. 

Then there are the faster, quicker-paced scenes, and listening to Michael Jackson's 'Smooth Criminal' made a particular one flow so much better than if I had written it to silence, or to any other kind of music. 

Of course, ninety per cent of the time, instrumental music works so much better for me than songs with lyrics, just because the lyrics in the latter can distract me from what I'm actually writing about, and the next thing I know, I've branched off from a poignant, tender love scene to something vaguely drug-related. Uh-huh. What a mess. I know. On the instrumental front, I love Immediate Music, Hans Zimmer pieces, Audiomachine... yikes, this list could go on.

So, for anyone who might be curious today, here's some of the music I listened to while writing ECHOES. (Hopefully, one day, people might get to read the book and it might then be clearer where each song fits in. Until then, or if that never happens, think of this as a glimpse into what went on behind the scenes, while the book unfolded.)

1.        Cinema Bizarre – Forever or Never

2.       Michael Jackson – Beat It

3.       Iron Maiden – Fear of the Dark

4.      Coldplay – Fix You

5.       AFI – This Time Imperfect

6.      Missy Higgins – Where I Stood

7.       Apocalypta – I Don’t Care

8.      Michael Jackson – Smooth Criminal

9.      Snow Patrol – Set the Fire to the Third Bar

10.    Madonna – This Used to Be My Playground

11.     Damien Rice – 9 Crimes

12.    Globus – Orchard of Mines

13.    Declan Flynn – Ease My Pain

14.    Evanescence – Before the Dawn

15.    Audiomachine – House of Cards (No Choir)

16.    Paramore – We Are Broken

17.    Red – Start Again

18.    Snow Patrol – Run

19.    Within Temptation – Angels

20.   Queen – Who Wants to Live Forever

On a further music note, I've just gotten obsessed with Simian Mobile Disco's 'Audacity of Huge'. Thanks for that, Steve. 

Insomniac Chronicles

I suppose the title is shameless hyperbole. I'm not really an insomniac. Nevertheless, I think it probably says a fair bit about me if I tell you that it's nearly seven in the morning, it's gotten light outside, and I haven't yet been to bed. I write this with the heavy, tired yet wide awake eyes of somebody who has been having a very difficult time sleeping lately. 

I've been doing a half-module on sleep this year. The Literature of Sleep. We've spent so many hours analysing novels that focus on sleep and dreams. We've spent hours discussing insomnia, narcolepsy, dreams, sleepwalking, metaphors, allegory, sleep as healing, and so forth. What I'd give for one of those seminars now. Talking so much about sleep always made me sleepy in spite of the fact that they were very interesting seminars. I could use that now. But, without a seminar, I'm left on my own, in a very pretty student bedroom the size of a matchbox, with a desk light and a lamp with a dull bulb because the old one fused. So, instead of pondering sleep or sleeping, why not use that time productively?

Blog posts are productive, me thinks.

I've been watching an awful lot of Grey's Anatomy. Am madly in love with Kevin McKidd, whose Owen Hunt and Poseidon are both properly edible, and who happens to be a fantastic actor to boot. So, I've been watching Grey's Anatomy when I can't sleep, or when I can't work. I was hoping to finish a dissertation chapter today, but I haven't done that; and I was hoping to finish the first chapter of Half today, but I haven't done that either. Instead, I've done absolutely nothing useful and will have a heck load to catch up on over the rest of the week. Must keep up with my weekly quotas of academic/book writing.

On the writing front, I've received two more rejections to my query for ECHOES. That brings the total up to 4 rejections out of 10 letters sent, of which only one was a request for a partial before that was rejected. Ah, well. 

Have discovered a new song. Lenka - Trouble is a Friend. I love this song, and when I usually discover new songs I love, I normally listen to them constantly until I'm sick of them. Listen count of this song at the moment: six times. Joyful.

I might try to write more of Half. I wonder if I'll ever get to bed this morning, or if I'll have to stay up all day and go to bed really early tonight.

I blame Grey's Anatomy. All those doctors and those unearthly hours and those long shifts without sleep. It infects you. 




Update at 8:09 AM. Have now listened to the song about 16 times. Might need sleep.

Bruv, Bruv

First off, Stop Crying Your Heart Out. Oh, I do love this song. My character Sean is a big fan of Oasis, so I try to listen to them when I can. Research, you know? (Or so I claim. In reality, one might call it procrastination.)

On a different note, I thought I'd share a story I remembered today. My friend Amina claimed about a year ago that, whilst walking through the streets of Lancaster one afternoon, she overheard the following conversation. I remember laughing so hard and can actually recall almost every word she said.

[The scene. Two trackpant-wearing young men hover beside a pigeon, that happens to be pecking at a discarded piece of KFC chicken.]

Boy1: Bruv, check it out. 
Boy2: That's wicked, bruv.
Boy1: It's eating it, bruv.
Boy2: That's like bruv eating bruv, bruv.
Boy 1: Bruuuv...

Now if you're anything like me, you'll probably laugh and then doubt very much that this actually happened. Happily, I'm quite convinced Amina was telling me the truth. Not only because I've overheard many such bruv-filled conversations myself, but because, in Lancaster, the home of pigeons-flocking-the-cobbled-streets, this seems more than likely. It's wonderfully, delightfully true.