Soothing The Savage Writer
Cross-posted from The Deadline Dames, where you can go and find tons of other writing advice. And fun. And cake. Well, maybe not cake.
No, I’m not having a Cassie Edwards fest over here. I actually had two big blog posts in mind for this week–one about epublishing and another about music. The epub post is going to have to simmer a bit more before it’s ready, so you get the music post. I know, que lastima, right?
What makes this vaguely funny and synchronous is that I just clicked through to Wil Wheaton’s post about music today too. Then, while I was on the treadmill, I thought about it some more. The IPod served up a lot of music from past book soundtracks, which just sealed the deal.
Some days, the universe, I swear she speak to me.
Music is a very integral part of my writing process. I know there must be writers who don’t write to music, but I can’t imagine it. It was always a part of my creative process, from the very first mix tapes (remember cassettes? Jeez, I feel old now.) I recorded off the radio to the advent of ITunes and the idea of “book soundtracks”. Which I would have arrived at sooner or later, but my friend TrashGlam put together a mix CD for smoke back when it was just a collection of pages I printed and bound at Kinkos. It had the the Cardigan’s Erase and Rewind for Rose and Garbage’s Number One Crush for Michael, and if that isn’t a description of their dysfunctional relationship I don’t know WHAT is.
So the “book soundtrack”–a playlist for a certain project–was born. Later I found out other people (like the Selkie) had been doing the same thing for a long time, so I can’t claim to create it. But I can claim to be utterly delighted with the idea and to have stolen it with no remorse, and used it shamelessly.
The stereo sees more use than the television in our house (especially since we put the television out in the garage for long periods of time, and almost forget it’s there). Music on laptops account for even more time. I often leave Pandora.com open in a window while I’m working, and the Selkie and I are always discovering new or new-to-us artists and rifling them for plot bunnies and turns of phrase.
So with that in mind, I thought I’d share a few songs. No, not in a torrent-and-get-sued type of way–I just thought that fans would like to know a couple songs where you can hear my characters clear as day.
For example, at the very end of Tomoyasu Hotei’s Katana Groove you can hear Lucas Villalobos laughing. In the beginning of Rob Zombie’s living dead girl you can hear Eve (What are you thinking?) and Dante (The same thing you are…) before all hell breaks loose and the last fight of To Hell And Back commences. (Warning: Rob Zombie is not for those who are easily offended. You’ve been warned.) Sarah McLachlan’s Fallen is Dante’s song, while Mandalay’s This Life is the song I played over and over while writing Japhrimel’s Fall for Dante.
Sometimes characters will have their own particular themes. Christophe from the upcoming Strange Angels always shows up when I play Herman’s Hermits, especially I’m Into Something Good. (It’s creepy when you consider he’s a 70-year-old on the inside.) And then his love song for the heroine is You’re Sixteen. Creeptastic, no? While Graves gets Guster’s One Man Wrecking Machine. Which says so much about the two characters, doesn’t it?
And then there’s Jill Kismet. The clearing-the-hellbreed-holes scenes in Night Shift were set to the Cure’s Wrong Number, possibly the weirdest song I’ve ever set a fight sequence to. Saul, of course, gets Cusco’s Montezuma, and Jill’s love song for him is the beautiful Black Is The Color, sung by the Corrs. And Perry? He gets the Cure’s Lullaby. (Kismet gets a lot of Cure. Don’t ask me why.)
As for Steelflower, the opening scenes of Kaia coming into Hain on a ship is always set to Delerium’s Terra Firma, the Lara Croft mix. A lot of Delerium goes on my soundtracks. Darik gets various selections from the Bulgarian Women’s Choir. Redfist, of course, gets Two Hornpipes and Celtic Woman’s version of the Ashoken Farewell.
Oddly, a lot of Nikolai’s (from Selene) themes are from the Bulgarian Women’s Choir too. (The two characters are more closely intertwined than I like to admit.) Selene herself gets Mono’s Silicone, and Everything But The Girl’s Before Today.
You get the idea. Music falls in my lap when I’m thinking of characters, and I’ll go on mad jags of finding music on my hard drive (the ITunes store and the local Everyday Music now own my soul, thank you very much) and then the magic happens. Characters start talking, taking on likes and dislikes of their own, and before I know it a book has a playlist and I know what happens. It’s awesome when it works right.
So, how about you? Do you listen to music while you write? Do you use it for characters or just as background noise? I’m also curious to hear from fans–are there certain songs you associate with certain characters or books?
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go play some Charlie Feathers. For some reason the half-vampire private eye in the current short story just loves rockabilly…
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Tags: deadline dames, fellow weirdnesses, Friday Writing, Joy, music, Writing (About)
February 20th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
The interesting thing for me is how often I’m humming Delerium or Rob Zombie while I’m re-reading Dante’s exploits over again. Somehow I’m somehow certain that the trip into hell will go differently on a particularly stormy night or that Eve will turn into a warmer, fluffier version of herself when I have a good cup of coffee and a couple of cats around. I think one of the reasons I love your books and look forward to each of them, regardless of which story line, is my imagination lets me run the characters around a bit and see what the possibilities would be if it came out differently.
Thanks, for the creation of the worlds, the characters, struggling to get it just so on a page and putting what has to mean so much to you… to all of us. Whether it be in the form of stories, books, journal entries, advice or just simply a call in the dark for the rest of us that live in our heads most of the time. It’s greatly appreciated, even if we forget to tell you.
February 20th, 2009 at 10:55 pm
I can’t write while music is playing, because I’m prone to distraction and before very long, my brain is following the lyrics of the songs instead of writing.
However, I do end up picking out certain songs for each new project and listening to them rather obsessively during the period of a new project while I’m not actually writing (i.e., while cooking dinner, folding laundry, making notes, doing research, paying bills online, etc.) Same general inspirational process, just between the lines instead of on them.
February 21st, 2009 at 5:34 am
I don’t write (I’m still at the headache-with-pics stage, as Fry from Futurama would say), still I find myself often enough thinking “hey, this sounds just like…”.
So, while reading about Japhrimel’s fall, I kept hearing Depeche Mode’s “I am you” in my head, while “Home”, also by Depeche Mode, makes me think of Jill.
I have no clear idea of the why, but Ryan Adams’s “Magick” makes me think of Dante.
Ani DiFranco’s “Not a pretty girl” can apply to both Dante, Jill and Selene.
And lastly, Alter Bridge’s “White Knuckles” reminds me of Selene.
That’s all, I think.
February 21st, 2009 at 1:01 pm
LOL. Whenever I read your Jill Kismet series I listen to the band “The Bravery” In specific the song “believe” However, a lot of times when I’m reading the interaction of Perry and Jill I listen to Every Word Is a knife in My Ear. Mikhail’s memory? Tragedy Bound. Perry’s number one song tho is In a Hearbeat (from 28 days later soundtrack) it also belongs to Nikolai who also has Ave Maria by Christina E. Hale
Dante’s book I loved fallen for her and evansblue’s “cold (but I’m still here) as well as “Diamond Dogs” by Beck which seems suited for her world filled with flying hovers, slicboards and everyday interaction with Death and demons.
February 21st, 2009 at 4:00 pm
…and I was just reminded of John Connolly, an awesome irish writer who made a sort of Greatest Hits cd with all the songs he listened to/associated with some scenes he had written in his Charlie Parker series. I can’t remember which book was it, I think “The Black Angel”, anyway it had a little plastic sleeve on the last page with the cd in it. It was great insight on the books.
February 25th, 2009 at 6:58 am
Hi Lilith,
After listening to you on FangsFurFey (you still are the Author Most Likely To Give Me That Needed Kick In The Ass), I finally got my hands on a copy of Working For the Devil. I’m reading it a lot faster than I want to. Books like this should be savored, but I can’t seem to stop.
on the subject of music: I will not be surprised if a lot of the songs/artists you go to for Dante’s series–get quietly absorbed onto my playlist for my own heroine. Because they just seem to fit. So thanks.
and damn you, Japhrimel, you sly bugger, I’m totally falling for you.