Selective Listening

Happy Fourth of July, everyone.

I don't normally listen to music while I write--not to have the distraction. I love music of all types from classical and opera to old ballads and country and western. But I tend to get so caught up in the melody, the lyrics of a song, that all of a sudden I'm humming along, swaying to the tune, and I've forgotten that I'm supposed to be writing.

Yet I also find music to be an inspiration.

For a while I wrote books with musical titles: Unforgettable, Just One of Those Things, Oh, Susannah, and Danny Boy. They were all my titles, too, from concept to print! I guess they worked from a marketing department standpoint because no one changed them.

For whatever reason, those titles actually seemed to make my writing easier.

With the memory of the particular song clear in my mind, if not actually floating through the air from a pair of sound-system speakers, the tone of the story became almost automatic. The emotions flowed. Even characterization seemed easier to develop. I don't know why this happened. But it did.

With Danny Boy I made an exception to my no-listening-while-writing rule.

Every morning, before I began to work, I played that song on the piano (maybe I was procrastinating). I'm not a very good pianist, mind you, but I did have an excellent arrangement of that old standard, which--as it does for my heroine in the book--always makes me weep. It was kind of like having a story conference with myself to start the day. I played, I wept, I wrote. Perfect.

And sometimes, without its title, music helps to inspire a story. The germ of Danny Boy, in addition to that song, also came from a Garth Brooks album. In my book the hero is a professional bull rider, and in the song, "Wild Horses," a rodeo cowboy calls his girlfriend from the road in Cheyenne, Wyoming. He knows he must quit the circuit, which he loves, as he keeps promising to do, "before I hurt her more than she loves me."

I love that line.

Its message was exactly what I needed then--Danny's goal, even at thirty-six to keep riding bulls until, finally, he wins the world championship. Yet if he keeps going, following his dream, will he lose the woman he loves but left behind? The wife who needs him to help raise their son?

There's another cut on this album that helped, too, with my book. It's called "Wolves," about the difficulty of being a rancher. It's a sad song that compares a friend's foreclosure by the bank to a pack of wolves bringing down cattle in a winter storm. It's about loss and hope and surviving, and in Danny Boy his Montana ranch is also in jeopardy, though of a different sort.

Oh, goodness. I'm doing it right now: sitting here, listening to that song on the computer, and feeling the inspiration, the distraction, all over again.

Music is, for me then, a little bit of both.

But then, we Geminis do tend to have somewhat split personalities!

And if that helps with my writing--with the next book--that's just fine with me. Maybe I'll do another story with a Western setting.

Music - inspiration or distraction?

First of all, let's get this straight. I love music - of almost all kinds. In fact, I can't think of a kind of music I don't like, though not all at the same time - and at some times I like one thing and others, another.

If I had to have only kind of music - it would be blues. But if all I ever listened to was the blues, that would make for a very specific type of writing, wouldn't it? Now that's something I'd like to do a survey on - how many of you writers listen to a specific kind of music all the time - and does that affect your writing? If so, how? Wouldn't that be fun? Okay, I've stolen that idea so none of you can use it. But maybe that's why I listen to a whole bunch of different things.

But I don't, ever, listen to music while I'm writing. It's very very very quiet in my house when I'm writing.

I think I'm easily distracted - okay, no thinking about it - I AM easily distracted. I turn off the "you've got mail" feature on my email because even if I'm sitting away from my computer and I hear that sound, I jump up to see who's been mailing me. Most times, it's junk mail but I still get up and get distracted. I don't answer the phone and I really should put it on Do Not Disturb so that I don't hear it ringing, but then I'd still see the light flashing so why bother?

So music is a no-no. Very occasionally I will put on a piece of classical music - generally Bach - if I'm still working late into the evening. It can't have words, not even in another language, because I'll try and make up words for them. It can't be a piece of music that ever had words put to it (like for a movie or a commercial) because then I'll sing them. The reason I like Bach is because in some ways his music is quite abstract, there isn't a melody that I feel compelled to follow.

I do, though, once I'm finished what I'm doing, put on some music to cheer me up or make me cry or make me dance. Some nights I'll sit next to my CD player and play the same song over and over and over again, singing along with it the whole time until I get the perfect inflection. I NEVER get the perfect notes (I'm not a great singer!). Most recently, it's been Patsy Cline singing You Belong to Me. You know....

See the pyramid along the Nile
Watch the sunrise on a tropic isle
Just remember, darling, all the while
You belong to me...

I love that song...

So, for me music is a distraction - at the right time it's a wonderful distraction, at others it's a terrible one. I suspect most things are like that...

Kate

Blog contest

First, the two winners of June's contest are photoquest and deseng.

Hi, you two, please email me at kate@kateaustin.ca with your names and mailing addresses and the prizes will be on their way to you.

The July contest began July 1 (so if you posted after that you'll be entered in the July contest) and the prizes are from Hank Phillippi Ryan and Stevi Mittman. Post and post often!!!

Kate

Distractions?

Distractions? Who has distractions? Writers are notorious for finding any excuse for not getting their pages done. It’s not that we don’t love our work; we just need a few warm-up exercises to get us cranked up and in the mood to create stories. For me, distractions come in many shapes and forms. One of the main ones is the mail. Our mailman is sort of like the one in that Chevy Chase movie--Funny Farm--I think was the name. That mailman would fly down the road and toss the mail out without stopping. Ours is almost as bad. He used to come late in the day--which was great since I usually knock off work around three or four. Now he comes at 9:30 AM, just about the time I’m getting into my next chapter. Of course, I have to stop and read the mail, which usually contains a pile of lovely, tempting catalogues. I am a shopper, no doubt about that. So I naturally will drop everything to look at my catalogues. Not a good idea. I look up an hour later and my poor characters are stranded in mid-sentence, waiting for me to get back into our story.

Inspirations are a lot easier to handle. I get inspirations from reading, from music, and from walking around the neighborhood. A good long walk will usually help me figure out a plot problem. A song can help me set the mood for a scene. I haven’t combined the two yet--no
I-pod for me--I like to hear the birds chirping and the traffic whizzing by. But when I do listen to music I love everything from Jimmy Buffet to the Beatles to Bach and Beethoven. I love hymns that move my soul and I love good old fashioned rock and roll. Music brings out the emotions in me, while I try to bring out the emotions of my characters. So when I’m stuck, music will sometimes give me the push I need to take a scene to the next level. Of course, music can also distract me by pulling me so into the song that I'm sitting there, bouncing around in my chair and singing at the top of my lungs instead of being a studious, serious writer. But music helps to soothe me, too. And it certainly can inspire more complex, conflict-centered writing. Just think of a Johnny Cash song all about angst and pain and you'll understand. That's why I do love music of all kinds and I'm so glad that I'm able to enjoy such diverse choices when listening to good music. Some of my favorites are "Bridge Over Troubled Water", "The Long and Winding Road" and "How Great Thou Art." Oh, and Jimmy Buffet's duet with Martina McBride, "Trip Around The World."

There are many distractions and inspirations in a writer’s life. I guess the mixture of the two is what makes our job so unique. Even distractions can lead to story ideas, and so can good music. I’ve gotten lots of ideas for books while singing in church. I’m distracted by my ideas, but the paradox of that is that the very idea came to me while singing and being distracted in the first place. It’s quirky, but it works. So the best advice is to take anything in life--a distraction, a challenge, a crisis, or a joy, and allow that to become part of a good story. And music offers us all of these elements. We need the music of life to make our characters real. After all, our characters are only human. They get distracted and they get inspired, just as we do. And I love being able to help them along with my own experiences. That is, when I’m not busy looking at pretty things in my catalogues or dancing around my office to the tune of "Cheeseburger in Paradise"!

Lenora Worth :)

my favorite literary heroine

Wow, this is a tough one. It's like trying to name a favorite flavor of ice cream. They're all delicious in their own way. But here are some that have stuck in my mind.

There's Scarlett O'Hara, of course, who's wily, wild, and stunningly beautiful. How can you compare her in-your-face presence to the quiet strength of Jane Austen's Elinor Dashwood (so wonderfully played by Emma Thompson in the movie)?

And speaking of Jane Austen and Emmas, Emma Woodhouse is also one of my favorite female literary characters.

There's the mystery set: Agatha Christie's Miss Marple, Sue Grafton's Kinsey Milhone, Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta. And let's not forget Millie Benson's Nancy Drew!

Then there's the mystery-suspense/comedy heroines, including Lori Avocato's Pauline Sokol, Stevi Mittman's Teddi Gallo, and of course, Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum.

On the romance side, Joy Nash's heroines are always strong and intelligent. My favorite was Rhiannon in Celtic Fire.

I loved Amy Tan's LuLing in The Bonesetter's Daughter, and Alice Walker's Celie in The Color Purple.

There are dozens--maybe hundreds--more. But as Dorothy Parker once said, "Brevity is the soul of lingerie."

DLW

Brenda Novak's Juvenile Diabetes auction

The Next authors donated an embroidered tote bag and 40 autographed Next books to the auction. The high bidder and winner of this great prize was Mary McCoy. Mary, the tote bag and books are on their way.

The auction raised $141,700 this year - thanks to everyone who contributed or who bid on any of the great items in the auction.

Mary, congratulations and enjoy the books.

Kate

Oh Dear, Oh Dear!

Favorites again.

Let me tell you about a play I saw the other night. It's called A Marriage Minuet, and one of the characters in it is a college English professor. We see him lecturing to his classes (looking at the audience as if we are his students) and singling out one student, whose name is Cohen-Reinhart or something like that, and who he refers to as a "hyphenate" to his wife.

But I digress.

He's talking to this student and he says something to the effect of: "Favorite authors? Favorite? Favorite is something that should be reserved for ice cream flavors, not for the heights of mythical proportion to which authors aspire and have, over the centuries, the eons, reached." Okay, I'm paraphrasing in the extreme because I wasn't exactly taking notes. My point is that choosing favorites is simply inappropriate when it comes to the breadth and depth of literature and commercial fiction.

Which is to say. . .favorite heroine? Oh, puh. . . lease!

I love every heroine who's ever said something smart, sassy, sharp. I love every heroine who has said something touching, deep, true. I love my heroines because they reflect the best parts of me, and they overcome the flaws and weaknesses I find in myself.

I love the very idea of a heroine...not a main character, not a point of view character, but a true heroine. According to Wikipedia, which I realize is not any authority, but I love the way they put this, a heroine is: From the Greek ἣρως, in mythology and folklore, a hero (male) or heroine (female) are characters that in the face of danger and adversity, from a position of weakness display courage and the will for self-sacrifice, that is, heroism, for some greater good, originally of martial courage or excellence but extended to more general moral excellence.

Any woman who manages this in a book is my favorite, and any author that manages to make it believable is my heroine!

Stevi Mittman