Music and my Writing Muse

Tags

music, writing

Early in my writing career, I could not listen to music while I wrote my stories of epic fantasy, sci-fi, horror and weird tales. Nothing, nada, nix. The reason being that I am a person with several areas of interest.

If you’ve read my bio in various locations on the web, anthologies and book backcovers, you’d know I have a few musical talents. I’m a professionally trained classical organist. I’ve contributed a couple of pieces to the Moravian Music Foundation, with more on the way. Not to mention my voice training, which has enabled me to keep a range of almost 3 whole octaves on a good day (C2 to B4) after all my years.
Making a long story short, music is as much my creative language as English is.

As a result, for the longest time, music of any genre and writing time were mutually exclusive. I would easily be distracted by thoughts of “that’s a cool chord change,” “Ooh! Polychords!” “How did they get that synth texture?” and a bazillion other interruptions as I was trying to hammer out the next chapter.

With the passing of time, things slowly changed. I can now read and edit with almost any music playing, as long as the volume is low enough. And this past year, I discovered I can finally write while music floats out of my computer speakers.

But not any music. I still require there be no vocals. As soon as I hear a voice singing words, my language centers try to multitask, and get tangled. If I can change the station fast enough, my writing muse is not scared away.

This past year, I’ve been listening to internet radio. I can’t listen to my 500-CD library and streams, because I will sing along to it, losing any hope of writing for an hour or so. For quite a while now,I find I’ve been listening almost exclusively to SOMA-fm (www.somafm.com). Specifically their Groove Salad, Groove Salad Classic, Secret Agent, and Deep Space channels.
Ambient with minimal voices. Sheer bliss! I really must send them a donation and get one of their cool T-shirts.

Here’s the music on SOMA I’ve earmarked during 2022, with the intention getting my own copy in 2023. Not just for listening, but for study in the creation of my own piano/organ/synth compositions.

table, th, td { border: 1px solid black; border-collapse: collapse; }

Artist	Title
Animal Firepower	Nylons
Audio Lotion	Farewell To Vesper
Babble	Sun
Bent	Kisses
Bonobo	Cirrus
Deep	Smokers Delight
Edge Of The Universe	The Synthetics
Elemental Journey	The Band From Atlantis
Fragile State	Panacea
France Dom	Urban Haze
Global Communication	14:31 (Ob-selon Mi-Nos)
Harbor Tea Rooms	Midnight Hour
Higher Intelligence Agency	Skank
Incognito	I Can See The Future
Keston And Westdal	Nebula
Kick Bong	Landscape (Cydelix Remix)
Mauxuam	Sounds A Lot
Module	Empty Space Missing Units
Nacho Sotomayor	Interior
New Deal	Then And Now
Nitemoves	Mikuni
Ott	Joyful Wonder
Polished Chrome	In The Garden Desire
Poly Vinyl	Margaritta
Pretz	Texas Exhale
Promisk	Eyes Like Sun
Quant	Sauna Grease
Secede	Leraine (Feat. Kettel)
Setsuna	Ether
Sounds From The Ground	A Thousand Colours
Telepopmusik	Don’t Look Back
Thomas Lemmer & Andreas Bach	Greater Love (Gold Lounge Remix)
Tycho	Weather See Cypress A Walk PCH
Ulrich Schnauss	Molfsee I Take Comfort in Your Ignorance (Tycho Remix)
Yonderboi	I Am Cgi

Advertisement

My New Year Resolution? 600 dpi!

Tags

anthology, audiobook, novel, resolutions, short fiction, writing

Normally, I don’t do resolutions. But since the past few years have been anything but ordinary, maybe it’s time to fall in line with the trend. I think I have good chance to achieve all these resolutions:

• Publish a short story in a magazine.
• Edit my short fiction “Man of His Word” for 2022’s BWG anthology “Element of Mystery”
• Publish in at least one other anthology.
• Crank out at least one book. Finish the draft, and get as far into editing and searching for a agent/publisher as time allows.
• Produce an audiobook!
• Resume a healthy lifestyle, and lose my Covid-19 weight.

“Man of His Word”
in BWG’s 7th Anthology!

Resolutions that I don’t hold out much hope for…

• Invent a new sport called “Ochsball”.
• Overthrow the government of a country. I think I’ll start small, probably Nauru or Tuvalu. Whichever has the least number of insects. Or spiders.
• Finish a self-paced course on auto-appendectomy.
• Learn scuba diving, and visit R’lyeh.
• Dump a bottle of Rogaine on Jeff Bezo’s head.

Wish me luck!

The Customer is Always Rife

Tags

customer service, exposure, free, writing

“You can have this for free, if you pretend to hold an invisible tray!”

There’s a meme that made the rounds, and one form or another of it still occasionally pops up in my social media input bins:

Oh, believe me — I have many more than just one.
But today, I’ll concentrate on one that is applicable to business, and especially to my current vocation of writing. That thrice-cursed phrase is:

“The Customer Is Always Right!“

No.
They are not.

If the subject is “What color sneakers should I buy?“, then yes, the customer is always right. The choice is essentially immaterial. Little to no additional labor, time, material resources, and/or expense is incurred.
However, there is a line, beyond which, a customer’s demand becomes unreasonable — and the customer is not “always right.” They are wrong, dead wrong, sometimes “please go away so I don’t kill you” dead wrong.
This is something I formulated when discussing this point with a supervisor (back in those salad days when I held down a 9-to-5 in the world of cutting edge microelectronics).
The customer is driven by understandable market forces, and wants to get the biggest bang for their buck. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing at all!
However, difficulty arises when the customer gets intolerably greedy. Their request is of the form, “I want EVERYTHING, I want it for FREE, and I want it NOW.”
Ridiculous, right? How can a producer of goods possibly make a living if everything has to be given away? Hold onto that thought.

So, how does one answer something so unreasonable?
I think the best answer was a graphic I spotted in another supervisor’s office.

You want GOOD and FAST?
It’s gonna cost you. And proportionally to “how fast” and “how good” you desire.
You want FAST and CHEAP?
We can slap any Rube Goldberg thingamabob together. Tada! But the end result might fall apart if you look at it funny.
You want CHEAP and GOOD?
It will take a long time to design and retool. So you ain’t getting it anytime soon. (And you’ll have to buy in bulk.)

Fast forward to the world of writing.
Thanks to the great god Internet, the reader (and sometimes even the publisher) has come to expect all three of the unholy trinity of Good, Fast, Cheap. I won’t wax eloquent anymore on how ignorant and selfish this is, regardless of how prevalent it is.
But I WILL plant my flag in the ground here. I ain’t giving my writing away for free anymore. I expect SOMETHING in return for my blood, sweat and tears. The bait and switch of “you’ll get exposure” doesn’t cut it anymore — for me, at least.
OK, I’m stepping off my soapbox now…

Anyway, my social media advisors tell me I must have a call to action at the end of my blog entries. Trouble is, I have no clue how to transition from a crabby lecture to a pleasing unicorns & rainbows sales pitch. So here it is, pure and unadulterated.

BUY MY BOOKS! Have a nice day!

FINALIST in Indies Today’s BEST Books of 2020

I Detest “Your Favorite Things”

Tags

books, interviews, reviews, writing

Apologies if the above statement raises your hackles, but I do not intend to say that I detest your favorite things, or that I loathe the Sound of Music. It means I dislike being asked “What’s your favorite {anything}?”

My tastes are beyond eclectic. My hobbies are widespread. I have held professional positions in the fields of electronics, physics, math, computer programming, music, graphic arts, computer animation, and of course, writing.

Now comes the problem. With the upcoming release of my book, My Friend Jackson, I will soon be across the internet on blogs, radio, podcasts — anywhere an independent author can crowbar open some space and market his work product. People who know me, will tell you even my personality is a mixed bag of introvert and extrovert. It’s tough to get me going, but once I start, I can easily fill almost any amount of broadcast time and/or print space.

But the question commonly asked in interviews — “What’s your favorite {XYZ}?” — trips me up every time. If I have the presence of mind, I might answer that question with “What time is it?”

My favorite on any topic will change with the month, the day, sometimes even the hour. Music is where I truly have eclectic tastes. One day, I will be listening to a Prokofiev symphony over and over, the next I might be OD-ing on Emerson Lake & Palmer, or any of King Crimson, Andreas Vollenveider, J.S.Bach, Tom Waits, Genesis, Stanley Clarke, Jan Hammer, G.F. Handel, Frank Zappa, Igor Stravinski, Bad Manners, Wendy Carlos, XTC, … well, you get the idea.

Of course, during book tours I’m more likely to be asked what my favorite book is. There I am truly lost. I have no such thing. I may have favorite authors — A.C.Clarke, H.P.Lovecraft and Kurt Vonnegut — but I still would be hard pressed to select one book. Looking across my desk, I fret that my reading pile is now three piles. So who knows if I find a fourth, fifth, etc., favorite author in the near future?
One thing’s for sure – I won’t be bored!

On the topic of new authors, keep your eyes peeled for My Friend Jackson. a YA urban fantasy/horror novel. The tag line?

An Ancient Guardian Has Chosen Her.
Neither the Guilty, the Innocent, nor she are safe.

Bwa-ha-ha-haaa! Amazon pre-orders will start on September 15, and be available on October 1.
OR… you could get a signed copy for free! If you’ve read my previous books, Pindlebryth of Lenland and If I Can’t Sleep, You Can’t Sleep, then file a review for either of both of them on amazon.com. I will select a review at random from each book, and the lucky reviewers will win!

 

Oops! Did My Face Say That?

Tags

POV, proprioception, writing

I have little control over my facial expressions. My eyes will bug out when I hear unbelievable claims. I hardly ever go to amateur musical performances, because I grimace whenever I detect a flat note or off-kilter sound.

I like to believe I am more self-aware than most. I am cognizant of every facial twitch, every sigh, every click of the tongue, every angling of my eyebrows.
It’s only my self-control that is lacking! The instinct to rein in my facial commentary comes too slowly.

Sorry, Mr. Politician, I didn’t mean to roll my eyes at your blatant exaggeration! Nor did I mean to flash that death’s-head rictus at your stupefying claim, Ms. Spokesperson.

It’s this self-awareness that also gets me in trouble with my writing.
Take for example my latest novel, the working title of which is “My Friend Jackson”. It’s a gritty YA urban fantasy/horror, dealing with Jasmine, an inner-city girl tormented by bullying, and the monster that comes unbidden to help her. All written in “Deep 3rd Person” — I’m the little angel/devil on her shoulder, observing what she observes, with the occasional peek into her thoughts.

I rely on my self-awareness to model and portray Jasmine’s thoughts, her fears, her likes and dislikes, and the myriad of angst-driven emotions that fill a teenager’s mind. What frustrates me, is that whenever I describe our heroine’s reactions, well-meaning critiquers circle it in red with the warning “You’ve changed POV!” (Point of View).

Consider these examples when I describe Jasmine’s actions: “she bared her front teeth in a weak snarl,” or “she pulled down her collar, exposing the yellowed bruise.”
I will get at least one “Bad POV!” response, inevitably backed up with the reasoning: “She can’t see her own face.”

And yet these same critics don’t bat an eyelash at the protagonist “raising her eyebrows.”
Wait a cotton-pickin’ minute!
She can’t see her own forehead– so why is the former a no-no, but the latter example is okay?
Riddle me THAT, Batman!

My stance is that the character must be allowed to be aware of their own body.
You want proof? There’s a scientific name for this phenomenon – proprioception. This is the body’s mechanism to know the position, actions and state of any part of the body without looking at it.

And everybody has it. For example, proprioception allows us to touch our nose with our finger, even when our eyes are closed (assuming we’re not tipsy!). Many neurologists refer to proprioception as “the body’s Sixth Sense.”

Proprioception is the sense that allows the character to know, without seeing:
– whether their own cheeks dimple or not,
– whether they raise one or both eyebrows,
– whether a bruised area is exposed or not,
– how far one sticks out their tongue at POV critics,
– whether their hand behind their back is crossing its fingers, or flipping POV critics the bird.

Writers often serve up the following advice – “Use all five senses.” I heartily agree, but let’s go one further — I feel writers are allowed to use all SIX senses.

I therefore plant my flag – it is valid to write anything that can be sensed by the character’s proprioception.

“So there!” he said, followed by a flash of his incisors.

Keep an eye on my Facebook author page for developments on “My Friend Jackson.”

Do As I Say, Not As I Write!

Tags

elmore leonard, writing

If you are a writer, you have probably been pelted by dozens of “rules of good writing” from various sources. And you’ve also most assuredly heard them spouted word-for-word from sources of every stripe. At one end of the spectrum: revered oracles and best-selling authors; the other end populated by bloviating rule quoters and clueless hacks.
Recently, I read an amusing book, “Nabokov’s Favorite Word is Mauve” by Ben Blatt.
Being a bit of a mathematician, I was intrigued by this statistical analysis of writing styles. What tickled my funny bone, however, was the light shed on how much authors actually obey these supposedly “set in stone” rules.

1) Exclamation points
The oft paraphrased rule by Elmore Leonard is “no more than 3 per 100,000 words of prose”. Yet take a look at how often the man himself used them.
Tsk tsk. The oracle uses forty-nine? He broke his own code!

I am relieved to report that my own writing averages about 350 on the above graph, putting me solidly in the middle. In the universe of current authors, that makes me worse that Stephen King, but better than Dan Brown.
Getting back to Mr. Leonard, he at least does deserve credit for being the best of the lot. And keep in mind, his achievement of forty-nine is an average over his entire body of work. But how did the gent perform over his entire career?
This is one instance where the oracle seems to obey his own rule, but only after he sticks his big foot in his mouth.
The rule, as a rule, is still something to which we should pay heed. After all, the above graph shows that quality writing leans toward this advice. Looks like I have some improvements to make, before achieving “Modern Literary” quality.
Aw, nuts! (Oops — another pesky exclamation.)
I think the best advice on exclamation points I’ve heard to date was from a professor at DeSales University: “The sentence must earn it.”

2) Abverbs
Mark Twain’s quote — “If you see an adverb, kill it!” — often echoes in my head (Naughty, naughty, Mr Clemens — you used an exclamation point.) Similarly, Stephen King instructs the writer to avoid “-ly” adverbs, recommending that a weak verb paired with an adverb is better replaced with a strong verb: e.g. replace “ran quickly” with “raced.” Personally, I agree with this advice.
Kudos to Mr. Twain for adhering to his own dictum. King, however needs some remedial work. Though not presented here, Blatt’s book reveals that, like Leonard playing fast and loose with exclamation points, King only obeys his own adverbial advice after the year he penned it in his seminal work, “On Writing.”

3) Opening with Weather
Everyone is familiar with the oft-ridiculed opening, “It was a dark and stormy night,” penned by Bulwer-Lytton. It is generally accepted that good writers follow another one of Leonard’s rules: “Never open a book with weather.” Well, take a look at how often successful authors ignore that advice.
I’m not sure if that’s a condemnation of the quality of certain authors or their
readers.

4) Suddenly!
Again, paraphrasing Mr. Leonard, the rule is “Never use ‘suddenly’.”
I guess as a whole, we writers cannot avoid a steady diet of suddenly’s.

I am pleased to report that I don’t break these rules — at least, not enough to warrant being at the wrong end of these graphs! Don’t believe me? Read my books, and decide for yourself.
If you read them, review them.
If you review them, please alert me if I’ve gotten lazy and broken these rules!