Playlist

What are your feelings about music and the creative process?

I grew up loving the austere writing environment--a quiet room of my own. Obviously, this is more of a dream, and I find myself writing everywhere with all sorts of background noise.

When I was in college, I spent a year abroad in Florence, Italy. My apartment mates liked to get a bottle of wine and talk into the night. I would try to work on papers but found myself focusing on the conversation going on outside my room. So, and this will date me, I would put on my trusty Walkman and drown out my world with cassette tapes. I often wonder what the influence of U2, Tom Waits, and The Cure had on my essay assignments that year.

I don't often listen to music. I'm usually driving when I do, but I find certain songs inspire me to find certain scenes or remind me of characters. Specific songs evoke a feeling or set a mood for a scene.

I decided this past week to start working on a playlist--a collection of songs I use for inspiration for my novel. I'm still experimenting on whether I want to listen to the songs while I write, or I may use them as a way to get me in the right mood to start the creative process.

What do you do?

Expectations

Pizza with caramelized onions, goat cheese, and fresh thyme.

Beet tops sautéed with garlic scrapes.

Honey ice cream with tart rhubarb compote.

The veggies and herbs were from my garden and the farmer’s market. I used as many organic ingredients as I could find.

I’m not a rich woman with money or time, but I love good food and will pay extra and make the time to make a meal.

It’s easy to fall in love with real food, slow food, sustainable food . . . Whatever you want to call eating well.

I started to love cooking as a child. I focused on sweets—cookies of every imaginable combination, pies, cakes (anything involving frosting). When I became a vegetarian in my early twenties, I started cooking more and more of my own meals.

My passion continues.

This may sound lovely or possibly preachy, which is not my intent.

My cooking frenzy has a downside. I can’t go out anymore and eat fast food, and my concept of fast food expands. Though my arteries may thank me, my high expectations leave me disappointed and wanting more.

As good eating advocates deal with our unhealthy food industry, I applaud them with enthusiasm. I’m glad to see there’s finally a movement toward healthier eating.

I have high expectations with food. Is it too much to ask for real food to eat?

Of course not!

Naturally, these expectations spill over into everything else.

Writing, of course.

Yet, like food, good writing comes down to being honest and using the best words in the right combination to make the finished product simply delicious.

Yes, I know, easier said than done.

Time to cook!

Writing Evil

My current wip has a true antagonist. When this villain arrived in my story, I was thrilled. I've never had a real bad guy character before. I thought it was going to be fun. I planned and anticipated his dastardly acts and despicable deeds. He would make life impossible for my protagonists.

True confession time: Writing a believable bad guy is HARD.

What is evil? I would like to think that I am not a bad person, so am I capable of getting into the mindset of someone truly bad?

When I was a child, a horrible man lived in my neighborhood. He had a wife who died in a hot tub accident, and later, after he remarried, his new wife and stepson were killed in a boating accident. The second accident turned out not to be an accident (and perhaps the first as well). He killed his wife and stepson to collect insurance money.

I spent many hours thinking about how someone could be so horrible and detached to kill for money. No one had a clue. He was a very polite and gentle man. One day, in a time period between the two incidents, my dog bit him. I suspect she knew he was evil. The rest of us did not.

So, the challenge, how do I reveal evil below the surface? How can I make my villain truly scary?
I may not be a perfect person, but I don't understand evil.

I'm just glad my evil character is a creation, not a real man.

Old School

I'm eighty pages into my new wip, and it hits me . . .

I'm out of control.
I've lost grasp of my original vision.

I think of it like the panicky moment I feel when I take a walk and get lost in the woods (happens often, I'm sorry to say). I have no choice but to walk forward, confidently, until I find a familiar landmark.

Perhaps you can relate.

I had to do something, so I pulled out the paper products and went old school.

First, I knew I wanted to work more on character development, but I didn't want to lose the plot points and quick pacing required for this particular story. Also, this story is told from more than one point of view, so I wanted to make sure each character has a say in what happens.

I pulled out my notebook and made a list of plot points and the characters involved in each.



Next, I purchased a box of index cards in different colors.





I wrote out scenes on the cards and color coded them according to the character doing the action. (Not sure why I made a cross . . .)



I placed all of the cards out on a table and put them in chronological order. I checked to make sure each of the main characters had equal say in the process. I numbered the cards, and stacked them in order. I now have a path to follow.



I would love to hear about some of the old school techniques you use for planning and drafting your work.

The tried and true lives on . . .

The Writing Life: A Flow Chart

Yes, I did design a flow chart.

A simple chart devoid of emotion or complication depicting the life of a writer.

I sketched out my design and shared it with S.C. Watson. He added certain artistic embellishments.

Enjoy.

Please click the image to enlarge.

Listening to Stories

Listening to stories

I recently discovered the joy of listening to audio books. Why hadn’t I made the connection before? I have a 20 minute drive to the main village on the island, so nearly every day I have time to listen.

My apprehension came from the perception that I have to see the words on the page in order to truly appreciate a book. Reading is still my preferred method, but then again, didn’t I spend many years as a child listening to my mom read nursery rhymes and my dad tell his wonderful fantasy stories? Even when I read to my sons, I pause and ponder the way a writer did something on the page I missed while reading silently.

I just finished the audio version of the Inkheart series and lost myself in the beautiful language of the story. I started noticing patterns I would have missed, like patterns of three in exposition. Three represents what we find in nature, in religion, and, oh yes, Schoolhouse Rock (“Three is a Magic Number”). The patterns of three make the fantastic world of Inkheart come alive.

When I see a word on a page, especially if it is a unique or freshly used word, I may pause to notice, but when I hear the word, it resonates on another level entirely. When Funke uses the word supercilious for Orpheus (a character in Inkheart), it has more power when heard. The “s” sound conjures up an image of a snake or the word sly . . . I think “sly as a fox.” A perfect word for this particular character.

More discoveries.

I would love to hear your experiences. I will never give up reading books. I love seeing words, but listing has added another dimension to the experience.

Live Characters

When I was asked to write what inspired me to write Play Noir, I wrote the following:

It was a cold, gray January morning; the kind of day where the wind stabs like merciless steel knives. I hunkered down in my car for a ferry ride to the mainland. I had my laptop computer and a voice activation program. I was wearing a brown fedora. The characters started speaking, and the words appeared on my computer screen. I swear that's exactly what happened.

I was having a little fun. What struck me as interesting is how people responded to the last part. Was I being literal? After all, I was using a voice activation program, so the character’s lines did come out of my mouth and appear on the screen. Was I being figurative? In my mind, the characters appeared and started talking. If you write fiction, you know what I’m talking about, right?

The cool thing about writing plays is the words do appear (even if you use a keyboard), and, if you’re lucky, the characters appear.

Here's what happened to me.

Kaitlyn and Aaimee as Marylou and Jane celebrating the removal of their husband.

Ed and Gary as Jake and Marlowe discussing the cruel, heartless city.

Photos by the talented Anita Holladay.