A minor character decides to take a more prominent role: welcome Richard
Introduction.
Hello. I am Richard, I don't believe I know any of you, bar Steve. Delighted to make your accquaintance. If my name rings a bell, it may be because you have read my dramatically unpopular, and mostly unread previous novels - the 1566 word novella Stupendous Failure, and the even more efficient, 17 word courtroom drama, The Judicious Sentence. Those, as you may have guessed were my previous two attempts at NaNoWriMo, and this, coincidentally, is my third. If you do not know me from those, then my name has only been singled out once elsewhere because I have the dubious honour of spread the U of A's chapter of NaNoWriMo to England.
If music be the fuel of fifty-thousand words
As I sit here in my tweed jacket, stroking my moustache and sipping my tea, I find myself wondering whether there is anything I can do to postpone the writing of my most recent novel. After kindly being granted permission by Steve to blog in these here holy pages, I thought I might ask a question regarding something I read in the No Plot? No Problem book. What music, if any, do you find helps you write? During my first day of writing yesterday, I found that the comforting lyrical & musical blandness of Eighties Cock Rock has helped me lose my Inner Editor and write eight pages full of poorly composed sentences, tied together with extremely tenuous plot-lines that spit in the face of every single element on my First Magna Carta.
Hello. I am Richard, I don't believe I know any of you, bar Steve. Delighted to make your accquaintance. If my name rings a bell, it may be because you have read my dramatically unpopular, and mostly unread previous novels - the 1566 word novella Stupendous Failure, and the even more efficient, 17 word courtroom drama, The Judicious Sentence. Those, as you may have guessed were my previous two attempts at NaNoWriMo, and this, coincidentally, is my third. If you do not know me from those, then my name has only been singled out once elsewhere because I have the dubious honour of spread the U of A's chapter of NaNoWriMo to England.
If music be the fuel of fifty-thousand words
As I sit here in my tweed jacket, stroking my moustache and sipping my tea, I find myself wondering whether there is anything I can do to postpone the writing of my most recent novel. After kindly being granted permission by Steve to blog in these here holy pages, I thought I might ask a question regarding something I read in the No Plot? No Problem book. What music, if any, do you find helps you write? During my first day of writing yesterday, I found that the comforting lyrical & musical blandness of Eighties Cock Rock has helped me lose my Inner Editor and write eight pages full of poorly composed sentences, tied together with extremely tenuous plot-lines that spit in the face of every single element on my First Magna Carta.
Labels: music
posted by Rich at 2:23 AM
5 Comments:
I find anything instrumental is probably safe. Anything with lyrics, and I either start singing along, completely ignoring my novel, or elements of the lyrics start working their way in to the dialogue, which is weird. Entertaining, but weird.
Yesterday I was rocking out to Shostakovich's 15th symphony, as its cataclysmic wasteland vibe is just what my cataclysmic wasteland setting called for.
Welcome Richard.
I like your intro; and even more particularly I like your title.
I agree with C., I stick to instrumental music, otherwise I just get distracted by the lyrics. There's a wide selection of stuff out there from classical to trance to nature sounds that can help get you into the mood you want to create in your novel.
You don't really know me either, except insofar as we met once at a cross-dressing event in November 2005, and the resulting photos required a Facebook friendship to allow for proper tagging.
And I find the opposite of what C. and Sarah do - lyrics are key. Leonard Cohen always helps get me in a novelling mood.
Thanks Sarah, I enjoyed yours as well, in fact i enjoyed your title so much that I decided to steal it!
Now that I think about it Steve, you're quite right. How odd. I think my perception of the level of intimacy of our accquaintance must have been increased subconciously due to the length of time, and amount of energy, taken up by the challenge you introduced me to!
I can see the appeal of instrumental music, though I'm with Steve here in that words help me get along. Cohen's might be a little too engrossing for my tastes. I tend to go for things that are uptempo and fairly whimsical, like early Blink 182 or the Vandals.
You're all right, and therefore you're all wrong. It depends on the context. Sometimes lyrics can distract you, it's true, but other times they can inspire you. Personally, I intend to write at least one chapter based on one or more Beatles songs.
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