I took Lani Diane Rich's Making Magic and Discovery courses earlier this year. The idea behind "magic" is that you have a Unique You that you bring to work, that makes it original and special, and you need to fuel it before and throughout your writing process. And you can fuel it by watching favorite shows, making collages, making soundtracks etc.
A lot of the advice from these courses were more like affirmations for me than lessons--I naturally began doing this stuff on my own over my past three decades or writing. But it was nice to have someone put a label on this stuff, and say "It's okay spending time watching your favorite movie again... it's not wasting time!" Or to make me feel like I am NOT procrastinating when I work on my soundtrack.
I've had soundtracks for my stories going back to cassette decks. I used to have a row of these mixtapes under my desk. They don't have to correspond to certain characters, or lyrically correspond, they just need to capture the mood. For example the work I've done for my next book (Henry V) has a lot of hip hop and soul attached to it; whereas this book is more acoustic rock.
Here are some of the love songs from the current book:
The original version of this story was a sweet romance. At the same time I was rediscovering Cyndi Lauper, and the great music she's done since the 80s. So this song is from the original soundtrack.
What if all these fears
That we both buy into
Melt away and disappear?
So is this one. And yes, I even like the Rod Stewart version. This is from Robbie Robertson's first solo album after The Band. (He's half Six Nations Mohawk.)
I wanna come when you call
I'll get to you if I have to crawl
My heroine is Mohawk, and hero is French-Canadian, so here's my Mixed Race Song. (LOVE this song, so pretty.) Dating a white person is a huge deal in some aboriginal communities, cause it can affect the official status of your children, your ability to live on the reserve etc. (Isn't Kevin Michael adorable?)
It don't make any difference to me
What the world thinks about us baby
Cause in my heart I will always believe
That we were meant for each other
I love the music here, so beautiful. I like how she's playing with the idea of "selling out"--putting it in the context of a love song, making it sound positive. Cause to date the white guy my heroine's gonna have to sell out... right? We'll see. ;-)
I'm out on a limb
And I'm giving in
I'm selling out I won't fight you no more
...If you ever need love songs for your soundtracks, man... apply to me. I own SO MANY.
I'm gonna sit right here and
Tell you all that comes to me
If you have something to say
You should say it right now
3 comments:
I also took Lani's first classes on Discovery and Revision. She's a fabulous teacher. While some of her content was already known to me, I hadn't actually been doing all of it. I know. go figure.
It was good to make myself embrace each step, and that did make the writing better. I even made a play list, although I still don't write to music with lyrics. But to put it on when I'm in the car or doing housework immediatly puts me back into the story.
I don't have a playlist for writing, but CBC.ca is almost always on - playing through my computer - I switch between the 'classical', 'jazz', and 'blues' stations as my day progresses.
Thanks for another Cindi song.
@Robena - Yeah I put my core list of songs on when puttering about. Though I'm currently making some changes to it, now that Bertie Wooster's in here.
@widders - CBC is just loverly.
Post a Comment