The Undercover Soundtrack – Nick Cook

‘Memory lightning’

Once a week I host a writer who uses music as part of their creative environment – perhaps to connect with a character, populate a mysterious place, or hold a moment still to explore its depths. This week my guest is debut science fiction novelist Nick Cook @CloudRiders

Soundtrack by Awolnation

Music has woven a fine thread throughout my writing career. Whenever I need to screen out distractions, particularly as I have a love of working in great coffee shops, the earbuds come out and iTunes gets powered up. As the music begins to cast its magical spell, the world around me is reduced to a small perfect bubble containing me, the music and my words. Nothing else exists.

The anthems that define us

These are the special songs, the ones that for whatever reason touch us so deeply and are somehow so much more than the sum of their notes and lyrics. These are the songs burrow a special place in our hearts. We recognise these songs because we can be minding our own business when it comes on the radio and strikes us with memory lightning. At once we are transported back to a time, place, moment, so vividly painted in our minds that we are actually there again.

That’s the power of music we have all experienced at some point in our lives.

Writing companion

For my day-to-day writing process I learned long ago that music without lyrics is key for me to able to write along to. Why? Otherwise the siren-like call of the lyrics soon overwhelm my own words and I become mesmerised by the songwriter’s thoughts. Not helpful if I’m trying to nail a tricky dialogue sequence.

However, there was one notable exception to my rule when I wrote Cloud Riders. And we’re not just talking about a song here. My attention was first drawn by one of my friends, who contacted me and told me I had to watch a YouTube video he’d discovered because it had Cloud Riders written all over it.

Intrigued, I watched it once, twice…then again and again. Why? Because that song somehow transported me to the world of my own story. It was slightly unnerving at first – it was almost like someone had peered into my mind and created a soundtrack based on what they’d seen. But it wasn’t long before that song quickly became my go-to start to my writing day. When I needed inspiration, I watched it. When I hit a creative slump, I watched it. When I just needed to be transported into my story’s universe, I watched it. You see that song quickly became my creative equivalent to drinking an energy drink for my writing.

A soundtrack to Cloud Riders

Cloud is a fantastical tale, but at it’s heart is a story about the teenager coming to terms with his grief of his dad’s death, discovering who he really is and what matters to him in his life. In other words it’s the universal story about our individual search for the meaning of our lives. Maybe that’s why Cloud Riders has resonated with so many people.

And that’s what I really love about my Undercover Soundtrack and why it has resonated so strongly for me. When I watch the video I sense deep sadness in the protagonist portrayed – that he has given up, literally throwing himself into the eye of a storm – and this is a perfect metaphor for my lead character, Dom, and the journey he’s drawn into in Cloud Riders.

Every time I listen to this song I can feel Dom in those words, responding to their cry to be set loose, trying to make sense of his own life, against a backdrop of an incredible adventure. And for me that’s a magical experience.

Anyone who follows me on Twitter will know I’m a great one for quotes and here’s one that for me summarises both what this song and Cloud Riders is fundamentally about:

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.’
– Mark Twain

And here it is, Awolnation’s song – Sail. Watch, listen and be transported to the Cloud Riders universe.

Nick has a passion for science and astronomy, often blogging about the latest mind-blowing discoveries made in quantum physics. He once even soloed a light aircraft, an experience he tapped into for Cloud Riders. Not needing any excuse to travel, he recently completed a writing research trip to the volcanic landscape of Iceland for the second book in the Cloud Riders’ trilogy, Breaking Storm. His website is here, and you can contact him on Facebook or Twitter @CloudRiders