The Undercover Soundtrack – Gwendolyn Womack

June 3, 2015 Roz Morris @Roz_Morris4 Comments

‘Somewhere in time’

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’s post is by supernatural historical thriller writer Gwendolyn Womack @Gwen_Womack

Soundtrack by Arvo Part, Paul Horn, Philip Glass, Gabrielle Roth & The Mirrors, Reiki Tribe, John Barry

I’ve always found music to be a wonderful tool while writing. Sometimes I will search for hours to find the perfect song to write a particular scene before I can begin. After I find the right music, I will loop it for days, sometimes weeks. And I’ve found I cannot write while listening to any lyrics. It must be instrumental or else it is distracting.

When I first began writing The Memory Painter years ago I did not think to make note of all the music I was listening to, so this is only a list of the highlights. For readers who are not familiar with the book, The Memory Painter is a supernatural historical thriller about a group of neuroscientists who have unlocked the secret to reincarnation and a love story about a two lovers who have traveled through time to remember an ancient legacy. The novel spans a lot of history and many of the chapters are devoted to specific lifetimes. Here are a few of the time periods and the music that inspired the writing…

Cremona Italy, 1700s

There is a special lifetime that deals with the famous violinmaker Guarneri ‘del Gesù’, and for this I played one song repeatedly: Spiegel im Spiegel (Mirror in Mirror) by Arvo Pärt. I would actually loop the YouTube video of Anne Akiko Meyers playing del Gesù’s Vieuxtemps violin. The song is incredibly poignant and it was just perfect for writing those scenes. Hearing Guarneri’s violin being played while I was trying to imagine his life was invaluable.

China 6TH century AD

Another album is 80 minutes of Reiki Music by Reiki Tribe and it’s filled with Asian flutes and Tibetan bells. I listened to it primarily while writing the Bodhidharma lifetime, the Zen master who trained the Shaolin monks. I literally plugged the search term ‘Tibetan bell music’ into iTunes and spent hours listening to sample tracks before deciding on this particular collection. Many of the songs felt very transportive and helped create the mental space to write the lifetime of a Zen Buddhist monk.

Ancient Egypt 10,000BC

Just listening to Inside The Great Pyramid by Paul Horn was the time capsule I needed to get my imagination in ancient Egypt where the climax of the novel takes place, and I wrote all of the chapters listening to it. This special album came out in the 1970s. Paul Horn went to the Great Pyramid and recorded the music inside the King’s Chamber. There have been acoustical studies on the King’s Chamber because of its incredible reverberation capability. This music really is quite something.

Present day and 1980s

Philip Glass’s album Glassworks was perfect music to write to, particularly track 1, and I played this album a lot throughout writing the entire novel. The mathematical harmonies within the songs and the heartrending melodies were a perfect backdrop.

Gabrielle Roth & The Mirrors’ album Totem was another go-to album that I looped repeatedly, particularly tracks 1-3. Totem has a driving rhythm and mystical feel and in general simply helped me to focus and write. I actually went to write a letter to Ms. Roth to tell her what I fan I was of the album because I was listening to it so much, but I found she had passed away in 2012. So instead I ended up spending the afternoon reading about her life and the legacy she left behind with 5Rhythms and I bought one of her books, Maps to Ecstasy, which is a fascinating read about her journey and the power of meditative dance. So that was a surprise veer one afternoon, researching the artist I was listening to and becoming inspired in other ways.

I also played several tracks from the soundtrack to Somewhere In Time, music by John Barry. It’s a favorite movie of mine and I’ve had the soundtrack well over 20 years. Several of the songs are so lovely and again poignant (a running theme perhaps in some of the music I chose). Many scenes in the book were written with this music.

Those are the main songs behind The Memory Painter that easily come to mind. For the current novel that I’m working on, I am keeping a more detailed account because it is fun to look back at what inspired you along the way. My current playlist is numbered with some incredible music that is filling my ears at the keyboard and helping the story come to life.

Gwendolyn Womack grew up in Houston, Texas. She studied theatre at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, and then moved to California to pursue an MFA in Directing Theatre, Video, and Cinema at California Institute of the Arts. She lives in Los Angeles with her family. The Memory Painter is her first novel. Find her on Twitter as @Gwen_Womack, on Facebook and on her website.

Undercover Soundtrack

The Undercover Soundtrack – Wendy Storer

March 12, 2014March 18, 2014 Roz Morris @Roz_Morris3 Comments

‘Drumming is my heartbeat’

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 Mslexia award-winning YA novelist Wendy Storer @WendyStorer

Soundtrack by Metallica, Linkin Park, Papa Roach, Avenged Sevenfold, Rush, Green Day, Razorlight, The Killers, Blink 182, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Nirvana, The Who, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Sugarcult, Rise Against, Arvo Part, Willie Nelson, Seafood

Bring Me Sunshine is the story of a young musician, Daisy, a wannabe rock drummer thwarted in her ambition by her dad’s resistance to noise. She’s 15 when she realises his bizarre behaviour and increasing number of memory lapses might be due to more than a quirky personality, and as the story unfolds the impact of Dad’s dementia on Daisy’s life is uncovered.

Hope, direction and power

I couldn’t have written this story without immersing myself in the sort of music Daisy loved and aspired to play.

Drumming is my heartbeat…

she says; it gives her hope, direction and power. When she can no longer play, she is lost.

I listened to hours, days, weeks’ worth of music in order to put myself in Daisy’s shoes. I found myself thinking ‘Daisy would LOVE this’, or ‘this isn’t Daisy at all’. I discovered bands like Linkin Park, Papa Roach, Avenged Sevenfold and Rush, and made myself a playlist of their music. Other bands on the list were Green Day, Razorlight, The Killers, Blink 182, as well as the rock gods of my own teen years: Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Nirvana, The Who, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Metallica…

Daisy’s playlist took me back in time to the memory of what it was like to be a teenager, (messing up at school, falling in love for the first time, wanting something so terribly badly that just didn’t seem possible) and helped me connect to her life now.

Bring Me Sunshine is a sad story, but it’s also a story of hope, of living in the moment and how that sets Daisy free, so the music I chose to listen to was often tinged with sadness, always powerful and at times liberating.

This song for example – Nothing Else Matters by Metallica – never failed to put me in touch with Daisy. I imagined her wrestling with her fears, afraid of the consequences of both truth and lies, then hearing Metallica’s power ballad about the need to trust in ourselves and be true to who we really are, before coming down on the side of truth.

Songs for resonance

Each chapter is a song title, and every single song was chosen deliberately for its emotional resonance. Daisy listens to: Numb by Linkin Park when she first starts to realise something is wrong with Dad; I Miss You by Blink 182 when she’s remembering her mum; Memory by Sugarcult when Dad remembers his brother Ziggy; No Prayer for the Dying by Iron Maiden when Daisy and little brother Sam go out into the stormy night to search for their lost dad. These are all powerful pieces of music with a touch of melancholy, and mean something in the context of Daisy’s experiences in the book. This is Letting Go by Rise Against has a more hopeful vibe and it’s what Daisy (and I) listen to when Daisy finally faces up to her problems and tells someone what’s going on at home.

And so my playlist, my undercover soundtrack, is also Daisy’s. Apart from this one piece of music – Variationen zur Gesundung von Arinuschka by Arvo Pärt. I would often listen to this while out on Kendal Castle with my dogs. It’s a piano solo, which begins with a simple melody and builds into something more complete and rounded. There was something about the quiet minimalism of this tune which always helped me get back to the story. There’s still that hint of melancholy in the beginning, but as the tune builds, the deliberateness and focus somehow takes over. On reflection there is something about this tune which mirrors Daisy’s journey. I did not know until I wrote this post that the title means Variations for the Healing of Arinushka. I couldn’t find anything about the history if this piece but I completely ‘get’ how the healing quality of this piece has always led me back to Daisy’s story.

The referenced title track of Bring Me Sunshine is an acoustic version of the song by Willie Nelson. Sunshine (both literally and metaphorically) is what Daisy needs in her life.

If I had to choose one song from Daisy’s playlist to represent the story, I would choose this one – This Is Not An Exit, by Seafood with Caroline Banks on drums. It comes near the end of the story, when Daisy has started to play the drums again and is able to listen to tracks with female drummers once more. This song captures the mood of the book for me. There’s something about the quality of the sound, the chord dynamics and the lyrics also, which resonates with the Daisy in me, in a way that the other songs don’t quite. When I hear this, I can feel Daisy fighting back, finding herself and knowing that whatever has happened in the past, and whatever else happens in the future, she will find a way to be happy.

Wendy Storer is the author of YA stories Bring Me Sunshine and Where Bluebirds Fly. Bring Me Sunshine was a finalist in the Mslexia Children’s Novel Competition 2012. She is interested in stories which tug at the heart strings and the amazing resilience of people who battle through desperate situations to come out the other side, happier. Originally from Essex, Wendy now lives in Cumbria where she teaches creative writing to adults and children, and offers editorial help to writers through Magic Beans literary service. When not writing, Wendy likes to walk her dogs, spend time with her family, and find new and exciting food combinations involving peanut butter. Find her on her website, blog, and on Twitter as @WendyStorer

Undercover Soundtrack

The Undercover Soundtrack – Nigel Featherstone

January 30, 2013March 10, 2013 Roz Morris @Roz_Morris1 Comment

‘How could I make these characters living and lovable people?’

Once a week I host a writer who uses music as part of their creative process – perhaps to open a secret channel to understand a character, populate a mysterious place, or explore the depths in a pivotal moment. This week my guest is award-winning novelist, short-story writer, creative journalist and online literary journal editor Nigel Featherstone

Soundtrack by Arvo Part, Jonsi, Phil RetroSpector, The Commodores, Turin Brakes, Nick Cave

What would the world be without music? I shudder to think. What would many fictional worlds be without music? Surely the only answer is this: not as rich, not as deep, not as engaging. At least that’s my answer, and it’s one I believe in – very much. No day goes by without music playing an almost unfathomably massive role in my life; it’s a rare 24-hour period when music doesn’t move me. And when I read I hope that I’ll be moved, and when I write I hope that I’ll move readers. What other aim should there be?

Earlier on, years ago now, I would write to music: the Estonian minimalist composer Arvo Part was a favourite, as was Canadian post-rockers Godspeed You! Black Emperor. These days, however, music is all around me but when it’s time for words to go down on the page – my first drafts are written by putting a blue Bic pen to paper – I need silence. Still, at the beginning of 2010, when I ventured out of my little house in regional New South Wales to spend a month as a writer-in-residence in Launceston, Tasmania, I made sure to have a small collection of CDs with me, otherwise I’d be lost, perilously lost.

The novella
I went down to Tasmania to work on short stories, but as is the way with these things I left that peaceful island state with the somewhat sketchy first drafts of three novellas. I’m Ready Now, published recently by Blemish Books, was the first of these novellas to come out onto the page. The story concerns Lynne Gleeson, a wealthy 50-year-old woman whose husband has suddenly died, and her son Gordon, who is coming to the end of his ‘Year of Living Ridiculously’ – both are at the most critical cross-road of their lives, but will they make the right decisions? More importantly to the writing of I’m Ready Now, how could I make these two characters appear is if they are living, loving and lovable people with whom we’d want to spend time?

Finding a mother
Two albums I took to Tasmania were Jonsi’s Go and Phil RetroSpector’s Intro/Version. The former, by the Sigur Ros lead singer, is soft and cute and bubbly and moody and sometimes dark and ominous, the latter, which isn’t available commercially but can be downloaded from RetroSpector’s website, mashes classic artists such as Johnny Cash, David Bowie and New Order with relative newcomers such as REM, Muse and Sia. Somewhere between Jonsi and RetroSpector was the mother in my story. Except I didn’t really find her until I came across Sail On by The Commodores. There she was! Among the bad hair, sequined body-suits and pained musician expressions!

The Hobart-based Lynne Gleeson is a tough cookie, smart, determined, independent, as well as a romantic and maybe even a little naïve, and when we meet her in I’m Ready Now she’s coming to terms with losing her husband Eddie of a heart-attack after a game of golf. Heavy stuff. But Lynne also likes to laugh and I could imagine her as a kid dancing around her bedroom to Sail On, hairbrush in hand as a mic; I could also imagine her now that she’s thoroughly adult dancing around her loungeroom, wine-glass in hand, knowing that there’s a future out there for her – if only she’s brave enough to claim it.

Finding a son
When we meet Gordon he’s recently turned 30, living in Sydney and scratching out a crust as a professional photographer, kind-of-sort-of-maybe partnered with his boyfriend Levi, but really his main occupation – preoccupation – is his Year of Living Ridiculously, which involves spending his weekends enjoying all that Sydney has to offer, illicit and more. I liked Gordon from the beginning, despite his faults – I admired his naked desire to live big no matter what. But as his writer I found it hard to get beneath his skin. Until, that is, in a secondhand record-store in Hobart (I’d been invited to spend a weekend giving a workshop), I found Turin Brakes’s The Optimist LP, which contains a killer track called Underdog (Save Me). Ah yes, that’s it! Gordon is an underdog, that’s exactly what he is: just before his first birthday he was abandoned by his father, Lynne’s enigmatic but ultimately adventure-hungry first love from her high-school days. And Gordon needs saving, but despite all that his mother and boyfriend and his bestfriend are trying to do for him, the person do to the saving really is himself.

Ending
While it would be inappropriate – and downright cruel – of me to reveal what happens to dear old Lynne and her wayward son Gordon, what I can share with you is that ending I’m Ready Now was difficult. Really difficult. Firstly, I didn’t want to leave these people alone, I didn’t want them to leave me. Secondly, I simply didn’t know how to do it – the story builds and builds and then…what should be done? Thankfully Nick Cave stepped in; actually, he jumped up on the page and said, Can I help? He sure could. The Ship Song. The ending of this novella, such that it is – the story is as much about what happens after the last page is turned as it is about what’s on the pages in the first place – was built around those words of Cave’s, because it links so beautifully to Lynne’s Sail On and Gordon’s Underdog (Save Me). Sail on, good people, and be saved.

If music wasn’t in my life, I’m Ready Now wouldn’t be out there in the world at this very moment, doing what it has to do.

Thank Christ for music.

(Author photo by Jonny Lewis)

Nigel Featherstone is an Australian writer of contemporary adult fiction and creative journalism. He is the author of the novellas I’m Ready Now (Blemish Books 2012) and Fall on Me (Blemish Books 2011), which won the 2012 ACT Writing and Publishing Award for Fiction. His novel Remnants (Pandanus Books 2005) was published to considerable acclaim, as was his short-story collection, Joy (Ginninderra Press 2000). Nigel is also the author of 40 short stories published in Australian literary journals, including Meanjin, Island, and Overland, as well as in the US. He is a regular contributor to The Canberra Times and has held numerous writing residencies. He is the founder and editor of online literary journal Verity La, for which he received a Canberra Critics Circle Award for 2012. Nigel lives in Goulburn, New South Wales. Find him at his website