The Undercover Soundtrack – Gwendolyn Womack

April 24, 2019April 25, 2019 Roz Morris @Roz_MorrisLeave a comment

The Undercover Soundtrack is a series where 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 returning for a third spin – Gwendolyn Womack @Gwen_Womack

Soundtrack by Doug Appling, A Chorus of Storytellers, Sean Digo, Mozart, traditional Korean music, traditional aboriginal music, James Hood

Thank you Roz for having me back to the Undercover Soundtrack. I’m thrilled to delve in and discuss the music behind my new novel The Time Collector. The story is a romantic thriller about two psychometrists. Psychometrists are people who can touch objects and see the past embedded within them. The pair become caught up in trying to solve the mystery of out-of-place artifacts (“ooparts”) that challenge the timeline of recorded history. Within the narrative, the story travels back in time periodically through the objects, and the answer to the ooparts’ riddle lies hidden within the fantastical world of crop circles, ancient crystals, and sacred geometry. The book has many aspects, so the music I listened to while writing was highly varied too.

The main character of the book, Roan West, is a master psychometrist who has been peering into the past since he was a boy. He wears gloves to control what he touches and the imprints he reads. The only time he takes his gloves off for long periods of time is when he mountain climbs. He is an avid boulderer, someone who climbs without gear or ropes, and bouldering has become his outlet where he can recharge. When I went on YouTube to research videos of climbers I found the climbers’ playlists to be so kinetic and full of energy. I ended up getting several albums and looping specific songs. They became Roan’s songs in my mind. The music I looped the most for Roan was from the album Emancipator by Doug Appling. I particularly loved the tracks Rattlesnakes, Nevergreen, and First Snow.

The other psychometrist and main character in the story, Melicent Tilpin, is just starting out on her journey to becoming a psychometrist. For Melicent, I ended up looping A Chorus of Storytellers’s Within Dreams and Perro for many of her scenes. There is something elusively wistful about both pieces that struck a chord when I was trying to write her.

There is one song in general that I listened to the most throughout writing the book. I first heard it on the internet as background music to a short video piece that Futurism.com was circulating and I loved it so much I researched what it was and how to get it. It’s a short piece of instrumental music called Stream by Sean Digo and I was able to download on Audiojungle. I looped it for countless hours (hundreds) and even now when I listen to it the song brings back so many memories of the writing.

Parts of The Time Collector journey back in time through memories stored within objects. There were pieces of music that helped me write those historical passages. For example, within an antique music box lies the memory of 1700s Vienna and musical prodigy Regina Strinasacchi, who performed with Mozart. There’s a wonderful bit of backstory about the sonata Mozart composed for her and I wrote their chapter playing the sonata.

For another object’s memory—hidden within the key to the astronomical clock tower in Prague in the 1400s—I listened to medieval music on YouTube. And another memory is imbedded within an exquisite Korean fan of a young girl’s life during the Korean War. The girl’s mother was a musician and I found traditional Korean music to help spark my imagination. The full playlist is on my website, but this one performer is how I imagined the mother to look in concert.

An important flashback of the story takes place in Australia and I found some fantastic Aboriginal Didgeridoo music and another piece titled the Spirit of Uluru. I hunted all afternoon sampling music to find what I was looking for.

Sometimes though, you don’t have to go hunting for music, the music finds you. That happened to me while I was watching the movie Sing with my son of all places. One of the songs is a remake of Golden Slumbers/ Carry that Weight. The lyrics struck me and felt connected to Roan’s journey at the end. Roan is carrying the weight of the world’s memories inside of him and trying to get home. I ended up listening to the song many times for inspiration to write his journey. The spark of inspiration happened quite on accident while watching a Sunday family movie.

The two final pieces of music I want to mention is by one of my favorite artists James Hood. His previous album, Pure Ceremony, was pivotal when I wrote The Fortune Teller and it was incredible timing that his next album, Mesmerica, came out right as I was getting started on The Time Collector. The entire album is gorgeous! I ended up looping the songs Tapestry and Mesmerica the most, particularly while writing the end chapters. Last December I had the chance to meet James when I went to see his concert for Mesmerica. The show is an amazing 360-degree immersive art and music show that makes you feel like you’ve stepped inside a kaleidoscope. I highly recommend going. Visit his website to see if he’ll be coming to your city.

To sample all the music that helped to inspire The Time Collector, the playlist is on my website. And if you’d like to read my past posts on Undercover Soundtrack, here are my discussions for The Fortune Teller and The Memory Painter. One of the most enriching aspects of writing is to find the perfect music to go on the journey. I have infinite gratitude for all these artists who inspired me along the way. Thank you for listening!

Gwendolyn Womack is the USA Today bestselling author of The Fortune Teller and the award-winning reincarnation thriller, The Memory Painter. Her latest novel, The Time Collector, is out this month with PicadorUSA. Gwendolyn lives in Los Angeles with her family, collects kaleidoscopes, and paints as a hobby. Visit her online at gwendolynwomack.com or connect with her on social media at Twitter @Gwen_Womack , Facebook and Instagram

Undercover Soundtrack

The Undercover Soundtrack – Gwendolyn Womack

June 7, 2017February 3, 2019 Roz Morris @Roz_Morris5 Comments

The Undercover Soundtrack is a series where 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 supernatural historical thriller writer Gwendolyn Womack @Gwen_Womack

Soundtrack by Phil Thornton, Gerald Jay Markoe, Dead Can Dance, Lana Ross, Caryl James Thompson, Mikael Sapin, Nigel Stanford, James Hood

Music is a wonderful companion while writing. I’ve often found writing to the right song can help deepen a scene, kick start the solution to a problem, or spawn a new idea. Sometimes before I sit down to write, I’ll search for over an hour sampling songs on iTunes, YouTube and the internet to find what I’m looking for. I don’t even know what that is until I’ve heard it. All I know is it has to be the perfect song to evoke the emotional state I’m trying to capture. Does it conjure a specific time or place? create a doorway to a culture? help foster the emotions I want my character to be feeling? —or me to feel as I write? The reason for the song constantly changes.

Once I find the perfect song, sometimes I’ll loop it for days while I’m writing. Looping helps to create a flow so there is no interruption in my train of thought. I’ve also found in general the music needs to be instrumental, otherwise the lyrics become a distraction.

Knowing I would want to share my playlist for my second novel, I kept close track of the songs. The Fortune Teller is a romantic thriller that revolves around an ancient manuscript and the world’s first Tarot cards. The novel alternates between present day and the manuscript’s story, which is both a memoir and a prophecy spanning 2000 years. Because the memoir journeys to different lands and lifetimes as it moves forward in time, the music I chose to listen to changed dramatically as well. When I finished the novel the entire playlist was quite extensive, but I’d like to highlight the songs and albums that were a driving force while I wrote.

For the memoir, which begins in Alexandria, Egypt, I listened to the album Pharaoh by Phil Thornton, which evoked the perfect setting. As I wrote scenes taking place in the secret vaults of the great Library of Alexandria I looped this song: Meditation Music of Ancient Egypt by Gerald Jay Markoe. The song felt like a time machine taking me to those underground chambers.

During the memoir chapters I also wrote a lot to Dead Can Dance, one of my favorite groups. The memoir was written by an ancient seer and she conjures her own magic and mystery as she tells her story. I found Dead Can Dance perfectly tapped into that world. I listened to the album Toward The Within and favored tracks #2 – Persian Love Song, #4 Yulunga, #5 Piece for Solo Flute, and #14 Sanvean for weeks as I wrote her memoir on seeing the future.

I’ve also found film soundtracks can be a wonderful resource to find the perfect instrumental song. A prime example is in the memoir when the story reached Milan in the 1400s, I listened to specific tracks from the soundtrack to Dangerous Beauty. Although the film takes place in 16th-century Venice, the music still helped strike the setting in my mind for that chapter.

When the memoir moved to the Russian Revolution and then onto World War II, I was playing Lana Ross nonstop. Lana Ross was a lucky find on one of my internet hunts. She is a guitar soloist who has an album of Jewish folk music that is exquisite. I also listened to this theme song repeatedly from the documentary The Lady In Number 6, played by Caryl James Thompson. The poignancy of this song just swept me away and captured an essence I was looking for while trying to write about the war. I highly recommend watching the documentary too. It follows the story of the world’s oldest pianist and Holocaust survivor.

For the present day storyline of Semele Cavnow, who is attempting to unravel the mystery behind the ancient manuscript, there were three key albums I listened to: Far Away by Mikael Sapin, Solar Echoes by Nigel Stanford, and Pure Ceremony by James Wood.

Far Away is some of the most heartrending piano music I’ve ever heard and I remember looping it on a long plane ride I took and writing several scenes for Semele. After that I just kept going back to the music for her. There was an emotional aspect that it captured—a sadness, a longing.

For Solar Echoes, I remember my favorite track being Dark Sun, though I am a super fan of Nigel’s and all his songs. But Dark Sun captured the energy of Semele’s quest. The story is ultimately a thriller and Semele is on a journey to find answers, and this song has a driving quality. I listened to it a lot as I wrote the last chapters with Semele traveling across Europe.

And the third album, Pure Ceremony by James Hood, is phenomenal singing drum music. My favorite track was Timebomb which I looped too many times to count as the story’s supernatural elements came to the fore. There is some bending of time in the novel and Timebomb was the song I wrote the majority of those scenes to. (I also thought the title of the song could not have been more appropriate.)

Those are the main pieces to the musical puzzle that helped shaped The Fortune Teller. It’s quite wonderful to look back on the playlist and remember what I wrote to the songs. If I could send each artist a Book Valentine I would.

Gwendolyn Womack writes romantic thrillers that explore a spectrum of metaphysical subjects. Her debut novel, The Memory Painter, published by Macmillan/ Picador, was an RWA Prism Award winner and Indie Next Pick. Her second novel is The Fortune Teller. Gwendolyn lives in LA and paints as a hobby. Find out more at her website and watch The Fortune Teller and The Memory Painter book trailers on YouTube. Tweet her as @Gwen_Womack