Motivational Music, the Massively Cheesy Edition

So I've been working on a new "About Me" page for my author blog and for a new author website that I've been setting up, all in advance of RoboNomics becoming a featured story on Wattpad. And while I've written out my story, it has taken on a definite...hard-headed tone.

For some reason this made me think of the various Motivational playlists that I've shared with you in the past. And it also put me in mind of the very large blind spot that I intentionally had in sharing those playlists. That is, I didn't want to admit to listening to some of the most ridiculously corny songs when I need a motivational pick-me-up.



Maybe over-the-top songs about obtaining one's goals are required once you've decided to pursue a career in the arts. Reading, training, learning and practicing. Drafting and revising and line editing -- all of this takes time. So much time that it's hard to keep my 'eye on the prize'. And so once in awhile I have to indulge. I have to remind myself why I'm doing this. I need obvious lyrics and bad instrumentation to knock me over the head with my original intention.

This is how I build my own support system. In a world full of trolls and haters, I don't troll or hate back. I just listen to cheese-ball songs! :P

Music for Journeying

Having recently completed a move that included a journey across part of this continent, I thought I'd focus on songs that make me think of journeying.

There have always been stories of traveling in all world literature. And much has been written about how journey stories are metaphors for a human's journey through life -- traveling from major life event to major life event rather than from place to place. I, for one, have yet to write my own big journey story that I have on my back burner. But in my life, I've always moved around. In 33 years I've lived in 9 different places. I haven't seen much of the world, but I have seen much of this continent we call America of the North.

So it might not be surprising that I am inspired by songs about traveling that have a definite folksy-country vibe. Here are just a few of these songs, starting where I started this journey: in the Wilderness of Manitoba.

And then of course there's Johnny Cash's "I've Been Everywhere" which is like a musical North American travel bingo. Of course, this move we crossed only a few of the places in the first verse off the list! Two provinces: Manitoba and Ontario. Six states: North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan. And we passed through numerous cities: Winnipeg, Grand Forks, Fargo, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Baraboo, Madison, Chicago, Flint, Sarnia, London and Toronto. It was a long trip.

But I've realized that this enjoyment in travel, or rather, in moving from place to place is not a joy shared by many. I'm a rare breed: someone who likes moving. I've noticed that there are a couple members of my extended family who have that wanderlust, but beyond our family I don't know too many people who actually like the prospect of moving every few years. But it's something that has marked my adult life. The last time I lived in one place for a long time was between the ages of 3 and 17. Since then, I haven't lived in a city for longer than 3 years at a time.

So I've thrown in a few rambler anthems into this mix. If you're going to write a journey story, I hope you find that these songs give you some inspiration!

Also, be sure to enjoy the video for "Hopeless Wanderer." That one took me by surprise with its silly secret. :)

RoboNomics Book II Soundtrack

Hey all! As promised, I've put together a soundtrack for RoboNomics Book II over the past couple weeks. From my perspective, it's as though you can trace the broad outline of the plot through these tracks. That's probably impossible, however. You will have no way of knowing what's going to happen in the story from just listening to this music.

However, might a fun exercise to try and guess! :)


At least it's not as long as the RoboNomics Book I soundtrack! Hope you enjoy it!

RoboNomics Book I Soundtrack

So, RoboNomics Book I is complete! At least, it is completely posted up on Wattpad now, entered into the Wattpad Prize, and as I just found out, has made it onto one of Wattpad's reading lists. The list is entitled "Time and Eternity". So cool. When they sent me the email explaining that the book is on the list, they said that they 'love' my story! Yay! :)

Before I leave the story, at last, to the care of the world, and start work on RoboNomics Book II, I would like to give it a good send off. And so, I've compiled the very best and most inspirational tracks from all of my previously 'Music that Inspired RoboNomics Chapter..." playlists into a master list.

And so, here it is kids, RoboNomics the Soundtrack. A massive list of the music I listened to while imagining the plot, coming up with character foibles, and revising -- the endless revising that I put into RoboNomics Book I.



Stay tuned for another little goodie next week...

Oh, I can't not tell you! I'm planning on releasing a preliminary music taste of Book II in the form of a RoboNomics Book II Soundtrack! Can't wait! :)

Music that Inspired RoboNomics Chapter 16!

Hey everyone! A little late in the week, I know. But it's a busy one. And now I have the last RoboNomics Book I inspiration playlist until I start posting RoboNomics Book II on September 1.

In the meantime, here's the inspiration playlist for Chapter 16. Remember to check out the story on Wattpad this coming Monday, April 28th at midnight EDT. Can't wait!

Music that Inspired RoboNomics Chapter 15

Man, what a week this has been. So busy -- no time for blog posts. Okay, I had some time yesterday but after I wrote a post my piece of crap computer lost the whole thing. I was too tired to rewrite it. So never mind that. Onto the fun stuff!

The playlist of tracks that inspired the penultimate chapter of RoboNomics Book I!

In chapter 15, crazy exciting stuff happens to Andrea, our heroine. I actually did quite a bit of revising to the chapter this week -- so it's going to be a lot of brand spanking new material! Fancy that.

When we had last left Andrea, she had just lost Austin in the crowd in front of Toronto's Economic Relief Center. When chapter 15 opens, Elizabeth is trying to convince her friend to leave the place. But can Andrea trust Elizabeth, now that her former friend has joined Chris and his Anti-Robotists? And what happened to Austin?

Can't say too much about the plot of Chapter 15 without giving too much away. I guess you'll just have to head on over to Wattpad on Monday, April 21 at midnight EDT to find out!!!! :P

Music that Inspired RoboNomics Chapter 14

Hey everybody! Another week, another chapter, another playlist! I am very proud of the playlist this week. I feel like it's almost an encapsulation of the entire RoboNomics Book I story in five songs.

RoboNomics Chapter 14 comes out, funnily enough, on Monday, April 14 at midnight EDT. In this chapter, things for Andrea and Austin go from bad to worse to worst. However, just when our favorite couple along with all the other citizens of Toronto are ready to give up hope, the government swoops in acting as hero and opens "Economic Relief Distribution Centers." There's only one problem: the centers rely heavily on robots. Is another clash with frustrated, desperate citizens inevitable?

You'll have to read Chapter 14 on Wattpad to find out!! ;)

In the meantime, enjoy the tunage:

Music that Inspired RoboNomics Chapter 13

Hey everyone! So Monday, April 7 is the release date for RoboNomics Chapter 13!

After all the high-stakes drama that happened in chapters 10 through 12, this chapter is a step-back that deals with the aftermath. In Toronto, the city is dealing with the aftermath of the Queen's Park riot. After it's been decided to abolish obsolete labor unions in Ontario, the citizens are feeling abandoned and desperate. Meanwhile, Andrea has to deal with the aftermath of what happened between her and Chris. Not only does she have to worry about what he'll do with the incriminating information he has about her, but she also has to worry about her worsening financial situation.

What's going to happen to Andrea? Is she going to lose her freedom, her husband, the entire life that she's constructed for herself?


Don't forget to check out RoboNomics on Wattpad this coming Monday to find out! :)

Just For Fun Friday!

This week for a fun Friday I thought I would do something a little different. Instead of my latest favorite jam, I'm going to feature a track that I love because of its writerly nature. "Let's Not Talk About Love" is an ancient song, but one for which the lyrics are fast paced,clever and fun. Sure, some of the references are super dated, but maybe that adds to its charm?

At any rate, every time I listen to it I feel inspired to write a poem...or something short but witty.

And because I'm a music nerd, I've included two versions:

So fun! Have a great weekend!

Music that Inspired RoboNomics Chapter 12

Well, here it is: the music that inspired RoboNomics' next chapter.

Chapter 12 is a small chapter, but by no means lacking in action and excitement. There's a big reveal, so I don't know that I want to say much more about the chapter other than that. Instead, I'll let the music do the talking: 



Hope you enjoy it! And don't forget, RoboNomics Chapter 12 comes out on Wattpad this Monday, March 31 at midnight EDT! Can't wait for you to read it! :)

Literature Inspires Music Inspires...

This blog, so far, has been about songs that are inspiring for writers in general, writers of fiction more specifically, and me in particular.

But there are quite a lot of songs out there that have been inspired by literature. From epic fantasy or Western canon novels to poems to characters, these are just a few of my favourite songs that have been inspired by literary works:


And of course, in a full circle manner, I have to admit that I find some of these songs inspiring in their own right. The great thing about human creation, human specificity of situation and the human brain is that each and every one of these creations can inspire us all in different ways: calling up different memories and different associations, rearranging and melting together until something new, and sometimes unexpected, comes to light and reveals itself as a piece of art.

Revolution/Evolution

So the other day I was thinking about my novel, RoboNomics. Sheesh, what else do I think about these days?

But for the longest time I've been constructing this novel with the idea that I want people who read it to be scared. I want them to think about the trials of my main character, Andrea Anderson, and the fact that her intellectual industry job (schoolteacher) has become obsolete because of a robot with advanced artificial intelligence and think, "Geez, that could be me."

I wanted it to be a novel about how dystopias happen. There are no many science fiction narratives out there in the world that are about dystopias after the bad shit has gone down. And a lot of robot and artificial intelligence take overs follow this format. So on top of RoboNomics being a metaphor for the 2008 global economic crisis (something no one could have imagined back in 2006 or so), I wanted it to go from a normal world, familiar to a reader in say, modern Toronto, to a dystopia.

So far, some the comments I've had on the story have been more along the lines of "That would never happen here," than of "oh my god that could so easily happen to me," which is interesting and not all that surprising. But then I think of the thousands of times this sort of thing has happened before: the total breakdown of a political system, a social contract. I think of the 1990s, when Yugoslavia went from having the world's highest rated quality of life to being a war zone. My point is, stranger things happened in reality than could ever occur in my fiction...

But there's a word for that, isn't there? Whenever a social or political system changes, wherever it slides from comfortable apathy to dystopia: Revolution. Upheaval that lasts only a little while or a long while, until a new political agreement is reached (or imposed) and a new normal is established.

And so, here's my playlist for today -- songs for a robotic revolution of a different kind:



And don't mind the bit of music geekery book ending the playlist. I just had to include a song performed what? 50 years apart. Perfect. 

Music that Inspired RoboNomics Chapter 11

So I know that over the past two and a half months (has it really been that long?) I have been posting these 'inspirational' playlists on Thursdays. But this week, two things are happening:

1. I'm super excited about Chapter 11, coming up on wattpad.com this coming Monday, March 24 at midnight.

2. I'm not sure what to write about this week. I wrote about this topic in a really loopy entry on my other blog, but when it comes to that primary blog, I've already got another idea for tomorrow. Woot! But when it comes to inspirational music for authors of fiction, well -- I'm a little short of inspiration today.

And so instead I'll tell you about the upcoming Chapter of RoboNomics:

When we last left our heroine, Andrea Anderson, she had just left her friends in the throes of the protest that was quickly devolving into a riot. She's off to find Chris and the other former garbage collectors, who have been absence for the protest so far.

But in Chapter 11, she catches up to them. And what they're about to do makes Andrea complicit in a criminal plot. But does that mean she'll refuse to help them?

I hope you enjoy this week's playlist! Don't forget to check out RoboNomics Chapter 11 on wattpad when it comes out: Monday, March 24, 2014!
 

Exploring the Darker Side

One of the pieces of writing advice that I've in tons of different 'how-to write fiction' books and articles is to get to know your antagonist. Stories don't work if the antagonistic character or forces, so goes the advice, does not have compelling, convincing motivation for their actions. A writer should get to know their villain from the inside out, to make a flawed, complicated, convincing human character rather than a silly caricature.

And lately I've heard a few songs that are dark enough, with deep enough bass that remind me of that dark side that we all. That side of human emotion and experience from which I personally drawn on for my fictional antagonists. And so this week I'd like to present my playlist of Villain Theme Songs:



Some of them might be heavy handed. But I find that I require to a heavily creepy soundtrack to get into the right mood to write a villain from the inside out.

But writing a villian, an antagonistic person or force, is more than just 'getting to know you'. About six months ago I had a conversation with one of  my friends who's into acting. He said that when you play an evil character on screen or stage, you have to look inside yourself for material. In other words, whatever evil you bring to the character is also inside of you.

Writing a character can be like that as well: all of their motivations, all of their nefarious intentions and evil plots are something that I, as the writer (or you as the write) can tap into.

So let's think of this playlist as one that you can listen to tap into your dark, antagonistic side. ;)

This is just a sampling, of course. And you probably have some of your own favorite villain themes. Care to share? :)

Music that Inspired RoboNomics Chapter 9

Hey Everyone! So RoboNomics Chapter 9 is coming up this Monday, March 10th. Are you ready? In this chapter, Andrea gets closer to Chris, but she also finds out how dangerous he is. Meanwhile, she and Austin are trying to figure out how to avoid losing their home. Both have become obsolete in their respective jobs, and they don't know how they can make ends meet. Will they lose their home? And what happens if they do? Will Andrea have no choice but to rely on Chris and his volatile personality?

Better check it out on Wattpad this coming Monday to find out! In the meantime, here's a playlist of tracks that inspired the chapter, as taste of what's to come:

Just for Fun Friday!

Yay! It's Friday already/finally. Do you ever feel that way? You've been waiting for something for what feels like an eternity and then suddenly it creeps up on you and it's like, "oh. I thought I had another eternity to wait." Well, let's celebrate this little milestone at any rate. Another week closer to it being not February. Not February is so much better than February.

I am loving this track lately. And then I saw the video. It has an alternative/grunge '90s throwback vibe. Ah, nostalgia. To be 15 again. :P

Music that Inspired RoboNomics Chapter 6

Hey everyone! Another edition of the RoboNomics soundtrack coming at you! RoboNomics Chapter 6 will be on Wattpad on Monday, February 10 at midnight EST! Chapter 6 is back to material that is more polished than Chapters 3 to 5 turned out to be. But if you go over to wattpad to check it out (I don't think you need an account to read), please let me know via wattpad comments or Google+ comments on this blog post or even via tweet what you thought of it. I need some constructive criticisms!!

Also, in the next day or so I will be uploading some sweet sweet Chapter 6 preview pictures to Twitter. So watch out for that. I have been seriously thinking of throwing up some bits of other projects onto wattpad. Especially that Epic Fantasy YA business I keep banging on about. But that will be more of a fun experiment to see what sort of response I get so I won't be compiling playlists or making pictures or promoting it very much. Basically I want to see if that work can stand on its on a website of stories that is populated by 65% young adults.

But enough about that. In the meantime, back to Chapter 6. In Chapter 6, we find Andrea struggling with unemployment and a world that is increasingly filled with automated processes and robots that replace humans in their jobs. She is worried about how her and Austin's income has been drastically cut, but then something unexpected happens that makes her troubles a lot more serious.

The Origin Story

So I was initially going to put this on an 'About' page that I had plans to create for this blog. But I think the story actually deserves to have a post of its own, before it gets relegated to surrounding copy. And so I'll begin: the story of how I was first inspired by music.

Once Upon a Time...

There was a young seven year old girl -- me -- going to school in a suburban neighborhood east of the capital city of Canada. As was tradition for the schools in that part of the world (and still is, probably) one day a high school band came to visit my school. The teachers all rounded us up and brought us into the gym. We had to sit on the achingly cold floor with our legs crossed. It was torture. Or at least it was until the band began to play.

One can learn a lot from hindsight. For instance, later I joined my high school's band. And we were horrible musicians -- muddling through mostly pops, Broadway or jazz arrangements. But to my child's undeveloped ear, I felt as though I had never heard anything so beautiful. I remember that I closed my eyes and listened to the whole concert sitting still. And that's when it first happened. That's when I could picture -- I thought because of the music -- a story take place before my mind's eye. Characters came to life that I'd never heard of and had conflicts with each other that perhaps were not original but were still thrilling for a seven year old.

Later, when I was older, my high school band did the same thing as that one had -- we went on a tour of the "feeder schools" as the teachers called them and played for the little kids of the neighborhood. I remember looking out across the masses of children and seeing them bobbing around in places to the music -- dancing with abandon as only children can while the teachers attempted to keep them in one place. It struck me then as now how odd I must have looked to other seven year olds and teachers alike: this tiny kid sitting still with her eyes closed. But then that's just the sort of child I was. Sometimes, while I was in elementary school, I used to have contests with myself to see how long I could sit without moving a muscle. I never told anyone -- I'd just watch the clock on the classroom wall and keep track of how long I could be motionless. Just to know.

At any rate, it wasn't until a couple years later that I put pen to paper in an attempt to record a story for the first time. By that time, the infamous concert how grown into legend in my mind and I remembered it as being a symphony of the highest caliber. This idea was exaggerated by the fact that for Christmas that year I received a two volume set of "Classical Essentials" or some such other title. Did I forget to mention it was two tapes? Yes, I am that old!

That's when things really took off, in terms of imagining to music. And it's also why even now, some of my most inspiring tracks are classical ones. But that's not where it ended. I started to imagine things when I looked out the window of the car on those long drives to Grandma's house. On those occasions, the car radio was usually take over by my parents, who had a penchant for hits of the '60s and Leonard Cohen:

It strikes me that early exposure to a poet/songwriter might be behind the fact that lyrics are probably the most important aspects of pop songs for me. Whatever it was, it wasn't a far jump from imagining stories to those types of songs to transferring that skill to all songs with words. And so a habit was formed that would last my entire life: the habit of listening to music as a way of avoiding writer's block. Like they say, music can soothe the savage beast -- which I interpret to mean that music has a way of coaxing the (sometimes) savage muse to come out and play! :)

How about you? Is listening to music a habit that you have in your writing or creating?