Music Moves the Savage Writer

I'll be the first to admit it--I was never someone who could listen to music all day, while studying, while working, while waiting around--I found it far too distracting.

Nevertheless, music is a convenient writer's tool. For the small cost of a few megabytes on your laptop or mp3 player, it's always at hand. It can transport you to a different place or a different time. It can block out extraneous noises by playing different noises in your ear. (I guess.) My doctoral dissertation soundtrack consisted of 17 songs on one CD, which I played on an endless loop while I was drudging away underground (basement lab). I even thanked "die neue deutsche Härte" band OOMPH! in my dissertation acknowledgements.

Would I have been able to block out the loud phone conversations that echoed from the office next door without my music? Maybe, but it was certainly easier with the beautiful, husky voice of OOMPH! frontman Dero Goi in my ears. "Jede Nacht genau der selbe Traum...such mich tief im Abgrund deines Traums, ich liege sechs Fuss tiefer...du suchst mich doch ich bin längst am Ziel..."

Ah...

Ahem. Yes, music is more than art, noise, or a diversion, if you're a writer. While working on The Fracture of a Dream, I sometimes struggled to see the world through the eyes of my characters. The character of Mer Pampero posed a problem, especially. Once just an average woman, she's embittered by the life she's led--rational, most of the time, a mother and wife fiercely protecting her family--but nevertheless filled with built-up resentment and hate. Of all of my characters, she was the one I could characterize the most easily, yet she remained the one whose thoughts I least understood.

I started using music as a way of getting inside her head, of finding her voice. Using the same song every time I wrote her dialogue helped me stay consistent for her character. But, no spoilers! I can't tell you what her song is. Eventually, I began ferreting out perfect songs for each of the protagonists.

Have you read The Fracture of a Dream? What do you think? Which songs best embody Dek Sundowner, Shanna Tramontane, and Mer Pampero? And if you're a writer, how do you use music in your own work? Leave your suggestions below!

Tune in next time,
Ren D. ;)

When Your Characters Have Become Real

To take a page from Margery Williams' The Velveteen Rabbit, specifically, a small part of the beautiful and oft-quoted passage about becoming Real:

"I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled. 

"The Boy's Uncle made me Real," he said. "That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always.” 

The characters of The Fracture of a Dream have been real to me for quite some time now.  Sometimes I'll see a photograph of a woman and think, "Ah, that's Shanna!" or hear a song that resonates perfectly with their storylines.

In fact, this painting by Myles Sullivan immediately drew my attention a few months ago:

Myles Sullivan, Rendezvous

"That's Dek! And Shanna...slightly leggier and more bombshell than I'd envisioned her, but definitely still Shanna. They look like they're having one of their intense (and silly) debates at their favorite bistro."

It was a reminder that I needed to continue their story.

Returning to them, telling more of their story, is like catching sight of a beloved friend you haven't seen for quite some time.  I feel a warmth and happiness to be reunited with my characters and wonder how their unwritten lives have passed since I last worked with them.

The only awkward part is that Dek and Shanna seem so real to me that, in the rewriting stage, adding new parts to their story felt like telling a lie. The way I told the story the first time -- to me, that was how all the events had come to pass.  It couldn't be altered.

I have to remind myself that reality is not black-and-white, as we like to think. We each perceive and interpret events, behaviors, and words in different ways.  And from Elizabeth Loftus' extensive work on the fallibility of memory, we also know that we mis-remember our own lives constantly.  Aside from these mundane "alternate" realities that occur normally, there are also the moments of our lives which simply aren't chronicled -- because that would be dull -- and introducing new scenes might just mean I'm telling the reader something that hadn't seemed important before.

Taking heart from the Skin Horse's words to the Rabbit, however, I like the idea that my characters continue to live on, even when I'm away from them, the threads of their lives rolling, looping, and knotting in new ways that I haven't yet imagined. I guess that's why there are sequels.

And I'm pretty sure Shanna's got a few secrets that are going to come out.  They usually do...eventually.

Stay curious,
Ren D.

My NaNoWriMo 2013 Metrics

Testing these widgets out.  Who doesn't love widgets?

Hope I'll be a "winner" this year. ;)


My month shown via widget.  You can see if I've been good or not.


This year, I'm also partnered up with writing buddy A Silent Spectre, so you can see how we're doing here.

Talking to Strangers

Meeting a stranger creates, in me, a strange fiction.

People are remarkably accurate at guessing the characteristics of a stranger from the briefest moments of exposure (known as "thin slices" in this area of person-perception research).  These "thin slices" of behavior can be as short as five seconds, thirty seconds, or a few minutes.  We can read the warmth of a person, neuroticism, even sexual orientation, almost automatically.

Yet, people have a way of surprising us. That best friend you've had for 20 years?  The one right beside you, patching up scrapes after taking a spill on the street, the one who held your hand when the police came with bad news?  You don't know that friend as well as you think.

Because situations, especially new and frightening situations, can push a person to react very differently.  But isn't that still the friend you know?

When I meet a stranger, I don't always know what part of me will show itself. Will I be brusque and guarded like Mer Pampero?  Free-spirited but increasingly somber like Shanna Tramontane?  Or well-intentioned but ineffective like Dek Sundowner?  Well, it depends...on so many factors.

And there are many situations in our lives in which we meet someone for just three minutes or fewer.  We never know which impression of ourselves we'll leave behind -- is it the Good Me, or the Bad Me? -- or how others will try to make sense of the way we act.

So yes, that first meeting with a new person brings an unusual tension to the relationship.  When I take you in at first glance, I'll adapt myself a bit to meet you in the middle.  Or maybe I won't, if I'm Mer Pampero that day.

Is my character Dek who he is because of the people he's known?  Do these people bring out something that's already in him?  Or does he mirror, in his behavior or his words, what he thinks they want to see in him?

The better question is, can he do any of that in his current condition?

So, readers...when do I meet you?  And, which version of me do you expect to meet?

Ren D.

The Trouble With Dreams

My novel-in-progress, The Fracture of a Dream, deals heavily with dreams (as you might guess from the title).  Dreams of the subconscious variety, dreams of sleepers, dreams of one's future goals -- all are fair game in my exploration of life and death.

Overall, we consider dreams to be important, necessary.  Mostly a positive concept to strive for.  That's why there are so many motivational graphics about "chasing your dreams" and "it's better to regret something you did than regret never doing it."  (I'm paraphrasing.)

But you know, dreams aren't always a good thing.

So, to stretch your brains today, I'd like you to complete the following sentence and then work it into a dialogue or passage of your own:

The trouble with dreams is _________.

A few ideas of my own:

• The trouble with dreams is you wake up at some point.
• The trouble with dreams is that nightmares are dreams, too.
• The trouble with dreams is not everyone's can come true.
• The trouble with dreams is they don't pay your bills.
• The trouble with dreams is sometimes you can't sleep.
• The trouble with dreams is they don't come true when you're flat on your back, paralyzed with sleep.

What did you come up with?

Rendy