The Mark of the Tala: The Musical

Our topic this week at the SFF Seven is "Your book as a musical: which book would you choose to have made into a musical and which composer/lyricist/songwriter would you have score it?"

This is an amusing question in part because it's never been posed to me before. And I'm a fan of musicals from way back, having even performed in a few back in high school. I gave serious thought to which book would best translate to stage and who would do a great job with it.

I finally settled on THE MARK OF THE TALA, the first book in The Twelve Kingdoms trilogy and the overall Uncharted Realms series. I considered The Forgotten Empires books, but I think this story has an arc that would work best for stage - and I can envision the musical numbers. This entire trilogy was heavily influenced by the musical Wicked. There's even a scene in book 3, THE TALON OF THE HAWK, that I drew directly from a climactic song in that musical.

Therefore, I'd pick Stephen Schwartz for the music and lyrics and Winnie Holzman for the book. If they could do for THE MARK OF THE TALA what they did for Gregory Maguire's novel Wicked (which is an amazing book, if you've never read it), I'd be... well, I'd be defying gravity!

Jeffe's Musical Inspiration

A little tease of the LONEN'S REIGN cover, which we'll be revealing in my newsletter sometime in the next 24-48 hours. If you want to subscribe, the link is here. 

Our topic at the SFF Seven is what playlist or poetry we use for inspiration. Longtime followers of mine know that I don't have playlists for my books. I prefer silence when I write. Maybe some birdsong, but I don't even like classical music to play.

When I first started out, yes, I used music - especially movie soundtracks like The Mission and Master & Commander - but I changed over time. Silence allows me to immerse the flow of writing and forget the real world.

That said, some songs really do resonate with me. They capture a feeling in music that I'd love to convey in words. This song is one of them. I particularly love this rendition, as Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel bring to it their long friendship and all the years that have passed and strengthened the ties between them. You know that, just like Galinda and Elphaba, Kristin and Idina have had conflict over the years of working together. Recognizing that friendship can survive conflict and come out the other side has incredible emotional resonance.