Do I see my book as a musical?

Hmmm….which one of my books would I turn into a musical? Tough topic this week, SFF Seveners! 

It shouldn’t be difficult though, right? I mean, I’ve never been to a live musical. The closest I’ve been would be South Dakota State’s production of Capers and I don’t remember there being music other than some background stuff…I’d label it comedy satire, excellent comedy-satire.

No live stuff, though I am a fan of some classic movie-musicals: My Fair Lady, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, The Greatest Showman, and about every Disney movie ever. 

But turning one of my books into a musical? I think I’m in Vivien Jackson’s camp on this one…I don’t see it. 

Sci-fi thrillers just don’t make good musicals. When I write sci-fi I definitely see what I’m writing, exactly like a movie. Sometimes when I’m writing I even lean back in my chair and enjoy the show…I just need to remember to make some popcorn when I do that.  

On the other hand...my fantasy writing could be turned into musicals. Awakening the Blades would be equated to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, a lot of parallels there. But that movie ended up being a horror/action flick, which I’m totally down for! My second fantasy could be compared to the Lord of the Rings, very epic, large cast of characters, and the balance of the world depends on a single choice. So, I guess if you can picture Gandalf the White belting out tunes then we’ve got somethin’. 

Personally, I’d rather stick to imagining my writing as blockbuster movies. They already play out that way in my head and the music I listen to as I work is 99% instrumental. 

Wait…instrumental…that’s big in musicals too, right? I mean, there’s music everywhere in a musical. It’s happening when the curtain’s shut. It’s chiming when you’re supposed to be sitting down! It’s crescendoing as the scenes are being changed over!! Nooooooo!!! My books could be musicals one day!!!

My panic aside, do you have a favorite read or book that you’d LOVE to see as a musical?  

The Writer's Playlist

Even though I've managed to save so much music to Spotify that it won't let me save any more - what's up with THAT? 10k songs is nothing! My music tastes are wide ranging and horrify pretty much everyone I've ever lived with. So I do most of my listening (and singing) for when no one else is around. But I have come to the conclusion that music is for when I'm not writing. My writing playlists used to be game sound tracks.

Myst. ALL OF THEM. The Diablo soundtracks. Halo soundtracks. Anything moody and/or without lyrics. I dipped into Brain.fm and some of the other binaural sound tracks available. Anything to shift my brainwaves and help me concentrate and shut out the world. For along while I listened to Nox Arcana to get my fill of atmospheric, we're all gonna die music. Frontline Assembly and, oddly enough, Nine Inch Nails worked for that, too. (I know I said no lyrics. I guess I lied.)

But then science happened and now there's data pretty much proving my high school science teacher's most unpopular assertion. Music impairs creativity. Granted. One study does not a landslide make. But if you're trying to listen to the still, small voices inside, maybe consider turning down the interference?

So I'm writing silent. This is a luxury and I freely admit that. When my folks move in and I'm having to block out conversations, TV, and the sounds of other humans breathing, earphones and sound may be my only solace. Until then, I'm writing a deaf heroine. Silence is exactly what's needed.

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.


 

What's Next? Seph or Jovienne?

Note: This post is off-topic this week. 

In many ways, 2017 has not been my best year.
Ragnarok Publications, who released my novel Jovienne (Immanence #1) this past May, has had some ups and downs. As a result, they canceled all contracts for novels for 2018. That means the second book of the Immanence series which I had started working on… now has no home.

This is a reality many other authors have faced, and not just those of us who’d been working with Ragnarok. Many small presses fell this past year. This is, sadly, for me, familiar territory. Simon & Schuster’s imprint Pocket Books decided years back that they wanted no more Persephone Alcmedi series books from me. Despite that, fans still consistently contact me. They say they just found the series and want more, or they say they loved the books when they were first released and wonder if there will be more.

I’ve started and stopped working on #7 more times than I can remember. I’ve pitched it to small presses and always garnered interest, yet, for a variety of reasons, they all fell apart before they could start. At one point recently, it was on the table with a small press and I thought a contract would finally culminate…but it just didn’t feel right. That time, I backed out.

Again, 2017 has not been my best year.

I think it’s healthy to acknowledge feelings, good and bad, but not to let them rule. So, to that end, I allowed myself wallow in the dejection of that canceled contract for a few days. And then I turned to music.

Musically speaking, 2017 was a good year. 

I composed, created, produced, mixed and mastered and released my first CD. It’s even available on Spotify and other music streaming channels. That’s a remarkable dream come true. (Spotify link HERE. If you dig any of the songs, give 'em a thumbs up please!) 

Music will bring me out of whatever slump my head thinks I’m in. I’ve been composing for another novel, an epic fantasy that is currently with an editor. It is my intention to self-publish it in 2018, so this is a good time to work on it and the themes are a lot of fun to play with. I’m enjoying this step away from writing words very much.

This, however, is not permanent. I want to finish the Persephone Alcmedi series. I want to finish the Immanence series. Both are sitting at a bit under 20k words. Realistically, I could turn to either one with equal zeal and find completion in the same amount of time.

But which one?

This is where you come in. 

Which would you be more interested in reading:

Persephone Alcmedi #7 or Immanence #2.

Please, if you have a preference at all, head over to my website HERE and use the contact form to email me your vote. The one with the higher demand will get my time and attention in 2018. And with any luck, I’ll be self-publishing two books next year.

A Dreamer's Journey

"Finding the Fun Again" is an ironic topic this week.

Since my fellow writers here are going to surely post about writing, I will take a wee diversion and post about something that is, while not writing words, is also creative. I'm talking about writing music.

Let me take you back in time. I once owned a Baldwin upright piano. It was a heavyweight of my childhood, pun intended, and when I became an adult...it was mine. It came with me when I left home. Being one to rearrange a room on a whim, it moved it here and there with effort. Always, I played. I scribbled notes on paper wishing I had to skills to play all the things I heard in my head.

That piano was sold, a bit of cash was added to the amount gained and I suddenly owned an awesome keyboard with 16 track built in recording and midi orchestra at my fingertips. And so my journey as a scorewriter began.

Sadly, the music I labored over, stored on a 3in floppy (it had a built in disc drive) was not able to be removed and put into something more...shareable. Technology had other plans for me. I tried Cakewalk. No. It was not appropriately named. My cd dreams were back-burnered.

Fast forward seven years.

New computer. New software. New gadget go-between hooked the computer to the keyboard. At last, I could get the music off of the disc. But it was one track at a time. If I didn't hit play and record pefectlly then the notes did not line up. Each had to be moved individually. And when I wanted to hit play back to hear if they were aligned...well the program offered only one synthesized voice, impossible to differentiate the tracks.

The task was again back-burnered. Hope was hard to come by, but I had my 3 in disc. I had my keyboard. My music lived, but like a houseplant...only for me and anyone who visited (and happened to give a shit about my music) to enjoy.

Fast forward ANOTHER seven years.

I received a new computer last fall. I recieved Pro Tools for Christmas. A second keyboard became my birthday present. Then the East West subscription was purchased. Piece by piece, the new dream kit was assembled. On Tuesday of last week, after nearly a month of "this-is-not-my-normal-computer-area" tech hell, my persistent and wonderful husband got Pro Tools and East West talking to each other.

Wednesday went like this:
7:15 am bus ran; I'm home alone. Chores ensue.

8:30 am coffee in hand I go to office to begin

At some point I began to feel hungry, pulled a granola bar from my desk drawer (don't judge me) and ate it.

My phone reminded me at 2:30 to open the garage so the kid arriving soon on the bus could get inside...but it was a snowday. I ignored the chime and worked on.

I looked at the clock. 5:30 pm.

I looked at my coffee mug. It was half full.

I'd spent 9 hours working on music and it had passed like a flash. I hadn't even thought of what I'd make for dinner... Saving the work, shutting it off, I rushed downstairs gulping my coffee...only to find my husband in the kitchen, home already. Usually, I have dinner waiting for us. I apologized. He shushed me and held up a bag...a bag that had Jeni's on the side of it. (As in Jeni's splendid ice cream.)

A new door has opened and I've rediscovered a joy I used to know, a joy that for too long has slumbered. Before me is a challenge, not only to master this new program (it is SOOO amazing and complex and I've only gleefully scratched the surface), but to hone my skills and exceed.

There will be a CD, my first, available with the release of my novel, Jovienne, in May. It will be the score for the book. My music is alive. Themes for my characters grew and overlaped and merged as when I wrote this score years ago when the music was an exercise to shape the vision in my mind of this story that I was writing. And the melodies are growing in the light of these new capabilities.

I have breathed the deep breath of someone who has created and waited.

My score is steps -- minutes, not years -- away from shareable.

To me, fun is the act of creation and the act of refining that creation. To be here, now, on the cusp of sharing it with you...it is an act of persistence, of clinging to a dream that embodies me, that had embodied me for so long that it is part of the core of who I am.

You, whoever you are, never give up on your dreams, never give up on your self, never give up on working toward that goal that lives inside your soul.

Its true. There is nothing like the joy that overwhelms you when you're touching that goal. I danced in my kitchen eating ice cream for dinner and giggling with the one person who means so much, who believes in me and did all he could to give me this moment, all for the joy of sharing it with me.