Only connect: how to wake a dormant muse

My muse is in trouble. I’ve spent too long on facts and analysis. I’ve been longing to tackle the Mountains Novel. Ideas and concepts have been piling up in my files, but now my schedule allows, I can think only of practicalities. My notes look like thin nonsense. I only see the problems, not the potential.

This is what going to press – and e-press – does to your mind. These last weeks have been an orgy of pedantry. Crossing ts and eyes, making an index, hyperlinking cross-references, obeying format rules for the kingdoms of Smashwords, Kobo and Kindle, typesetting the print version, reading onscreen proofs, tweaking bloopers and doing it all again. Oh and I updated the typography in the original NYN too, so that was an extra dose of proofing.

Now, my muse is on strike. I need to win it round. Here’s what I’m doing.

Forgive me if this is the most air-headed post I’ve ever written. I’m blowing away cobwebs.

Reading

While finishing the characters book, I’ve been making a list of novels and memoirs that have resonated with themes and ideas I want to explore. There’s nothing like a good book to make me want to write.

Compiling a soundtrack

Of course I’m doing this. I’ve been collecting CDs for the car, tracks for running to. Some of them have come from others’ Undercover Soundtrack posts, especially Andy Harrod,  Tom Bradley,  Timothy Hallinan and a few that are currently a secret between me and the writers because they’re cued up in my inbox. Thank you, guys, for opening the windows.

Rediscovering the fun in connections

A few things that real-life friends have introduced me to these last few days that reminded me how homo sapiens is an endlessly creative creature.

1 David(s) Bailey

I have a friend called David Bailey. Yes, like the famous photographer, but not related to him. Though my David Bailey does like taking photographs. And he’s spent much of his life grappling with scornful titters if he wields a camera. Last year, he was recruited for an advertising stunt, where 143 chaps called David Bailey gathered in London, put on black polonecks, were trained to use a whizzy camera and had to spend the day using each other’s middle names.

2 People lying down in Mexico

More pictures, also sent to me by a camera ninja. Fran Monks (a portrait photographer who is less challenged by namesakes) found this collection from Magnum of people lying down in Mexico.

These foolish things inspire me. There’s something so adorable about found similarity. A brigade of guys called David Bailey, identically dressed and taking pictures. Ten beautifully composed photos where everyone is, curiously, lying down. I could detonate with delight. If I wrote a thousand words I wouldn’t get to the end of why.

Whether your art is visual, written or sonic, so much starts by taking the world and seeing patterns. Repetitions. Connections. One idea boldly takes the hand of another, one character finds another, one event causes another, fractalling on and on. They look as though they should always have been joined. I won’t make the same connections you do, and that’s what makes your art yours and my art mine.

What inspires you?

(Aside: this week, some of the David Bailey pictures are being sold on ebay to raise money for the Marie Curie Cancer Care charity. One of them is by the very famous black polonecked David Bailey; one is by my black polonecked David JW Bailey, who also provided the pics for this post. See if you can tell which is which)

Music that changed my book – post at Authors Electric

More than 50 writers have now contributed to The Undercover Soundtrack and plenty more are on the way. Today it’s my turn at Authors Electric, more properly known as Do Authors Dream of Electric Books – and I’m celebrating the way we use music to dream of other worlds, people and their lives… Come on over

‘She’s just a kid, flying high, full of imagination and life’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Terri Giuliano Long

My guest this week was stopped in her tracks one evening by a Springsteen song, which became a young girl pushing boundaries, which became a finely drawn portrait of a family in turmoil. Other songs came to define pivotal moments – and the novel itself went on to win awards. That novel is In Leah’s Wake, the author is Terri Giuliano Long - and she’s at the Red Blog today, talking about its Undercover Soundtrack

‘I look for clever, lyrical music with a twinge of melancholy’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Catherynne M Valente

‘Music and fairyland go hand in hand’ writes my Undercover Soundtrack guest this week. After cueing up her playlist I can assure you this fairyland is not just rich and strange, but funky, cheeky, cheesy, sassy, riotous, ridiculous and whimsical. It’s hardly surprising then that her novels and poetry have been nominated for numerous awards, including the Mythopoeic, the Lambda, the Hugo, Locus, World Fantasy, and Nebula. Deeply fond of writing to music, she’s also closed the musical circle by inspiring three albums by singer/songwriter S.J. Tucker. She is Catherynne M Valente, and she’s over on the Red Blog talking about The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In A Ship Of Her Own Making.

‘If you can’t live it yourself, the song will take you there’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Linda W Yezak

‘With that song I was a young man with jangling spurs, ready to ride.’ My guest this week used her Undercover Soundtrack to create the feral carnival of the bull-rider’s world – and to understand the rugged souls who live that life. Hold onto your hats; Linda W Yezak is plunging out of the gates at the Red Blog today.

‘Music for telling the darkest secrets’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Kelly Simmons

When Kelly Simmons was finding her way with her first novel, she put on the soundtrack for The Sopranos TV series and a new creative habit was born. Now, two thrillers finished, she still can’t abide music while writing her initial draft. But come the revisions, she puts on gritty, twisty songs that help her infuse her novels with humanity as well as violence. Join me on on the red blog for her Undercover Soundtrack

‘In that song I finally started to see the character who would introduce my story’ – The Undercover Soundtrack,MJ Rose

My Undercover Soundtrack author this week was struggling to begin her novel when her musician husband handed her a CD containing just one track – a piece he’d composed especially to show her the way. The novel is The Book of Lost Fragrances, the author is MJ Rose, and you can read more about this evocative, romantic mystery – and hear the song written especially for it – on the red blog now

‘Blues took me to the swamps of the Deep South, and the heart-rending misery Emily encounters’ – The Undercover Soundtrack,Sanjida O’Connell

Blues, slave songs and the decadant glamour of the Deep South. My Undercover Soundtrack guest this week stirs up a heady mix for her novel about an Englishwoman in the 1850s who marries a charming American – and discovers he owns a plantation with 700 slaves. Sanjida O’Connell is at the red blog talking about the music that helped her write Sugar Island

‘I wanted the words to sound like music’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Jessica Bell

I am seriously envious of my Undercover Soundtrack guest this week. As she developed her characters and their world, she found it natural to write the songs of the story too – and then headed into the studio to record them. The result? Her novel has its very own original soundtrack on iTunes. She is Jessica Bell, a poet and songwriter as well as a wielder of the literary art, and her novel is String Bridge.  Join me at the red blog to hear more.

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‘These songs infused my writing with the freedom Vivian experienced on that vivid night’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Mary Vensel White

My Undercover Soundtrack guest this week has had a start many writers would envy. She posted her novel on the HarperCollins writer community Authonomy and this week it will be the first release under the new Authonomy imprint. That novel is The Qualities of Wood, the story of a couple who swap city life for the country, becoming enmeshed in a mystery that has far-reaching personal consequences. Join me on the red blog, where Mary talks about the music that went into her novel’s making and informed her characters’ journeys.