characters and music – Nail Your Novel

Although our medium is words, our inspirations don’t have to be. In this episode, we talk about ways to use pictures and music to help our writing along. This was such a creative episode – storyboards to help map out plots, collecting photos of strangers who suggest mental images of our characters. And music – so much to say about that. (As you’ll know if you’ve seen my blog series The Undercover Soundtrack.)

Asking the questions is independent bookseller Peter Snell. Answering them is me!

Stream from the widget below or go to our Mixcloud page and binge the whole lot.

PS If you’d like more concentrated writing advice, try my Nail Your Novel books, especially my workbook, which includes prompts to help you build your own personal inspirational library. If you’re curious about my own creative writing, find novels here and my travel memoir here. And if you’re curious about what’s going on at my own writing desk, find my latest newsletter here and subscribe to future updates here.

‘The more I wrote, the more my novel seemed to vibrate with meaning and questions. I found these fascinating but they could have drowned the book, whereas most of all I wanted to tell a mysterious story. It was music that kept me straight.’

Today I’m at Writers & Artists, talking about a subject that will be somewhat familiar to regulars here – writing with music. They were fascinated by the concept of Undercover Soundtracks, and asked me to explain to their readers.

So this is a post about how I started using music when I was ghostwriting – and how its influence enlarged drastically when I was working on My Memories of a Future Life. Do come over.

(And would it be gauche of me to do a happy dance because my creative salon is being featured on Bloomsbury’s writing blog… Look where you might end up if you start a series just because you want to. Have a great weekend. x)