Posts Tagged how writers work
Searching for places, emotions and characters – The Undercover Soundtrack, Gwendolyn Womack
Posted by Roz Morris @Roz_Morris in The Undercover Soundtrack on June 14, 2017
My guest this week is another returner to the series. When she posted about her first novel, her preoccupations included memory and time, and they return again in this new work – a romantic thriller based around the twined stories of an ancient memoir and the world’s first Tarot cards. Music was key to creating these different lands and lives and her mental soundscape includes a tour through ancient Egypt, Milan in the 1400s and the modern seers Dead Can Dance. She is Gwendolyn Womack and she’s on the Red Blog with her Undercover Soundtrack.
‘Teenage life is freak-out and wonder’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Josh Malerman
Posted by Roz Morris @Roz_Morris in Undercover Soundtrack on October 27, 2016
My guest this week is the perfect writer to see us into Halloween. He’s been a guest of the series before and he’s always had a liking for the unusual thrill. The title of his new release will probably tell you that: A House At The Bottom Of A Lake – an imaginative tale with plenty of scares and a good dose of first love. His approach to undercover soundtracks is also oddfield and individual – he likes to play music that feels very opposite of his book idea. But even he had to go with the flow when he found a band that played and recorded an entire show under water. He is Josh Malerman and he’s on the Red Blog with his Undercover Soundtrack.
‘Music to fill my mind but not fight the words’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, GD Harper
Posted by Roz Morris @Roz_Morris in The Undercover Soundtrack on June 3, 2016
My guest this week says he is much concerned with reinvention. He’s spent his life setting himself challenges to embrace new careers, lifestyles, places to live – and the latest of those reinventions is being a novelist. His debut title is a story of 1970s Glasgow and required some daring imaginative reinventions – not least, writing in the voice and psyche of a 22-year-old woman. A soundtrack was essential – Tangerine Dream to soothe and order the brain; Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan and David Bowie to restart the period – and provide other wisdom besides. He is Glyn Harper – writing as GD Harper – and he’s on the Red Blog with his Undercover Soundtrack.
‘The emptiness of being outside a perfect romantic scene’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Dan Gennoe
Posted by Roz Morris @Roz_Morris in The Undercover Soundtrack on January 24, 2016
Oh my! Do you know what I forgot to do? There hasn’t been an Undercover Soundtrack for a few weeks, and now there is I forgot to publish the teaser post. How easily we forget our own routines. Even more heinous, I’ve been adding the tracks to the soundtrack for my own WIP, greedily enjoying it while forgetting I needed to share it with you. Apologies, apologies.
So: my guest spent 16 years as a rock journalist, interviewing stars and trying to understand what their music was trying to say. When he started to write his first novel, music took on a fresh role – no longer the endpoint, it was now the beginning. The book is the story of a man looking back on an intense love affair, and the music is an aural journey of the character’s obsession, his unstable serenity that could turn dark, his complex sense of comfort in the prison of his memories. Dan Gennoe is on the Red Blog with his Undercover Soundtrack (and has been since Wednesday, mea culpa). Proper writing post to follow later, but for now, sit back with Dan.
‘Stay close to sounds that make you glad to be alive’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Chris Cander
Posted by Roz Morris @Roz_Morris in Undercover Soundtrack on June 9, 2015
My guest this week is crossing her fingers as her agent sends out her third novel. It’s called The Weight of A Piano, so you can probably see why she fits very well here. All of her fiction is heavily shaped by music behind the scenes, from a song about a widowed woman that presented her with a grieving character, to a Miles Davis piece that captured the heart and peculiar solitude of a man who has just lost his secret love. And then, of course, there’s the piano. She is Chris Cander and she’s on the Red Blog with her Undercover Soundtrack.
‘Through the cold, lonely streets of NYC’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Terrence McCauley
Posted by Roz Morris @Roz_Morris in Undercover Soundtrack on June 19, 2013
My guest this week says his friends assume his crime novels are inspired by other noir thrillers, but they’d be wrong. His novels have all come from songs. An opening scene sprang from Springsteen; the relentless grind of a fight from House of Pain; a tender moment from the soundtrack to Gladiator. He is Terrence McCauley and he’s on the Red Blog with his Undercover Soundtrack.