Posts Tagged music for writers
Using pictures and music to inspire your writing – Ep 15 FREE podcast for writers
Posted by Roz Morris @Roz_Morris in How to write a book on April 8, 2020
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.
‘What is hope and how do we make more of it?’ The Undercover Soundtrack, Dwight Okita
Posted by Roz Morris @Roz_Morris in Undercover Soundtrack on January 15, 2018
It’s such a pleasure when an early contributor to this series returns with a new title. Today we’re rewinding to a guest from the first year of The Undercover Soundtrack. Dwight Okita was a finalist in the coveted Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award with The Prospect of My Arrival, a story that flirted with ideas of the supernatural and reincarnation. Now with his second novel, The Hope Store, he’s created a low-key magic realism/science fiction fable that centres around an invention that can bring happiness. Music was important for keeping him on message, and Dwight’s muses included U2 and my own favourite, Kate Bush. Drop by the Red Blog to hear more.
‘The unrelenting passage of time’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Theresa Milstein
Posted by Roz Morris @Roz_Morris in The Undercover Soundtrack on April 2, 2017
My guest this week has just published a collection of vignettes. They’re linked by a sense of time passing, anniversaries both happy and sad, and nostalgia. Music was the way to capture and preserve the essential moments and personal memories she wanted to examine, so the soundtrack was a soundtrack to her life too. She is Theresa Milstein and she’s on the Red Blog now.
‘Music is both my on and my off switch’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Andrea Darby
Posted by Roz Morris @Roz_Morris in Undercover Soundtrack on February 5, 2017
My guest this week is a musician as much as a writer – she teaches piano, and she says that playing is the closest she ever gets to a state of mindfulness. Her debut novel was sparked by the uncanny conjunction of a magazine article and a piece of music. The former was a piece about a couple who had signed up to have their bodies cryonically preserved after their deaths, in the hope that they would be reawakened and reuinited. And the latter? A haunting, icy piece of music by Ennio Morricone that seemed to urge her to write a story about a couple who sign up for preservation, and the tragic situation that ensues. Drop by the Red Blog for the Undercover Soundtrack of Andrea Darby, and her novel The Husband Who Refused To Die.
‘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.
‘Hope, chaos and a fighting spirit’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Deborah Andrews
Posted by Roz Morris @Roz_Morris in The Undercover Soundtrack on October 6, 2016
I settled down to read this week’s Undercover Soundtrack contribution and what did I find? The writer seemed to have plundered some of my own favourite tracks. Massive Attack’s Unfinished Sympathy. The Verve’s Bittersweet Symphony. Kate Bush’s Cloudbusting (though if you’re as much of a Kate Bush nut as I am you could be forgiven for thinking I was going to make an orchestral hat trick with Symphony in Blue). Not only has my guest served up a stirring soundtrack, she’s also made big waves with the novel she’s showcasing – securing a position on the shortlist of the Guardian’s Not The Booker prize. She says music is the emotional heart of the novel, speaking of relationships, times, hope, love and validation. Drop by the Red Blog for the Undercover Soundtrack of Deborah Andrews and Walking The Lights. Yes, despite the cover change, the blog is still resolutely red.
‘Music brought me closer to that amalgum of confusion, self-pity and nostalgia’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Anne Goodwin
Posted by Roz Morris @Roz_Morris in The Undercover Soundtrack on July 28, 2016
My guest this week has a novel about a woman who has kept her past identity hidden. The novel is its reckoning, of course, and its author had a challenge in evoking the many colours of her protagonist’s progress from child to woman. So she built herself a soundtrack. It’s a mix of radio theme tunes from her own childhood (possibly the first appearance in the series of Listen With Mother), traditional songs that conjure a powerful sense of place and melancholy reminders of the emotional rollercoaster of adolescence. Drop in on the Red Blog to meet Anne Goodwin and her Undercover Soundtrack.
‘Writing this novel has left me less guarded’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Isabel Costello
Posted by Roz Morris @Roz_Morris in The Undercover Soundtrack on June 17, 2016
Who changes in the course of a novel? We hope the characters do. Sometimes the author does too. My guest this week feels that writing her novel became an act of emotional honesty that left her in a new place. Music was a constant companion – a mix of Bruce Springsteen, Pink Floyd and Parisian-themed works too. She is novelist, short story writer and award-winning book blogger Isabel Costello and she’s on the Red Blog with the Undercover Soundtrack for Paris Mon Amour.