Music

Tie Dye of the Day

Music

I’ve always found it amazing how much the music I listen to effects the mood of the story I’m writing and my character’s personalities. It’s really difficult to describe how the music makes you feel. Putting it into words is nearly impossible, but the music always seemed to be the lynch pin that pushes my creativity forward and brings me to all different emotional heights, heights that force me to run as fast as I can to find my notebook and get to work immediately. So, I thought I’d share just a few musical pieces that helped me to shape my novel, The God Machine.

First off, I’d like to explain the way I use music in my novels. The songs I use are my characters. Every time that character’s song plays, I brain goes to that character and I, in a sense, become that character. My mind will reset, and all my thoughts will go to that character, how they feel, who they are, how that song describes them perfectly. The song will put me in a mindset that helps me to see how that one person will react to certain situations. In my mind, it keeps their personalities separate because no one wants to read a book where every character is a cookie cutter of the last. That would be no fun.

So, what songs did I pick to represent my characters? Sometimes the song picks the character. For me, it happens when I’m walking along listening to my IPod. All the sudden it hits me. I gasp, and then I realize… This song is Salamander! Holy Crap!

I’ll start off with Salamander’s song. It’s “The Voice” by The Moody Blues. I also was quite fond of Steppin’ in a Slide Zone. Those two songs came to me when I was trying to write the Gauntlet of Fire scene. The great thing about fantasy writing is that you get to make things up completely, world build, but that is also the bad thing about it. I had no clue what the Gauntlet of Fire looked like until that song, The Voice, sneaked its way onto my IPod. When that song played I went from knowing absolutely nothing to absolutely everything about the Gauntlet in a matter of hours. When I heard the music, I saw Salamander get up off the ground and he was running. I could see his wand broken in half and each piece was in his hand. Like Spider Man, he flew into the air and attached himself to this terrible machine, and he had to climb up it by sinking the pointy ends of his wand into it and pulling himself up. Then I realized the machine was alive and evil and it bled acid blood, but Salamander was determined to get inside and defeat the monster. This song is so full of determination, and heart. It speaks of the future and the past and love and finding your dreams. This song is such a beautiful masterpiece, and it’s all Salamander.

Zolton’s song had been a favorite of mine when I was a teen and I hadn’t listened to it for over ten years when I found it again. It is called “The Everlasting Gaze” by The Smashing Pumpkins. It was also where I came up with the title The God Machine. This song spoke to me because when I listened to it, I heard a tale of lost love, and of a man who wanted his love to know that he was still here, still waiting for a chance to get her back, “forever waiting on the ways of your desire.” He still had his duty, yet he was still in love.

Ferret has two songs, but I say that’s okay. The first one is “The Changeling” by the Doors. You’ll know why if you read the book. The second one is “Like a Stone” by Audio Slave. Before I had to slash and burn song lyrics from my book for copyright reasons, this is one song out of many that Ferret would sing to Amanda to get her to remember him(for the sake of not giving the plot away I’m just going to say that Amanda has amnesia). There was a beautiful scene where Ferret and Amanda were on the beach and he’d been trying to get her to forget about Zolton for a century and he finally wooed her by singing this song to her. “In your house I long to be, room by room patiently. I’ll wait for you there like a stone. I’ll wait for you there alone.” Sadly, I didn’t want to get sued so I had to cut it, but that song does very well to describe Ferret’s heartache, and desperation of chasing after this woman who doesn’t remember the lifetime of love they shared, and she is now in love with another man.

Merlin’s song is really more prominent in the next book because the next book is going to be all about Merlin. His song is “Snow (Hey Oh)” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. This just happens to be one of the most beautiful songs I’ve ever heard, and It’s difficult to explain exactly how this became Merlin’s song. Well, here goes, I heard lyrics that were not the real lyrics to the song and it gave me the book idea. I can’t go into too much detail because it’s a storyline I’ve never seen done before, but for the sake of the song, Merlin is referred to as “The Perfect Wonder” and his love interest is the “Soul White as Snow.” The real lyrics are “SO white as snow,” but the damage is done.

Bernie’s song is “Once Upon a Time in your Wildest Dreams” by the Moody Blues, but only the intro.

As you can see, I am back from the dead! Yea! After two and a half months of migraines and last week with the Austrailian Norovirus, you can bet that I’m soooo ready to get back to my writing. Actually, today is the first time I’ve actually felt GOOD since the beginning of November. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking while I’ve been incapacitated, and I’ve decided that I would like to put The God Machine on my blog for free for all my WordPress friends. I noticed that my book is exactly 28 chapters long and tomorrow is the first day of February, so starting tomorrow, I will be presenting 28 days of The God Machine! I’ve been enjoying The Redemption of Erath by my blog friend Satis for a long time, and think he might be onto something. Also I don’t really care if I make money on my books. I just want to entertain people, so be prepared!!!! Here comes the entertainment!!! Tomorrow I will be putting up chapter 1 of The God Machine!

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