THE MUSIC OF WRITING

I originally wrote the following post for my YA group author blog, YA Outside the Lines.  It turned out to be my favorite blog post of all time.  I'm reposting here:

When I was sixteen, I took guitar lessons with Bill Brown.  This was a big, big deal in my world.  It was Bill Brown.  The first time I’d ever heard him was when I was fourteen, at the John Lennon tribute concert, which we once held annually here in Springfield, MO.  And I was blown away.  I had no idea that there were people who could play like that who were not on MTV. (I’m actually being completely serious about that.)  I spent the next year and a half going from venue to venue around town to listen to his various bands play (his best-known group was undoubtedly the Ozark Mountain Daredevils).

I was utterly starstruck when I took lessons with Bill.  To this day, I have never been around anyone so innately talented—actually, I think I could live to be two hundred, and meet the very best the world has to offer, and still never be around anyone as talented as Bill.  He was also hilarious.  And kind.  And goofy.  (He used to greet me by singing XTC's "Holly Up on Poppy."  He loved XTC.)  I can’t adequately describe how I looked forward to seeing him every Saturday, in the back room of Third Eye Guitars.

 

I’d already played piano for several years, and could read music.  But Bill also taught me about playing by ear…most importantly, he got me to bring in some of my poems, showed me some of the basics of songwriting.  

I totally stole this pic from the FB page for Bill's '80s band, The Misstakes.  It's very close to the way he looked when I knew him.

…This past week marked the tenth anniversary of Bill’s passing (he died in a house fire with Don Shipps, another Springfield musician).  Like I do every year on the anniversary, I got out my guitar and played a few Beatles songs in his honor.  I also played a few of the songs I wrote when I was a teenager.

There’s absolutely a rhythm to the written word—a music in language.  I can’t help but think, then, that those music lessons in Third Eye were early lessons in writing a novel.  And I can’t help but think that Bill’s influence is easy to find in my books. 

WHEN SONGS TELL YOUR STORY

This girl is brilliant.  Seriously.

I'm in complete awe of people who can cram an entire book into a three-minute pop song.  And Kacey Musgraves does that beautifully here.

As a single girl in the Ozarks, I also have to say I relate to this one on a personal level.  I adore my area of the country, but I'd be lying if I said that certain area events (remember Sarah Ockler?) and attitudes didn't just embarrass me down to my toes. 


 

...How about you?  What songs have you sworn told your own story?

MY CURRENT SOUNDTRACK (LEARNING HOW TO WRITE TO MUSIC)

Longtime readers of this blog know I’m a music fanatic. So much so, I’ve never really been able to write to music. In the past, I always found it too much of a distraction. (I’d get so wrapped up in my favorite tunes, I’d find myself typing lyrics instead of my current WIP!) Slowly, though, I’m beginning to learn how to write to music—I’m beginning to learn how to let it fuel rather than distract me. And it’s just a complete joy…

Right now, my current soundtrack is Amos Lee…I discovered Lee over a year ago, while watching CMT Artists of the Year—he performed one of my favorite songs of all time, “Colder Weather,” with Zac Brown Band. (If you missed it, click here asap, and prepare to get covered in goose bumps.) I’ve had MISSION BELL since it released last year and have always loved it, but I’ve found myself suddenly obsessed with this album the past few days—and it's slowly started to dawn on me that the reason might be that Lee’s record provides the just-right tone for my current WIP.

…How about you? Do you write to music? Do you find yourself listening to different genres of music depending on what you’re drafting? How has listening to music fueled your own work?

TOO OLD NOW TO...

I turned 35 this week. I’m really not quite sure how this happened. At first, seeing this age next to my name was a bit like those instances when you get your credit card bill and say, “Hey, there’s no way I spent this much money this month,” only you know, even before you get out that fine-toothed comb, that you really have. Somehow, I’ve raced through 35 years’ worth of time.

Some cool stuff I got:

* A Kindle cover. Now, I get to retire that sheet of Bubble Wrap I was using to protect it inside my purse. Nobody’ll snicker at me when I haul the thing out in public to read.

*A giant silver piggy bank (he’s so cute, I’m gonna wanna feed him). I named him Ponzi.

* The realization that I am right now in the very place I would have given my eye teeth to be, four years ago.

It’s so easy (for me, at least) to always be looking at some distant prize, dancing on the horizon somewhere. This week, though, I was reminded that four years ago, I had yet to land any sort of deal with anyone—publisher, agent, etc. Although I did have a fabulous hole in the drywall, where I’d been knocking my head against the office wall…

Which brings me to the coolest gift of all, which arrived in droves:

* Happy Birthday wishes, from readers and fans via Twitter, Facebook, my website, and my various email addresses. I always say the best gift is just a, “Happy Birthday.” And I got so many this year, it brought a tear to the eye…Thanks, guys. Seriously.

I wound the day down with a performance from my favorite musician, Will Hoge, on Kimmel. Get this—he sang “Too Old to Die Young.” Come on. How perfect is that?

MY FAVORITE DISTRACTION

I'm eyebrow-deep in yet another revision. And I'm so keen on getting this one whipped out, I'm not letting myself listen to my new Pistol Annies CD until I'm done (it's become the dangling carrot that absolutely makes my mouth water...)

In the midst of my self-inflicted music diet, though, new music finds me, anyway. I've recently discovered Will Hoge, and he's quickly become one of my favorite singers...I swear, his voice gives me goosebumps. And his song "Even If It Breaks Your Heart" has become one of my all-time favorite tunes, as well.

Really...doesn't this song sum up how we all feel about writing?

ON MUSIC POSTS (AND FAKE RUBBER ARMS...)

Seems as though I’ve been blogging more than usual about music lately—Zac Brown, David Nail…

Thing is, when I started blogging, it was because I’d just sold A BLUE SO DARK and my editor thought it’d be a good idea. So I put up the blog with the idea that it’d be about writing and reading...books and literature. Period. But music’s such an integral part of my life (the students I met while giving private piano and guitar lessons were the reason I started writing kid lit in the first place!), that not blogging about it has gotten to be a little like walking around your whole life pretending your left arm doesn’t exist.

Just imagine it: every time you go to hug an old friend, or carry a stack of books back to the library, you only use your right arm, leaving your left to just dangle limply at your side, like some fake rubber thing made for Halloween pranks. Weird, right? Yeah, weird. So from now on, music posts. On occasion.

Like this, for example: I just discovered this tune / band, and had, had, had to share: "Barton Hollow" by The Civil Wars. Incredible song…Raw as a canker sore...And isn’t John Paul White a dead ringer for Johnny Depp?

(Click to purchase.)

SONGWRITING: THE MOST POWERFUL WRITING AROUND

Seriously—you can read a book and empathize with the protagonist. You can root for the main character, hope they get out of their jam. And if the writer’s a good one, they’ll propel you forward so that you find yourself speed-reading the pages that lead toward the final conclusion. A song, though? You don’t just feel for the main character—you become the main character. A really good pop / country / rock song makes you experience the drama yourself.

...That’s exactly what happens to me every time I hear Zac Brown’s “Colder Weather.” I swear, my teeth chatter and I ache all over. Beautiful stuff. Powerful stuff…Even in this stripped-down version.

(My favorite version, though, is still the performance featuring Amos Lee at CMT Artists of the Year).

Click to purchase.

SONG OF THE YEAR

Oh, how I wish I could write to music. But, no, I just get too involved. (There is no such thing as background music, where I'm concerned. I swear, I can get so wrapped up in the muzak in a grocery store that I forget what I came to pick up in the first place.)

But...when I'm not writing, I'm a music fanatic of (seriously) infinite proportions. And in my book, "Turning Home" by David Nail (a fellow Missourian, I might add) is the song of the year. I've played this one enough, all my neighbors know the words. Love it, love it, love it...

Click to purchase.

INTERVIEW AT TRISHA'S BOOK BLOG!

Okay, so I'm getting better about writing to music...which is a good thing, because writing can get pretty darned solitary if you don't have another voice in the room.

Sometimes, though, if the song's really good, then I'm online, listening to it about six thousand times, and Googling the band, and...

You get the point.

I address writing to music and so much more in the latest interview at Trisha's Book Blog!

SQUARE BOXES, WIRES, AND HAIR BAND LOVE

I’m just now recovering from a computer malfunction that took the majority of the week to resolve…I’m sort of torn between feeling ultra-grateful that I’m now able to get back to emailing and updating my online life, and really hating how absolutely dependent I am on a square box and a bunch of wires. (I was the last person in the universe to sign up for Facebook. Now, suddenly, I can’t breathe without it? What gives?)

Anyway, first headline I saw this morning when I logged back on was about the Whitesnake video. You’ve seen it, right? “Here I Go Again,” ten million hits on YouTube.

…And suddenly, I’m thinking about me, 1992. Five years after the ‘Snake vid, but still loving—and I mean loving—my hair bands (and anything metal-ish) nonetheless. (Yup, I’m fifteen in the picture below…and that’s the drummer of Tesla signing an autograph for me…)

And I’m thinking about life before computers, before cell phones (in 1992, it was before answering machines in the Schindler household), and I’m tallying up the incredible—seriously—incredible word count I racked up during this past week when I was unplugged, and I’m wondering if I shouldn’t unplug more often…I mean, even for a few hours, one day on the weekend…

Sounds like heaven, actually…a little circa ’92 living…hmmm…

THE MUSIC OF OUR ENVIRONMENTS...

...How could I have possibly missed this song?

PICTURE THIS...

So I’m putting together our yearly calendar...for 2010, I'm using pictures of me and my brother, John, when we were little. This particular black-and-white is my shot for June…I’m thinkin’ it was taken by our next-door neighbor the summer before my first-grade year.

…Makes my ears fill with a Cyndi Lauper soundtrack just looking at it. Right about this time, I was obsessed with She's So Unusual (the first record I ever bought). Later that year, I even dressed up as Cyndi Lauper for Halloween!

I think I'll reclaim "Girls Just Want To Have Fun" as my personal anthem...

NO GREEN STRING ZONE

Remember those old fogies who sighed into their easy chairs after a long, hard day of work while their guitars, propped on stands in corners, grew dust as thick as winter blankets? Remember how you watched those strings turn green—literally—green from not being used, and how you wanted to cry for those poor, sad, lame, geezers? Remember how you swore you’d never be that old—even when you were a hundred and eighty?

Yeah. My guitar reminds me of that regularly. Demands that we do not drift off into fogy-land, no matter how many hours I’ve spent ripping old manuscripts to shreds. (Sometimes, doesn’t it feel more like building houses than it does writing a book???)

All I can say is, demand away…

HOW TO BUY TIME

Spring’s creeping, slow as a breeze up an arm. Which means that it’s time to pull out the tuning hammer and curl my back over the family Cable.

Our piano’s a real heirloom—the only item my grandfather ever purchased “on time.” Funny, that old expression for charging an item…especially since the piano is what bought me time. Teaching music lessons in the afternoons allowed me to pay those pesky bills while devoting eight hours every day to my writing.

I love the music of old pianos. Their soundboards don’t just vibrate with notes, but with history. The hopes of three generations float out from the inside of mine, every time so much as a single scale is played on the (okay, faux) ivories…