If you are anything like the rest of us music junkies here at ATWN, and you're also a writer, you probably have extensive writing playlists for your novels. You probably listen to a song a hundred times over just to be sure you're hitting the mood you want just right. Choosing the perfect songs and creating the playlists that will keep you writing long after your mojo has run out is complicated.
But, then, so is writing. Writing is complicated. Last week I was talking to my husband about a new book idea. We'd been throwing scenarios and questions at one another, and it was just...well....fun. I had just finished (first round) revisions a couple of weeks ago on my last WIP, and it felt good to be brainstorming something new. It was exciting, and it got me thinking. Our books have playlists, but what about us writers? It kind of makes sense for the writing process to have its own playlist, doesn't it?
Here is how I envision my own writing process to play out in songs:
The shiny new idea:
LET'S GET IT STARTED by Black Eyed Peas
I especially agree with these lryics. I mean, it's like they were taken from my own head:
C'mon y'all, lets get woohoo!
Lets get woohoo! (in here)
Lets get woohoo!
Lets get woohoo! (in here)
Lets get woohoo!
Lets get woohoo! (in here) Ow, ow, ow!
Ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya, ya...
After I've been writing for a while, and things are probably going waayyyy too smoothly, I almost always hit THE DREADED SAGGING MIDDLE.
That's when this song makes the most sense:
LOSER by Beck
You can't write if you can't relate anyone?
But then it happens! I pull myself out of that no man's land and suddenly the fire is back. I'm writing with more intensity than before and I know my characters and story better than ever. That's when this song fits:
LOSE YOURSELF by Eminem
I think we all know the lyrics to this one, especially the hook (okay, maybe I'm not walking around saying "yo" but I can sing the crap out of this song):
You better lose yourself in the music, the moment
You own it, you better never let it go
You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow
This opportunity comes once in a lifetime yo
And before I know it, I've reached the ending. It's always a bit rushed on the first few drafts, but nevertheless, the book is written. I've completed an entire draft! So of course this is how I'm feeling:
WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS by Queen
Seriously, is there a better song for that moment? Maybe, but I still kind of feel like this every time I overcome that first draft hurdle.
Then there is always the fun of revisions, but maybe I'll make another writing playlist for revisions, because let's face it, revisions are a totally different beast. They definitely deserve their own post.
How would you describe your writing process using songs? Which songs would you say fit your method best?
Sometimes we need reminded that we, as writers, are chasing a dream. We're working towards a goal. For most of us, that means publication in some form or another. No matter how different our paths are toward that goal of publication we have to remember that we're already winners. Why? Because we're pursuing something we love. We're living examples for our families and friends that if you put in the hard work and don't give up, amazing things can happen!
Writing, as a craft, is difficult. Then throw in jobs, families, friends, health. Sometimes writing is almost impossible. But if we stay positive, remember WHY we write, and know that our hard work and dedication will pay off, then it makes the day to day stuff more bearable.
To aid you in staying positive in your writing endeavors, I put together a POSITIVE playlist. Sure, it may sound cheesy, but positive people get stuff done. (Yeah, yeah - some of you are going to call me out on "Hall of Fame" by The Script, feat. will.i.am, but listen to the words and visualize your printed book sitting front and center on a Barnes and Noble shelf. I dare ya.)
Remember the future is just around the corner. Give it your all. You can do this.
For anyone who isn't in the know, Dave Hartley spends a good deal of his time playing bass guitar for the outstanding band, The War on Drugs, out of Philadelphia. I could go on and on about his solo project but, it might just be best if I step aside and let his label, Secretly Canadian, tell you a little bit about Nightlands:
Nightlands is the recording project of Philadelphia-based multi-instrumentalist Dave Hartley. The music he creates in his bedroom is itself a bed of delicate, chiming strings and bubbling synths beneath a blanket of choral vocal arrangements. It's dreamy in the literal sense -- the seeds for the album were sown when Hartley began archiving musical ideas that occurred in his sleep with a simple bedside tape recorder. As a result his debut album Forget the Mantra is, in essence, a field recording of Hartley's dreams -- a travel journal through pop music and a collection of psych-hymns from the first human lunar colony. The songs sound both huge and intimate, breathy and cavernous like massive echoes of a faraway concert. It's the big, shadow music from just across the lake.
Nightlands released a new album, Oak Island, this past January (which you can purchase right HERE) and Dave was kind enough to take a little time to sling emails back and forth and answer a few questions about writing, reading, music, and a little basketball for safe measure.
The futurism of Oak Island seems to line up with themes that appear in the work of Arthur C. Clarke or Philip K. Dick. The multi-layered vocals of your songs certainly creates a robotic vibe. Although, your cyborg seems a little more at peace than the Replicants in Dick’s story. If anything, your robot seems to come from a planet with a fascination for 70s era AM radio. From reading other interviews, I know that you have an interest in sci-fi. Any authors in particular?
Those are interesting observations. I don't really understand exactly what the connection is between my interest in sci-fi and the music I write... It's not explicit, but it's certainly there. I generally favor really ethereal, spacey sounds but more classic, universal lyrics as a contrast. I like the contrast. My favorite sci-fi author is far and away Arthur C. Clarke--I've read and reread all of his classics and even some of his non-fiction. The City and the Stars is my favorite, followed by Imperial Earth, Fountains of Paradise, Rendezvous with Rama, Childhood's End, and 2001, of course. He just thinks with such amazing scope...he can take a human story, zoom out to show interpersonal context, zoom out again to show communal context, zoom out again to show cultural context, zoom out again to show geological or biological context, and usually zoom out to some unheard of distance to show the story in the context of time itself. It's just so heady and sensitive and mind boggling. I'm also a big fan of Dune, although the sequels weaken substantially. Other authors I admire are Heinlein, Asimov, Orson Scott Card, Dick, and some others that are escaping me.
You do a little non-musical writing here and there. Most notably, your NBA blog for WXPN has been a showcase for your written work. As a writer who loves music, I’m always trying to convince myself that the two are really closely related but, being that I only know three chords, I can’t say I’m an expert. Since you wear both pairs of shoes, what kind of relationship do you see between being an author and being a musician?
I see myself absolutely writing a novel someday, probably relatively soon. Writing to me seems a bit like recording: long periods of frustration with occasional bouts of exhilarating inspiration. I imagine everyone writes differently, just as everyone records differently. The huge difference is, of course, that music is meant to be performed, whereas literature or prose are meant to be read. Much less payoff, it seems. Perhaps that's why authors are so grumpy.
You have a degree in Philosophy. If you could sit down at a bar with any author and just shoot-the-shit about philosophy, who do you think you’d be sharing a beer with?
Well, I come from the school of thought that Philosophy is more of a process rather than a body of knowledge. So in that sense I don't really have a favorite Philosopher or Philosophical thinker, though there are many interesting texts. The author I'd most like to have a beer with is William Knorpp, and I have had a beer with him on a few occasions--he was my advisor and mentor. He is just a profoundly reasonable man, capable of cutting through mounds and mounds of jargon and rhetoric with a single phrase. On the other hand, I'd love to "shoot the shit" with Cormac McCarthy, Oliver Sacks, Malcolm Gladwell, Jon Krakauer, to name a few.
I’ve heard you say before that the freedom to make almost any kind of music can be taxing. I believe you used the term paralyzing. I think our readers, who are mostly trying to pound out words for novels, can relate to that feeling. I know I struggle with containing myself to a single idea at times. How did you rein yourself in while working as a solo artist? What was your most consistent struggle?
I impose restrictions upon myself by using a primitive recording set-up. My goal is to use consumer-grade gear and stretch it to places its not meant to go, using hyperbole and innovation. I love when I send an album to be mastered and the engineer says, "wow--what studio did you use to record this? what microphones did you use?" and I say, "I used a 7 year old M-Box, a 6 year old macintosh and a beta 57". You don't get bonus points for making a record with shitty gear--if it sounds good, it sounds good, but I think the shitty gear really helps me, at least at this stage in my development. I have to make lots of commitments early and figure out strange ways to make the gear work, and its my process. I like it a lot. I'm sure I'll graduate to better gear and choose new, arbitrary restrictions at some point.
My most consistent struggle as a solo artist is choosing between comfort and discomfort. There is no right or wrong. Sometimes comfort is a signpost saying "go this way, follow this impulse" and sometimes comfort is a signpost saying "you've done this a thousand times, you're scared--go the other way." It's a struggle, and without other sounding boards, I'm constantly challenged.
You’ve said that you grew up as an avid reader. A fairly significant number of our readers (and the writers on our staff) write books for kids. What are some stand-outs from when you were a kid?
Ender's Game was a big one. It was one of the first books I choose for myself and devoured. It was a private world and stoked my love of reading. I'm also massively indebted to my Dad, who read me Lord of the Rings and Dune as a kid, both of which remain my favorites to this day. From there I plowed through all sorts of sci-fi and youth literature. Clan of the Cave Bear was another big one. All these books still hold up now.
Am I right that the name of the band is inspired by Cormac McCarthy’s “Blood Meridian”? Your music and McCarthy’s grittiness seem like strange bed-fellows. Is there a significance to the connection or was it one of those “that sounds cool” moments?
I went through a two year period where all I did was read Blood Meridian or listen to the audiobook (which is spectacular, by the way--totally recontextualizes the work). It became something of a pathos. Anyway, I remember reading the phrase "night land" or "night lands," and it made me stop. The context was, a landscape or a stretch of earth, is a different place at night. It is not the same place. And then a few months later I was re-reading 2001: A Space Odyssey and came across "night lands" in reference to the side of a planet that doesn't see the sun (the dark side of the moon, for instance). I just knew it was the name for project--later I realized that my music was all coming from my dreams and from recordings I had made of my dreams. I swear it didn't register to me that there was any connection. It was either subconscious or coincidental.
I can't emphasize, though, how deeply Blood Meridian wedged itself inside me. It was insatiable. I couldn't get enough, and I couldn't explain why it fascinated me. It was a little embarrassing, actually, because the book was so incredibly dark and morbid--but there are thousands of gruesome and violent books that do nothing for me. I still don't completely understand the connection, aside from the fact that it's simply an astounding, colossal work. How does something like that get written? What sort of mind set was McCarthy in during its creation? What sort of combination of inspiration and analysis did he use? I will come back to it for the rest of my life, I'm sure.
Do my Celtics stand a chance in the play-offs this year?
No, but they could upset the Knicks in the first round. Without Rajon Rondo (and Ray Allen, for that matter), they won't get out of the conference-semis, though.
Any books on your nightstand right now?
Right now I'm reading "Time Enough for Love" by Robert Heinlein.
