Constance Phillips - A Writer's Musings
Powerful stories about passion and surrender.
Today I’m over at Blided by Sound talking about the Moody Blues’ song “Your Wildest Dreams.
Have you ever sacrificed one dream to follow another?
Is there someone in your past you just can’t forget?
Do you ever regret the choices you made?
This song makes me thing of all those things.
Character playlist is a new feature in which I ask authors to share how music influences their writing and their characters. If you’re interested in contributing to this feature please email me at phillips (dot) connie (at) gmail (dot) com.
Today, I’d like to welcome Wendy Burke to my little corner of the web to talk about the connection between music, her characters and her writing.
I met Wendy years ago at a local writer’s conference. I was helping to spread the word about our local MVRWA chapter and we roped her into coming to a meeting. At the bottom of the post, you will find the covers to her Decadent Publishing releases.
Welcome Wendy…
When Connie asked me to be part of her blog, I was thrilled. I’ve always had songs in my head for my characters and their situations.
Mostly, the songs are current or have been popular. So, you might be wondering what ‘Scotland the Brave’ is doing in here – certainly not a tune you hear regularly on say Sirius XM radio! And considering this blog is being written by someone of German/Russian-Slovenian-French-American heritage, it really doesn’t make sense.
But, it does.
You see, my latest offering, Haste Ye Back was born on the bonnie banks of Loch Lomond on a sunny day in July 2007. I was in Scotland visiting my ‘family’ (after thirty-plus years of being pen pals, you become family) and while sitting on a big rock, listening to my pal Shelagh and her husband, George tell tales—well, the story of Bryn and Ian in Haste Ye Back was screaming to get out of my head.
So, I give you—Scotland the Brave.
Now you have a feel for the setting of Haste Ye Back, Scotland. How about a feel for my characters? I know some of you are already rolling your eyes, in the back of your mind saying, ‘Okay, here comes the Russell Crowe reference.’ Well, if this were a game show – DING! DING!! DING!!! – you move on to the next round.
In my head, here’s what ‘Ian’ looks like. Shocker, huh—yep, he looks like Russell Crowe! So, wouldn’t it make sense to include one of Russ’ songs for my characters? He sings…really he does! How about this one with Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders? I think the sentiment fits Bryn and Ian’s relationship perfectly. (And, no, Bryn doesn’t look a thing like her!)
http://soundcloud.com/ingroovesmarketing/russell-crowe-and-alan-doyle
So, I hope you’ve enjoyed wandering around in my warped brain for a while — or should I say ‘a wee bit.’ I hold my Scottish family responsible for this story, in a good way, of course. I did make one error, however, I didn’t use the best line ever inadvertently given to me by dear George while en route to St. Andrew’s. While squeaking the Vauxhall through a particularly narrow curve with a truck headed our way, I aloud wondered if we’d get past the ‘lorry’ unscathed. To which George replied, “Doncha be a worryin’ darlin’—no matter how big it is, it always fits!’
DAMN—I could have done SO MUCH with that line!
Wendy is a displaced Cheesehead, proud to have been born and bred in Wisconsin. She was a migrant worker for years in the radio business, until she landed in Ohio and refused to leave. When she isn’t writing for pleasure and publication, she is a TV newsroom assignment manager. She shares her clean, yet perpetually dusty, house with her way-too-cute chef husband and two spoiled rotten cats in the Great Lakes region of the mid-west. Find her on Facebook, or send her an email at wendyburke1994@bex.net
“ While the other guy’s sleeping? I’m working. While the other guy’s eatin’? I’m working.”
~~Will Smith
I’ve been a fan of Will Smith’s dating back to his early music and the Fresh Prince TV show. Of course, the quality of his work was a huge reason for that, but I’ve also always been able to find inspiration in quotes from interviews he’s done.
The one above is no exception.
If you just take the statement at face value, it’s easy to discount. Who wants to eat and sleep work? Who wants to devote all their time to one, single aspect of their lives?
Someone who is chasing a dream already knows that hard work is what it takes.
As is noted in the book Outliers, you have to do something for ten thousand hours to become an expert in it. Whether it be singing or accounting or writing or riding a bike, that’s a lot of time devoted to the craft or task.In order to get all those hours in, your going to have to be dream chasing while others are eating and sleeping.
I guess it’s really about how bad do you want it?
…And since we’re talking about advice given by Will Smith, here is one of my favorite motivational speeches, given by one of his characters.
Check it out:
Those of you who frequent these pages know that I’m a big ’80s geek, complete with pink converse high tops and leg warmers. And that I use to write for and edit the music section over at Blogcritics.
An article here a few weeks ago opened a discussion with a fellow editor who moved on to his own site. This led to that and today I’m so happy and proud to announce I will be writing a weekly feature about Retro music and how and why it’s still relevant.
At least in my life.
Head over to Blinded By Sound and check it out.
Thanks Renee for letting me help spread the word on your fantastic cover!
Crimson Sunrise…
Saari Mitchell attends a Tueri conference in Las Vegas, Nevada to strengthen her bonds with Dhelis Guidry and Brogan Vincent—and see if they can make their three-sided relationship work. But when Saari and her vampire brother Mag’s lives are threatened, her trip to paradise soon becomes a surreal fight for survival.
Dhelis and Brogan’s psychic abilities are no help in finding Saari. Desperate to save their mate, they call in favors from the psychic and preternatural community, but the information leads only to more questions. Is the threat against Saari personal or part of a larger plan that threatens every human and Tueri’s existence?
Crimson Sunrise is the second novel in the Tueri Fated Souls Series.
Said of the first novel in this series, Moonlight Bleu:
“Moonlight Bleu by Renee Rearden is one of those ‘blow your socks off’, totally awesome, amazingly entertaining and, completely wonderful stories that make you want to yell about it, at the top of your lungs, from every roof top you can get to! Rearden’s talent is fresh and brings a new face to the world of the paranormal genre.” ~YzhaBella’s BookShelf
“Renee Rearden has exploded onto the paranormal fiction scene with this debut novel—Moonlight Bleu! The concepts in this novel are fresh and creative, and I look forward to seeing future developments…from an exciting new author to watch!” ~Digigirl’s Library
You can find out more about Renee Rearden and her books at her website, her blog, her Facebook page, Twitter, and Goodreads.
Character playlist is a new feature in which I ask authors to share how music influences their writing and their characters. If you’re interested in contributing to this feature please email me at phillips (dot) connie (at) gmail (dot) com
Please help me welcome my good friend and critique partner, Sloan Parker, to my little corner of the web today.
Sloan and I met through our local RWA Chapter (MVRWA) and it didn’t take too long for me to figure out she was an expert story-teller. I feel so honored to be one of the first ones to read her wonderful stories of love and relationships.
Here’s Sloan entry in the Character Playlist feature:
Thanks so much for asking me by your blog today, Constance.
I love mixing music with my writing. When I sit down to work on my manuscript, I’ll often start by taking a quick listen to specific songs I’ve picked out for that book. Music helps me get into the right mood for the scene I’m about to work on, whether that’s an emotional moment or a suspenseful action scene. It also helps to remind me of the overall “feel” of the story and what I love about the characters.
When I’m outlining a new story, I’ll let my iPod shuffle through my library. As the story and characters develop, I’ll start saving songs that have the right tone and lyrics. Those become the songs that, for me, define the characters and what they’re feeling.
My current work-in-progress (which doesn’t have an official title yet) is an erotic suspense about two strangers who end up working together to find out what is happening to missing men in their city. Even though they know they need to keep things focused on the case, they can’t seem to ignore the intense draw they have to each other.
The blend of passion, emotional conflicts, and dangerous suspense led to an interesting mix of songs for these guys.
Here’s a peek at some of what I’ve listened to while writing Walter and Kevin’s story:
Sloan Parker bio
Sloan Parker has been writing and playing with fictional characters for years, but she finally found her true passion when she began telling stories about two men (or more) falling in love. Now she spends her writing life creating m/m erotic romances and romantic suspense. She loves to explore the lives of people who are growing as individuals while falling in love.
Her novels MORE and BREATHE are winners of the 2010 and 2011 Rainbow Awards for Best Gay Contemporary Romance. MORE is also the 2011 EPIC eBook Award Winner for Mystery, Suspense, and/or Adventure Erotic Romance.
Sloan enjoys writing in the fictional world because in fiction you can be anything, do anything…even fall in love for the first time over and over again. She lives in northern Ohio with her partner and their three neurotic cats. You can find out more about Sloan and her work at www.sloanparker.com.
“I write as straight as I can, just as I walk as straight as I can, because that is the best way to get there.” ~~ H.G. Wells
I’m a big fan of inspirational quotes for writers from writers. I think it’s hard for someone who doesn’t experience the process of writing to really understand what it’s like. I’m also enjoy H. G. Wells’s work.
But I have to say, on the above quote, he and I disagree.
I often talk about my RWA chapter (MVRWA) on the pages. Within that group, a handful of us have dedicated our weekends to keeping our butts planted firmly in chair with our hands on our keyboards….or pencil to notebook…or pen to legal pad.
You starting to see my point.
But it’s not only the tools used for writing that varies greatly between our members, but there is also the processes. Some of us (not me!) are methodical plotters. Others (hand in the air) are more pantsters, even others write with a hybrid method that is something in between the two extremes.
As I look around the room at one of my chapter meetings or at one of our write-in sessions, there are as many paths to “the end” as there are writers constructing a story. No one way. No correct way. Several ways.
But it’s not only about different paths for different authors. I, at times, find myself taking a path that is not the normal on certain manuscripts. For the most part, I’m very linear writing from page one to “the end” but this weekend — for the second time in a long time — I wrote an out-of-order scene. It felt right as it flowed through my fingers and I liked it when I was done, but I realized it was happening much too early in the story.
I set the keyboard aside and reached for my legal pad and started making a list of everything I thought needed to happen before the scene I’d just finished. As this is the road map I’ll be using over the next couple weeks to connect the two points on the page.
It may be a crooked path I’m writing the new book on, but that doesn’t make it the wrong one.
Do you believe in an one and only way to write?
I’m so proud to be a part of fellow Crescent Moon Press’s Author’s cover reveal for her upcoming Medusa, A Love Story.
Isn’t it absolutely beautiful!
This is Book One in the Loves of Olympus romantic fantasy series. and will be release in Early May 2012.
It’s said love can change a person. Medusa wasn’t always a monster…
Medusa is ruled by duty, to her Titan father and the Goddess Athena. She’s no room for the tenderness her warrior guard, Ariston, stirs. When Olympus frees her from service, her heart leads her into the arms of the guard she loves… and curses her as the creature with serpent locks.
Ariston goes to war with a full heart… and dreadful foreboding. He learns too late of the danger Medusa faces, alone, and a Persian blade sends him into the Underworld. But death, curses, nor the wrath of the Gods will keep him from returning to her.
Poseidon will use Greece’s war to get what he wants: Medusa. He does not care that she belongs to another. He does not care that she will be damned. He is a God, an Olympian, and she will be his.
The book received the following endorsement:
“This tragic and beautiful retelling of one of the world’s oldest stories tackles the eternal battle between duty and happiness. Medusa, A Love Story broke my heart then filled in the cracks with joy. Sasha Summers is simply a mesmerizing new talent.”
~Stephanie Dray, Author of the critically acclaimed Song of the Nile
I’m so pleased to be blogging at Wendy S Russo’s blog about the evolution of Fairyproof. Please check it out!
Readers: Welcome to this, the first in a series called Character Playlist. I got such a great response to the post from last week talking about how I used music to help me define my characters. After conversing with some of my friends at my local RWA chapter, I decided to do a series with guest bloggers, letting them share their characters and some of their favorite songs and/or playlists.
This new Wednesday feature will run or as long as I have authors eager to contribute to it.
Kicking us off is my friend Jayne Kingston. We met when she joined our chapter over a year, and when she started participating in our coffees and “prison” write ins, we started to hit off.
Her first book, Saving the Best for Last, is out through Ellora’s Cave.
It’s a steamy ride between the two main character as they both learn to trust.
Jayne’s Bio:
Jayne Kingston is an avid fan of erotic romance and erotica of all genres who’d been writing rather vanilla contemporary love stories for years. She hadn’t thought to combine the two elements in her own writing until asking herself the question “What would happen if she showed up and put her hand down his pants?” helped un-stick the rather boring plotline of a short story she wanted to write. She was off and running after that.
The answer to the above question can be found in Saving the Best for Last, her first erotic romance.
So…On to Jayne’s entry in my Character Playlist feature:
George has been a friend of mine for a long time. He’s that bar owner/tender you know well from your own favorite watering hole—laid-back, quick-witted and he never forgets your drink of choice. He’s pretty easy on the eyes as well, with his curly blond hair, green eyes with those sexy smile lines, and a slow, easy grin that’ll melt, well, several of your bits and such.
Red had been a regular of his for a while, but he didn’t give her much thought until the night she showed up after hours hoping to find him alone. After that he couldn’t get her off his mind, no matter how hard he tried.
Back in the day, when he was getting all caught up in a girl he’d sit down and make her a mixed tape on the dual cassette component on his stereo. Nowadays it’s as simple as getting into her computer and making her a playlist for her iPod. Technology—you gotta’ love it!
The playlist he recently made for Red looks a little something like this:
Trust me, Red got a lot of laughs—and George got a little lucky!—when she found it.
George and Red’s story, Saving the Best for Last, can be found at Ellora’s Cave, and wherever ebooks are available.
Enjoy!
Thanks, Jayne, for getting the new feature started this week.
