Writing Because of Music

I finished a pivotal chapter, in which my main antagonist arrives in the area.  Kept it short, too--just 2 double-spaced pages.  This WIP is movin' along.

I thought I'd write quickly on images music evokes for me before I've created something for them to go with.  In fact, the creation starts with the music that, unbidden, just jolts me into scenes and images.  They come out of nowhere.  Apocalypse came to me very suddenly when I was 14, when I heard Ravel's Bolero and Tchiakovsky's 1812 Overture (with the Russian male voices in the beginning) in the same half hour.  Tons of images flooded my head that day, I still remember it, and they haven't left me since.  I can't explain it, except you have to go with it.  I'm not yet ready to write those chapters, as they need an expertise greater than what I have right now, but they still flutter around in my consciousness every day--and with the music attached.  (If there came a day when they didn't flutter around in there, I'd write all the scenes and images immediately, calling out of work if necessary.)

So for this new novel, I have music that invokes images fit for the book, and I couldn't begin to tell you why.  A mixture of the NH mountains and Brandi Carlile bring to mind fields and mountains (or hills, or even forests) of isolation and loneliness.  I play her stuff every day and the same images and gestalt flood in.  The WIP wouldn't be the same without her.  Her melodious, strong and sad voice, with a sometimes slight or strong tinge of country, bring all this to me.

Then, more recently, I heard Donovan's "Hurdy Gurdy Man" at the end of the movie Zodiac, and each time I get visions of evil, especially when the lyrics mention that times of horror bring the Hurdy Gurdy Man and he brings times of love.  But what if it just looks that way?  I see huge fires and Death dancing in slo-mo when I hear that song, God knows why.  And the rest of Donovan doesn't work for me like all of Brandi Carlile does.

There are many more examples.  I can't explain it.  I just go with it.  I can work very well to Prince songs, don't know why.

Graves and Gravediggers

Photo: Crypt, in West Greenwich Cemetery #2, where bodies were placed until the ground thawed.

Please click on the Flickr link above to see 75 photos (many of them creepy) I took to go look at for locals, descriptions, and just the overall feel for some scenes in The Gravediggers.  Of particular interest, and use for the story, is the crypt you'll see from a distance and close-up.

I made sure not to stand directly in front of any stone, so that I wasn't standing directly over somebody.  And any graves knocked over, or etched into, or otherwise defaced were not done so by me.  I take particular care with such things.  I am seriously offended when I see defaced or knocked-over graves.  This happened in a little cemetery on my father's street.  The descendants of the buried people had giant hedges planted in front of the cemetery, thereby hiding it from the little side street.  Sure enough, local teens entered, knocked them all down, piled them all in one or two corners, and used it as a pot den.  If I ever catch any of the ones who did that...

The work on the WIP is coming along really well.  I've decided that it's to be epistolary: third-person shifting POVs, past, present, diaries, journals, newspaper articles, etc.  I'm very excited about this work.  I've done a ton of research, with more to do, but it's coming along well in concept and in actuality.  (They don't always.  First, yes; latter, no so much.)  I look forward to working, editing, writing, researching, or reading about this project every day.  It's been a long time since I could say that about a novel.  And for those of you who read this blog consistently, you know I'm never at a loss for novel ideas.  But following one all the way through...

A shout out to Joe who helped with the pictures, and to Bry and Erika who helped with some reading and critiquing.  I'll put you all on the acknowledgements page...

No, really.  I will.

Gotta be positive.