Ragged Feathers

Well, the tattoos are done. I was just in for touchups and everything is damn beautiful, if I do say so myself. Pictures will be forthcoming once film is developed. (If you’re curious, my artist is Sumer Johnson out at Dark Star. She does great work.)

Today is a gorgeous day, seventy degrees and sunny, with just enough of a gentle breeze. Since I’m writing a roadtrip that takes place in 90+ degree weather and nearly 100% humidity, it’s a bit difficult. It’s just hard to write angst and physical discomfort when it’s a beautiful day and all is well with the world. But I shall persevere. What a problem to have, huh? I’m not complaining, just noting.

For those of you who are asking, I am hard at work on the fifth Strange Angels book. There is as of yet no title for it, but things are…interesting. That’s all I can say until Jealousy comes out. Also in the pipeline is Angel Town, the last Jill Kismet book for a while. Copyedits on the latest Jill book, Heaven’s Spite, proceed apace. It’s nice to be busy. I prefer it to pretty much every other state.

In other news, I can finally listen to love songs again, and I can finally listen to more Blue October. Which is awesome. My taste in music retracts like a bruised anemone sometimes, and it’s always good when it creeps back out. I feel kind of crippled when there’s music I can’t play while I write. So much of the creative process is bound up in having music playing while I work. I know other writers like silence or the television’s mutter, but for me it’s CDs or Pandora.

Anyway, it’s time to hammer at the roadtrip again. I’m pretty sure of what happens next. After some respectable wordcount it will be time to lay in the backyard on a blanket and listen to the kids tell me about their days at school.

I really couldn’t ask for anything more.

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Yeah. Like this:

You and I got something
But it’s all, and then it’s nothing to me, yeah
And I got my defenses when it comes to your intentions for me, yeah
And we wake up in the breakdown
In the things we never thought we could be, yeah…

I’m not the one who broke you
I’m not the one you should fear
We’ve got to move you darling
I thought I lost you somewhere
But you were never really ever there at all… (Goo Goo Dolls)

Yes, I want to get free. But you don’t need to talk to me. I’m done talking. Now I’m moving.

There are hard days and easier days. Today is somewhere in between. But when I’m on the treadmill and running, I find pieces of myself I left behind so I could fit in your cupcake tin. They slide back into place like they were never gone, and I feel more and more like myself. Each day is better as the other physical things migrate out of the house–kind of, I don’t know, like bits of shrapnel leaving a wound.

I’ve made my way out of the cocoon. The wings are dry. I’ve climbed the damn tree I was hanging in.

Now I’m going to fly. I’m scared, and there’s no net…but the worst has already happened, and I’ve not only survived. I’ve just plain thrived. I guess I didn’t need what I thought I did. Lesson learned, I won’t forget it. Ever.

Now I’m gone. Really gone. Gone gone gone.

And it feels good.

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Yeah, when you stumble to the front door to let the cats out (because, of course, they will DIE IF THEY DON’T GET OUT THIS INSTANT) and see the sunshine, hear the birds singing, and even the thought of a bowl of Cheerios is too much effort…

…then, my friend, you know you stayed up too late last night getting your heroine in trouble.

I used to be able to pull all-nighters and be fresh as a daisy afterward. Then I hit a long jag of nothing but all-nighters. (It’s called early parenthood.) And when I surfaced from that at 30 I found out I had lost that ability. My body says, “Stay up all night and expect me to work the next morning? HAHAHAHAHA! You’re joking, right?”

Of course, it could have something to do with me staying up to write fiction instead of getting into trouble myself. Perhaps my body would be happier if I was out dancing or something. I do miss dancing. However, I do not miss the boozed-up jerkwads or some DJ’s idea of “cool” music shattering my eardrums with feedback when all I want is a beat. Oh, or my ride getting drunk and leaving me stranded.

Guess I’ve just gotten old and boring. I’d rather be hitting 50K on the YA and getting my heroine shot. You know, doing actual work.

Guess this means I need to turn in my “cool mama” card. Where does one mail those things back to anyway? If I can’t find a mailing address I’m going to have to keep it and just impersonate a cool mama.

Yes, I’m in a silly mood today. Can you tell? Here, have my morning earworms: one is Cutting Crew’s “(I Just) Died In Your Arms Tonight” and the other? Murray Head’s “One Night In Bangkok.” The mashup inside my head is a thing of beauty and wonder, but I can’t share it because video and audio editing software is not jacked into my brain yet. Sorry. You’ll just have to imagine.

The Internet has been all over Roger Ebert’s deliciously cranky review of the new Transformers movie. His review actually makes me want to go see it MORE, because my complaint about Transformers 1 was “Less girlfriend, more FIGHTING ROBOTS!” I don’t want fricking plot in a Transformers movie, for Chrissake. I want ROBOTS. LOTS OF ROBOTS DUKING IT OUT. I want 99.9% PURE ROBOT BATTLE. Plot is for, you know, actual stories. Not for marketing machines built on a Hasbro line, for Chrissake. (Were Transformers Hasbro? I forget.)

Okay. All silliness aside, it’s time for me to make another lunge at finishing up this book. See you around, chickadees.

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Cross-posted from The Deadline Dames, where you can go and find tons of other writing advice. And fun. And cake. Well, maybe not cake.

No, I’m not having a Cassie Edwards fest over here. I actually had two big blog posts in mind for this week–one about epublishing and another about music. The epub post is going to have to simmer a bit more before it’s ready, so you get the music post. I know, que lastima, right?

What makes this vaguely funny and synchronous is that I just clicked through to Wil Wheaton’s post about music today too. Then, while I was on the treadmill, I thought about it some more. The IPod served up a lot of music from past book soundtracks, which just sealed the deal.

Some days, the universe, I swear she speak to me.

Music is a very integral part of my writing process. I know there must be writers who don’t write to music, but I can’t imagine it. It was always a part of my creative process, from the very first mix tapes (remember cassettes? Jeez, I feel old now.) I recorded off the radio to the advent of ITunes and the idea of “book soundtracks”. Which I would have arrived at sooner or later, but my friend TrashGlam put together a mix CD for smoke back when it was just a collection of pages I printed and bound at Kinkos. It had the the Cardigan’s Erase and Rewind for Rose and Garbage’s Number One Crush for Michael, and if that isn’t a description of their dysfunctional relationship I don’t know WHAT is.

So the “book soundtrack”–a playlist for a certain project–was born. Later I found out other people (like the Selkie) had been doing the same thing for a long time, so I can’t claim to create it. But I can claim to be utterly delighted with the idea and to have stolen it with no remorse, and used it shamelessly.

The stereo sees more use than the television in our house (especially since we put the television out in the garage for long periods of time, and almost forget it’s there). Music on laptops account for even more time. I often leave Pandora.com open in a window while I’m working, and the Selkie and I are always discovering new or new-to-us artists and rifling them for plot bunnies and turns of phrase.

So with that in mind, I thought I’d share a few songs. No, not in a torrent-and-get-sued type of way–I just thought that fans would like to know a couple songs where you can hear my characters clear as day.

For example, at the very end of Tomoyasu Hotei’s Katana Groove you can hear Lucas Villalobos laughing. In the beginning of Rob Zombie’s living dead girl you can hear Eve (What are you thinking?) and Dante (The same thing you are…) before all hell breaks loose and the last fight of To Hell And Back commences. (Warning: Rob Zombie is not for those who are easily offended. You’ve been warned.) Sarah McLachlan’s Fallen is Dante’s song, while Mandalay’s This Life is the song I played over and over while writing Japhrimel’s Fall for Dante.

Sometimes characters will have their own particular themes. Christophe from the upcoming Strange Angels always shows up when I play Herman’s Hermits, especially I’m Into Something Good. (It’s creepy when you consider he’s a 70-year-old on the inside.) And then his love song for the heroine is You’re Sixteen. Creeptastic, no? While Graves gets Guster’s One Man Wrecking Machine. Which says so much about the two characters, doesn’t it?

And then there’s Jill Kismet. The clearing-the-hellbreed-holes scenes in Night Shift were set to the Cure’s Wrong Number, possibly the weirdest song I’ve ever set a fight sequence to. Saul, of course, gets Cusco’s Montezuma, and Jill’s love song for him is the beautiful Black Is The Color, sung by the Corrs. And Perry? He gets the Cure’s Lullaby. (Kismet gets a lot of Cure. Don’t ask me why.)

As for Steelflower, the opening scenes of Kaia coming into Hain on a ship is always set to Delerium’s Terra Firma, the Lara Croft mix. A lot of Delerium goes on my soundtracks. Darik gets various selections from the Bulgarian Women’s Choir. Redfist, of course, gets Two Hornpipes and Celtic Woman’s version of the Ashoken Farewell.

Oddly, a lot of Nikolai’s (from Selene) themes are from the Bulgarian Women’s Choir too. (The two characters are more closely intertwined than I like to admit.) Selene herself gets Mono’s Silicone, and Everything But The Girl’s Before Today.

You get the idea. Music falls in my lap when I’m thinking of characters, and I’ll go on mad jags of finding music on my hard drive (the ITunes store and the local Everyday Music now own my soul, thank you very much) and then the magic happens. Characters start talking, taking on likes and dislikes of their own, and before I know it a book has a playlist and I know what happens. It’s awesome when it works right.

So, how about you? Do you listen to music while you write? Do you use it for characters or just as background noise? I’m also curious to hear from fans–are there certain songs you associate with certain characters or books?

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go play some Charlie Feathers. For some reason the half-vampire private eye in the current short story just loves rockabilly…

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