This is crazy! I am sitting inside looking out on what looks like a near white-out due to all the dust in the air. Wow! I’ve never experienced such a force of wind, and you can’t see it, but the sounds are ominous. Powerful and a bit scary.
But, I’m inside, snuggled in with my slightly frightened cats, working on ‘The Jade Serpent.’ So much has happened and we are only half way there!
Happy writing all!
~ Gretchen
As a writer, and as a person who loves nature, I tend to not listen to music very often as I prefer to hear the noises around me: birds chirping, the wind in the trees, the rain splattering on the windows…
But I recently found some music that is very inspiring to me. I use it as background and let it filter out the car noises, other people talking etc. but low enough so that I can still hear a bird tweet.
The music I am referring to is resonant music – high frequency tones embedded in beautiful songs. I found them through a link on Facebook and I am so happy I did. The artist who created them is Michael Tyrrell and he calls them Wholetones.
Thinking about music and writing, it reminded me of a post I wrote, on one of my other blogs, and I think it is still very relevant today:
Does music inspire you to write?For instance, if you were listening to Tchaikovsky’s 1812 overture, the part where it is at the peak of the crescendo and the canons are exploding… do you see anything?
Is there a character running from the guns, blood-stained face with bayonet in hand? Is the sky dark and brooding, then flares and explodes? Do you hear the cries of the wounded soldiers?
I was reading one of my favorite blogs today: Nail Your Novel, and the focus was on a Russian writer that uses music to inspire his writing. Here is a bit of what Grigory Ryzhakov said:
“Music was also very important to me when I first started writing fiction seven years ago. My so far unpublished and untitled Russian-language sci-fi novel contains several episodes of gripping action. I listened to the Inception film soundtrack by Hans Zimmer to get myself in the mood for writing them. Thumping drums and basses associated in my mind with escalating threat of peril, I could feel the adrenaline rush as if I was at my character’s side. This music affected the way I wrote those action scenes: with shorter sentences, rhyming syllables, like gunshots. No room for reflection.”
He goes on to say that he writes in silence. He just listens to specific types of music before he writes to get himself in the mood. I thought this was genius. I have never tried it…
Do you use music to inspire your writing mood? Do you listen while you write or just before? Can the music have words? Curious to know what you think – leave a comment below!
~ Gretchen
Over the past few months I have been working on the ‘Jade Serpent’, the second book in the Treasure Chest Mysteries series. It has been really challenging compared to the first book. The first story was so clear in my mind, a simple adventure, a present for my new grand nephew.
This book is a bigger story, full of adventures, overcoming fears and obstacles and perseverance when all seems lost:
Koen is pulled through the mysterious and magical treasure chest to the land of the Maya in northern Guatemala where temples loom tall, jungle abounds and monkeys swing and howl from the treetops still today.
I’ve started writing chapter seven and Koen and Titanus have just now obtained the necessary treasure map to find his great, great, great, great, great grandfather’s stolen gift.
I’ve also been dabbling with different types of art mediums. Here is one I did first with colored pencils and finally in Photoshop. Not sure I’ll use it but its fun to start seeing what things might look like.
This one I started with a sketch and then worked on it in Photoshop.
My goal is to have a first draft done by May so that I can then start editing, tweaking and making it even better over the summer.
Here is a snippet from the first draft towards the end of chapter six:
As the men reached the top step, Koen ran towards Titanus and the edge of the enormous temple. The men were right on his heels. Just as the closest of the men reached out to seize Koen’s arm, Koen grabbed the whip handle, scooped up Titanus and jumped off into the air. The man came to a screeching halt, stones flying into the air, teetering on the edge and nearly falling off. The men cursed the boy with fists in the air but then swiftly turned and started running back down the temple steps.
Koen was dropping rapidly, and the tree was coming towards them with increasing speed. They hit it hard and the wind was knocked out of Koen. Falling, they hit branch-after-branch as they dropped, then a jerk and a thud and both Titanus and Koen were swinging upside down in the air. Shaking their heads, out of breath, they looked up towards their feet and saw two large Howler monkeys had caught them with their tails.
Until next time,
~ Gretchen
Gretchen M Fogelstrom 