Music

Romantic Italian Soundtrack for The Art of Enchantment
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Romantic Italian Soundtrack for The Art of Enchantment

The Art of Enchantment book cover

Soundtrack for

The Art of Enchantment

Special bonus for release week!

I’ve created a romantic soundtrack of various artists that I listened to while writing the book.

There’s a little bit if everything, including the Andrea Bocelli songs that Guillermo sings to Clio.

If you want to check out the lyrics in English, you can go here for translations of most songs.

Click the cover image if you haven’t picked up your copy of the book yet. Monday is release day, and the special $0.99 price applies this week only.

 

Enjoy!

 

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The Turning Point by Freya North – Review

The Turning Point by Freya North book coverThe Turning Point by Freya North – Review

Freya North is one of my favorite authors and I haven’t read a new one in a while. I was thrilled to receive The Turning Point as a Christmas gift and gobbled it up in three days. I was particularly thrilled to discover that the book was set partially in my own back yard, after years of immersing myself in charming English villages, suddenly I was reading Freya’s lilting prose describe the majestic scenery of BC’s coastal mountains. Fascinating. I’ve always had a slightly unsettled reaction to Freya’s unique quirky omniscient narrative voice. It has mellowed over the years, and I felt it suited this story more than any before, making for a compelling, immersive read. It’s hard to say whether the richly developed and complex characters, or the lovingly described and contrasting settings were the more interesting parts of this read, not to mention the ongoing tension and plot twist. I guess I’d have to weigh on the side of characters – Frankie and Scott are beautifully rendered, real and believable, as are their family and friends. Frankie seems to me to have a little of everywoman in her, very empathetic. Scott, on the other hand, is one of the loveliest characters I’ve ever read – somehow managing to be both sexy and spiritual – himself more than any other embodying the rich themes that Freya explores in this compelling tale of love, family and belonging. A very moving book. A cut above.

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Half-Blood Blues: Book Review

AUTHOR ESI EDUGYAN

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Earlier this month I had the pleasure of meeting Esi Edugyan, the author of Scotiabank Giller Prize winning Half-Blood Blues at the Denman Island Readers and Writers Festival, and to hear her read excerpts from her latest novel. At that time I had only just begun reading it, and as of last night, I am done. When we spoke, I asked her about the used of dialect in her book, which is populated by a mix of jazz musicians hailing from Baltimore, Chicago, New Orleans, Montreal, Germany and France. The use of the Baltimore”black” vernacular of narrator and protagonist Sidney Griffiths, in particular, as well as his motley crew of compatriots, is important because it contributes greatly to both the development of character, as well as to distinguish between one and another, and also plays a critical role in painting the mood and experience of that time and place: World War II Berlin and Paris. Several of the books reviewers, and several of the commenters at the conference, referred to the rhythm and tone of the language, and how it animated the story and lent it the musicality and feeling of the jazz music of the era. While I don’t disagree with this, and I very much enjoyed the language of the novel, this was not my main focus.

USE OF DIALECT IN FICTION

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As a writer, I was principally interested in how she had researched the dialects she used, and how, as a writer she had decided how much, and which elements, of vocabulary and syntax she decided to use and which to leave out. This is what I asked her about. She answered that she had sourced and listened to recordings of spoken word by contemporary jazz musicians, including Louis Armstrong who is a minor character featured in this novel. She also said she had to use a lot of discretion to find the right balance between illuminating character and culture, and keeping the language clear enough to not alienate or confuse readers.

I dealt extensively with this problem in one of my own books (The Aviary) which features a Canadian woman in Yorkshire, who is surrounded by characters who all have an accent of one kind or another (to her ear), and finds herself quite challenged by the famously difficult Yorkshire dialect. I have received a fair bit of feedback from editors and beta readers about this at various stages, and made many changes to try to find the right balance.

Esi agreed, stating that she believes it was the extensive use of dialect that initially made the novel difficult to sell, and she did make changes accordingly in response to her editor’s feedback. Certainly there are many examples of excellent novels that use dialect to varying degrees. I find it hard to believe that so many readers find it so impenetrable as to limit an author’s creative freedom (unless you happen to be Peter Carey, but even he gets flack, apparently). The sound of language is so important to one’s experience of a story, I would think those in the business, and those who love to immerse themselves in a good story, would be more flexible and tolerant, and willing to do that tiny bit of extra work that it takes to become familiar enough to overcome any initial challenges. But apparently not. Or not often enough for publishers to take the risk.

CHARACTER, EGO, AMBITION, FRIENDSHIP AND VALUES

As a reader, I have to say the element of this story I found most compelling was the flawed main character and narrator, Sidney Griffiths, himself. Sidney is a sensitive guy with big dreams, too sensitive we and he think, for some of the company he keeps, including his life long friend and companion Chip Jones, a hard edges, big mouthed and often crude character whose friends seem to tolerate him because he’s sometimes funny and also a great drummer. Too sensitive, we also think, when Sidney’s disappointments, sense of betrayal, and lurking mistrust of others ends up alienating him from them. It is his own frailty as a human being that ends up doing him the most harm, as he lashes out and behaves in less than admirable ways simply because of his own frustrated ambition, or desire. Sidney, however, and I have to think Esi did this quite consciously, seems a bit more ordinary that the other characters in the book. He is neither an eccentric nor a genius, nor terribly damaged, as it turns out, neither a coward nor a hero. It is this very ordinariness that makes him sympathetic, and helps us to step in his shoes as he and his friends are tossed about by the winds of fate.

Without spoiling the story for those who haven’t yet read it, I will only say that it raises several questions for me, such as: When should we acknowledge that our youthful dreams of greatness will never be realized? Perhaps we haven’t been given the talent, the determination or the luck to make it happen. Is it more important to do a thing exceptionally well, or to do a thing because it brings you joy? Is any sacrifice or choice justifiable in the pursuit of excellence? Of success? Even when it hurts others? When our life is over, will we value our accomplishments more, or the people with whom we shared the journey, for better or worse?

EXCELLENCE VERSUS JOY

Near the end of the novel, there is an exchange between Chip and Sid about whether and why they continued playing the jazz music throughout their lives. Sidney says, “It was supposed to be this joyful music. And I just couldn’t find none of that joy in it no more.” And Chip’s reply is interesting. He says, “I don’t understand that at all…The music is the joy. That’s how you find it again. By playing.”

In some ways, it seems to me that Sid deprived himself of the joyful music because of the pain and sense of loss and guilt he suffers, because of other decisions and actions he made in his life.

What do you think? Is it more important to do a thing exceptionally well, or to do a thing because it brings you joy?

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Women’s Fiction vs. Books

See how good I’m being?

I said I was going to write, and that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. I’m up to about 88,000 words on my WIP Coming About. I’m smack in the middle of writing my climactic scene, in which… no wait. I can’t tell you that. That would ruin the surprise.

At this rate, I might just complete the first draft of this manuscript by the Surrey International Writer’s Conference on October 20-23. I know, more workshops, but I never miss it, and by then it will be a well- deserved break. I registered for three Master Classes this year, and I’ll be pitching. Probably The Aviary again. Maybe I’ll even sell it this year. But I’d be happy enough to start with agent representation.

Back in May, when I pitched to a couple of editors at the Write On Conference of the RWA-Greater Vancouver Chapter, one of the two asked for a full manuscript (not sent yet) and the other talked about how difficult to define Women’s Fiction is, and how important it is for writers of women’s fiction to work with an agent, who can get to know the work and target it to the editors and publishers most likely to appreciate it.

True, true.

On the subject of women’s fiction, I want to note here how much I appreciate Amy Sue Nathan‘s regular women’s fiction writers blog, in which she interviews… wait for it: women’s fiction writers! I have discovered many terrific new books and authors here, expanding my reading list every week, and I particularly appreciate the stories of their journey to publication. Amy asks each of her guests to define women’s fiction, and although there is overlap, each one is unique in its perspective. This week’s guest, Stacey Ballis, author of Good Enough to Eat and soon to be released Off the Menu, said it thus:


“I have always found it interesting that if you are a woman who writes a book with female characters about life and love and relationships and career, it is called Women’s Fiction, and if you are a man who writes a book with female characters about life and love and relationships and career, it is called A Book.”

Hmm. Yeah. Well, nuff said.

In other news, I’m doing my happy dance because– I just got tickets to Sting’s Back to Bass tour in Vancouver December 9th. I haven’t seen him since the Police reunion tour a few years ago. Yay! I’m not really dancing. I’m not much of a dancer. Except in my head. In there, I’m definitely doing my happy dance. ; )

Back to work.

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Guest Blog Post

Last Friday I was invited to guest post on Blame it on The Muse. Below is a copy of that post.

God Shuffled His Feet

(with a bow to the Crash Test Dummies)

Story ideas come from many places, but often they are stillborn, or lie stagnant, waiting to be infused with inspiration by you, the writer, while you wait for a visitation from your muse. I have a digital drawer full of story ideas, but what makes one of them rise up and speak to you, demanding to be your next WIP, and then come to life on the page?

For me, it turns out that music plays an important role. This began quite inadvertently when I began my first completed novel, about four and half years ago. My mother had passed away a couple of months before, and I guess I was brooding and hiding from the world. I wanted to start writing Reconcilable Differences, and I found immersing myself in music helped to sooth me and keep me focused. I was drawn to the music of one of my favourite artists, Sting, and as I listened to his songs, one album (Brand New Day) soon became the soundtrack for the book I was writing, and one particular song (Ghost Story) its theme song. As I listened, the lyrics of that song, and it’s haunting mood, came to represent my characters situation and emotions. I now have the transcript of that song as a forward for my manuscript, and hope I can include it one day when it’s published.

I listened to that music over and over and over while I wrote and revised that manuscript over two years. Just popping my ear buds in was all I needed to immerse myself in my fictional world and resume work with passion and commitment. I even listened to the same music at other reflective times, such as driving and exercising and bedtime, because we all know the writing continues even when we’re not sitting at the keyboard. To this day, my son complains if I put Sting on, poor thing.

When I began my next novel, The Aviary, I thought, hey, what worked before might work again. I need a sound track that’s appropriate and inspiring. So I actually did a little internet research, found out what was popular in England in 1997 (where the novel is set) and downloaded a whole slew of music, some of which became new favourites. One band, The Verve, I loved, and one of their songs (Lucky Man) again became a theme song. One of my main characters even evolved into a musician, who played and sang some of those same songs!

Over the years, I’ve become a more disciplined writer (I’m a plotter) and so the evolution of my story and character arcs is much more worked out before I start. I even have a scene plan that I follow pretty closely. Nonetheless, I still have to sit down and infuse life and emotion into each and every scene. I have to be in that world and in those characters heads and hearts. Music can be the muse that helps me get there. So I think even with my carefully crafted plan, I still need the muse to make it happen. My current WIP is going well enough, but I’m still searching for its perfect soundtrack. Perhaps Coldplay…?