Music and Lyrics Part Two (Or how my weird mind works...)

I did say this subject was going to be one I return to. So if it bores the pants off you, feel free to walk away now...

Although I never thought consciously about being a writer till I was really quite old, I have always made up stories in my head. Of all my children, in this no 3 resembles me the most. I often find her squirrelled away in corners talking not to herself, but to all the imaginary people in the fantasy world she is inhabiting. I still do that now. I have just said goodbye to Gabe, Marianne, Cat and Noel who are the four protagonists of Last Christmas, and am currently getting to know: Doris (or possibly Dorrie as my ed thinks Doris is too old fashioned, but I have a personal reason for calling her that), Caz, Beth and Sarah. Caz and Dorrie are currently the strongest characters chundering away in there, but Beth who is the quiet one is coming out of her shell, and Sarah I know has a lot she wants to tell me. In anyone other then a writer, admitting that should probably get you sectioned, but although I have a healthy fantasy life, I fortunately have four offspring, a very down to earth husband and aged mil to keep my feet firmly on the ground.

The first time I can remember consciously thinking I wanted to put some of the stories that unfolded into my head down on paper was when I was at university. And perhaps not unsurprisingly, given my previous post on the subject, it was music that inspired me. I was in a bar in Liverpool with Spouse, one warm spring evening. I was wearing a turquoise dress I loved at the time, with black pointy boots, and he was wearing his long dark trademark 80s student coat, probably a black shirt (can't quite remember), black jeans and black pointy boots. I can remember the stools we sat on, the bar we leant against, the low lighting, the 80s glitz, and the reason I remember it so clearly is because the song that was playing: Addicted to Love by ZZTop has cemented it in my head forever. (Except, I have misremembered - ZZ Top appear NOT to have done a version of this, I must have been thinking of Robert Palmer's version. Thanks to Persephone and Political Umpire for correcting my mistake!) I came home and wrote a corny story about a girl who couldn't commit and as a result lost the love of her life. It wasn't very good. And lacking the necessary confidence to pursue writing, desperately needing to earn some money post uni, and more importantly not having any of the requisite life experience to write the kinds of stories I write now, I kept my fantasy and real worlds separate. Then I fell in to publishing and spent ten years using all my creative juices on other people's ideas, which was fun, but didn't leave me any room for creating stuff of my own. I cannot tell you the sense of liberation I got when I sat down to write my first novel and realised that from now on I could keep all my good ideas to myself.

When I started thinking about the way music inspires me, I genuinely thought that I had only started using it with Pastures New, but thinking back to my early attempts at writing, the music thing has always been there, but I just didn't realise.

The first novel I completed, White Wedding is even named after a song - again I can see a moment in time in my own life, where I sat on the floor in Spouse's room at uni listening to Billy Idol telling me it was going to be a nice day for a white wedding, while I felt utterly desolate that I was going to spend the summer away from him. I just have to hear that song now and those feelings of desolation come flooding back (not unnaturally, I have it pegged down for the soundtrack of the book I am embarking on, which is about weddings.)

The next book I started working on which I never finished, was going to be called Losing my Religion - thank you Michael Stipes. And while the second book I finished, Coming Full Circle which never got published, didn't have a musical title, there were definitely songs hovering about in my subconscious as I wrote it.

It wasn't till I got to Pastures New though, that I realised that music was part of the process for me. (Spoiler alert here if you haven't read it.)

Pastures New was originally going to be in six parts, and (thanks to discussions with some of my RNA writing chums, in particular the fabulous Elizabeth Chadwick who brilliantly soundtracks her mediaeval stories to rock) I chose a song for each part of the book. The story really began with Justin Hayward's Forever Autumn, another song from the soundtrack of my young life. At one point early in our courtship, Spouse and I split up. I was convinced it was all over and I remember listening to that song on a train feeling that my heart had broken and would never recover (which of course was arrant nonsense, but melodrama works when you're 20). It seemed the perfect song for my heroine Amy, recovering from the death of her partner. I also used: California Dreamin' by the Mamas &Papas(another soundtrack song - Spouse played it to me on our first date), Soak up the Sun by Sheryl Crowe, Here Comes the Summer Son by Texas (last two came from listening to them on long car journeys - a common source of finding inspirational songs I find), Sing by Travis and Fix You by Coldplay. I did blog about why ages ago, but I can't inconveniently find the post in my archives at the moment.

All of the songs were chosen for the mood they inspired, their part in advancing the story and for some significant line that led into the character's behaviour. Forever Autumn includes the lines my life will be forever autumn/cos you're not there, which is how Amy feels about losing Jamie (and pretty much how I'd feel if anything ever happened to Spouse, god forbid): California Dreamin' includes: All the leaves are brown /And the sky is grey /I went for a walk /On a winter's day/ If I didn't tell her /I could leave today , which fit both the wintry mood of the beginning of the book and the hero Ben's dilemma about his love life; Soak up the Sun was chosen for the lines:Its not having what you want/Its wanting what youve got which fit Amy's burgeoning reconnection with the world and acceptance of the good things in life, while Here Comes the Summer Son contains the lines: Before you take my heart, reconsider/Before you take my heart, reconsider/I've opened the door/I've opened the door, which fitted Amy's nervousnes about indulging in a new relationship. The last two songs, Sing and Fix You were chosen for the pain and anguish they engender - Fix You, particularly stayed in my head as Ben's song, as it summed up what he feels about Amy and why she keeps him out of her life. High up above or down below/When you're too in love to let it go/But if you never try you'll never know/Just what you're worth/Lights will guide you home/And ignite your bones/And I will try to fix you (ok the ignite your bones line is not Chris Martin's finest hour, but it is a song that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up).

When I was writing Pastures New, I tried to weave some of the song lyrics themselves into the story (quoting verbatim from songs is a very expensive thing to do, so I generally try to avoid it). So Amy remembers walking in golden fields with Jamie, Ben at one point does stop into a church, Amy hears Sheryl Crowe singing about having what you want, and wonders later on if she should go through the door of a new relationship. I didn't use Sing so much, but at the end, I did literally have Ben lighting her way home. However, I realised after I'd done it, I was trying too hard to bend the story to fit the song, plus when I came to write Strictly Love (more spoiler alerts) I wanted my characters to have a theme tune each and that rather then having one theme song for each part of the book, I also wanted to highlight certain key moments, like soundtracking a film.

So in Strictly Love I worked it slightly differently. Each part had it's own theme song: Part One had The First Cut is the Deepest, for Mark who was mourning the loss of his marriage; Part Two was The Weakness in Me for Emily who kept going back to an unsuitable boyfriend and for Katie who was being tempted by Rob: Part Three had Can't Get You Out of My Head for all my protagonist's as they attempted to control their feelings and Part Four's theme was Song for Lovers, which makes me go slightly weak at the knees.

Additionally, I used :

Abba's heartbreaking Slipping through my Fingers for Mark's relationship with his daughter Gemma (I have sobbed EVERY time I see Meryl Streep singing that in Mamma Mia!- it's also turned up as a theme for Cat in Last Christmas)
Feel for Rob, which helped me hugely give depth to his character. He started off as a happy go lucky character, who lacked commitment, but I always knew he was hiding a dark secret. Then I heard Feel on the radio one day and suddenly I knew Rob so much better. I listened to this song obsessively every time I had to write a Rob scene, and in the end he became my favourite character because of it.

I just want to feel real love
Feel the home that I live in'
Cause I got too much life
Running through my veins
Going to waste

I don't want to die
But I ain't keen on living either
Before I fall in love
I'm preparing to leave her
I scare myself to death
That's why I keep on running
Before I've arrived
I can see myself coming

The Miracle of Love - by the Eurythmics. I love the Eurythmics and this song about the wonder of finding love again was a perfect soundtrack moment for the first time Emily and Mark get together. I had this scene in my head for months before I wrote it- it unfolded as if I were watching a film. And had I been watching a film, then this song would be what you'd hear...

Fields of Gold- Sting. Again, I had a scene in my head with Emily and Mark lying in fields of gold watching the sun rise, and this poignant song just fitted the mood perfectly. I also played Sting's Shape of my Heart alot for this particular moment, more because of the way it catches at my heart then the lyrics.

The boys also got two theme songs: The Boys are Back in Town for their attempts to get laid and Fifteen Years, which is a great song about booze and regret and lost opportunities, and perfect for anyone who has ever sat in their local, looked around and thought, shit, is this what my life's come to?

A last minute addition (thanks to watching an episode of Ashes to Ashes) was Body Talk, which worked really well both as the song that Rob and Katie danced to when they realise their true feelings for each other, but the perfect accompaniment to a rumba. I even choreographed the steps (Marie, you may remember, I was emailing you as I did it), with the use of a little handbook of dancing, myself on my own inf ront of a computer trying out both the male and female steps, while I listened to the song. Sometimes I probably should be sectioned...

For Last Christmas, I've gone less for major theme songs and more for key moments of the story, where again, if it were a film you'd have an apposite piece of music playing (I had a completely eureka moment when I went on the Being Human website - currently my favourite place in cyberspace and read about how they chose the music for each episode, a subject I think for another post - and realised this is what I aspire too).

So this time around (I am trying not to give anything away here, because of course, in October I want you all to go out and buy the book!), I had alot of songs about tension in relationships, as one hero and heroine: Cat and Noel are in a long term marriage which is fraying a bit around the edges.

Their songs include:
This is Where I Came In by the BeeGees. I belatedly realised when they brought out their last album before Maurice died, that I totally heart the Beegees. And this song is just amazing. The lines: I lie and you lie /And who would get the sharpest knife, I'm sure will resonate with anyone who's been in a longterm relationship. There are certainly days when every couple is scrabbling for the sharpest knife, but usually the wounding is with words. But I also love it for the reality of these lines: Hope rides on/But I’ll go anywhere/Yes, I’ll go anywhere with you/Time has gone/But I’ll go anywhere/Yes, I’ll go anywhere with you. The point is, however rough the ride gets, however much you sometimes are hard pushed to like each other, if you LOVE each other you will go anywhere, through thick and thin. That's why those pesky marriage vows are in there. We never imagine the worse when we get married, but boy oh boy, the better is worth the occasional pain. Well, I think so anyway, but then I do write romantic fiction.

Cat and Noel also have: Bryan Ferry's Let's Stick Together for similar reasons, but for moments when the going is tough, another song for them is the Manic Street Preacher's Your Love Alone for the lines: Your love alone - is not enough not enough not enough/When times get tough they get tough they get tough they get tough. Because despite what I said above about love making you go anywhere with your partner, it isn't enough, on its own to see you through the tough times. You also have to hang on and remember the good times. Which is why I've also given Cat and Noel Coral's Put the Sun Back. This is absolutely somewhere I've been emotionally, and I think it's brilliant:

I caught you crying
Trying to hide your tears away
And all the whileI never knew you felt this way
I've loved you from the start
How could we let this come apart ?

We've got to put
The sun back in our hearts

For my other couple Marianne and Gabriel, I have the wonderfully perky and upbeat She's Got You High by Mumm-Ra (with huge thanks to Persephone for pointing me in the right direction with that one) , which is one of the most perfect falling love songs I have ever heard, even if I mistakenly heard the lines this world has turned to seethrough as this world has turned to seafood, till I googled the lyrics.

Gabriel is in a difficult relationship with his mentally unstable wife at the start of the book, and I have two songs for key moments they have together. The first if Love Will Tear Us Apart by Joy Division, which is such a painful, sad destructive kind of song:
When the routine bites hard
and ambitions are low
And the resentment rides high
but emotions won't grow
And we're changing our ways,
taking different roads
Then love, love will tear us apart again

And I also had the wonderful KT Tunstall's Other Side of the World, which is another song which makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and also is brilliant for catching the insolubility of their problems.

Cat has a lot of me in her. She is the mother of four and has I hope a moving storyline featuring her own mother, which turned out to be a damned sight more personal then I intended when I thought of it. So she has Angels as a theme tune. Which makes me howl. Which I also hope is the reaction of my readers to this part of the storyline...

At the last minute I've brought in I Can See Clearly Now and Love Resurrection for Marianne, for two key moments for her.

And I also had a sudden wow moment and used The Streets of London for a hugely important scene for Noel.

But the heart of this book, belongs to Noel and so my favourite emotional stirring song of the last year (till I heard Johnny Cash's Hurt) is Neil Diamond's Pretty Amazing Grace, which is relevant not just for Noel, but in their own ways all the other characters too.

Pretty amazing grace is how you saved me
And with amazing grace, reclaimed my heart
Love in the midst of chaos
Calm in the heat of war
Showed with amazing grace
What love was for.

No book about Christmas would be complete without some cheese. So I've also got Wham's Last Christmas as the title song and Marianne and Gabriel's theme tune(I was always partial to those Wham boys). I've even pinched the lyrics for my part titles which are: I Gave you my heart/You gave it Away/To Save me from Tears/Someone Special.

I'm just working on the soundtrack for my next book, about weddings, and will report back in my next musings on this subject, as well, I hope posting some coherent thoughts about the Being Human soundtrack and how it's inspired me, and when I get round to listening to the four CDs Lisa has been kind enough to send me, I shall be posting on that too.... But for now I really really must get to Sainsbury's. Sometimes my real life is dead inconvenient...

Inspiration... or lack of.

I am in a state of limbo with writing at the moment. I am still waiting for rewrites on the Christmas book, which is hovering round the edges of my consciousness, and preventing me from going full speed ahead and getting properly started on my next book. Uggh. I wish I could do this another way. It would be lovely to sit down for three hours every morning after Spouse has gone to work and the kids are at school and just WRITE in a focussed and meaningful kind of way. But. I. Just. Can't....

Instead I witter about, putting off the housework. Now doing THAT would be at least productive. Visiting blogs I like, joining in chats on my online groups, surfing the net ostensibly for research, getting on with editing stuff I also need to do, and ... looking up songs I want for the soundtrack for the next book.

Starting a new book is incredibly daunting. In fact, it seems to be getting more daunting every time I do it. Is this the time the muse will fail to strike? Will someone find me out for the fraud I am? Will everyone hate it? Will I hate it?

Oh stop buggering about and just DO it...

I know once I take the plunge it will probably be fine, and this frittering/wittering time is I am convinced part of the process for me, because although I still haven't completely worked out my plot, or my structure, or even all of the characters' names, my subconscious is working over time at the moment, and every day throws up another good idea, which goes conscientiously down on the huge list I seem to be writing for all things relating to this masterpiece, and which I am hoping I still remember when I come to write it.

This book, as I've mentioned before is going to focus on female friendship. So the story is about four girlfriends - I've called them the Fab Four in honour of a quartet I was part of with my twin in our teens, and I've tried to give them significant names according to important female friendships I've had at various points in my life.

So I have: Sarah, who represents my Fab Four era, Beth for my university days (named after Beth Jordache from Brookie, which was a formative influence at the time) Doris for the time I got married, as a friend jokingly named me that, and I'm a bit stuck on number four who is representative of my friends now. I'm toying with Fran or Frankie as a nod to Dirty Dancing which is the favourite film of a good friend of mine, but I don't really like that name, so I may just ask my mate her second name instead, or possibly use a character from Desperate Housewives. Having not named number four is one of the reasons I'm a bit stuck, as until her name's right I can't get properly going on her story. I am comforting myself with the fact that Emily wasn't going to be the main thrust of Strictly Love, but came good in the end. So I'm sure my unnamed heroine will be fine... in the end.

In the meantime I am getting lots of ideas about music....

White Wedding by Billy Idol is a must, as is Here Come the Girls, by the Sugababes. But I'm also lining up: Ever Fallen in Love by the Buzzcocks, Shadow of Love by the Damned, Don't You Forget About Me Simple Minds, Always on my Mind Pet Shop Boys (all of which were part of the soundtrack to my own love life, and I need to tap into that emotion). I'm also considering Man with the Child in his Eyes by Kate Bush, Before I Fall to Pieces by Razorlight and Let me Entertain you by Robbie (good old Robbie, what would I do without him?)

Part of the process of this for me also is that I need to be working towards a major pivotal emotional scene which occurs at the end of the book, and always before I start writing I have that scene in my head. In Pastures New I soundtracked it to Sing by Travis, in Strictly Love it was Feel by Robbie Williams, and in Last Christmas it's Pretty Amazing Grace by Neil Diamond.
This time around, I had worked out what the scene was, and also worked out how I was going to utilise some spare untapped emotion I needed to get rid of without upsetting people I know in my real life, but I hadn't got a song. If I wasn't stupid, I'd have picked up Mad Twin's reference to it month's ago, but somehow I didn't, and I only got it from Medium Rob's blog last week, and then heard it again used to fabulous effect in Being Human. It's Johnny Cash's version of Hurt. Apparently recorded just before he and his wife died. Listen and weep...

More shameless self promotion, oh yeah, yeah. (Or How Not to Write a Book)

Actually have been very very slow to announce this, but here is the gorgeous cover of my next book, The Bridesmaid Pact which is coming out on May 27th.

The Bridesmaid Pact tells the story of four friends: Doris, Sarah, Caz and Beth, who watch Diana and Charles getting married as eight year olds and and make a vow to be each other's bridesmaids when they grow up, and then for a variety of reasons fail to do so...

I think I am quite pleased with the end result (though so far all readers seem to have cried, I presume this is a good sign(-:), but I can honestly say this book was an utter pig to write.

When I started it, it all seemed to be going so well too - as I blogged here - though I recognised from the off this book was going to be a slightly painful one to write, the first few scenes did literally write themselves.

But oh dear, god, once I got going, it was like getting blood out of a stone. I spent the best part of last year not being able to settle to it - as I may have mentioned before Prevarication is my middle name - and whenever I did sit down to write it seemed to go painfully slowly. Initially I was supposed to finish by the end of the summer term. FAIL. I was only a quarter of the way through. My lovely editor kindly extended the deadline to October, and my plan then was to take my laptop away on holiday and write while my children splashed happily in the pool. MAJOR FAIL. As blogreaders may remember, thanks to a panic attack which sent me to Casualty the day before we went, I was in no fit state to do anything when we got there. I did, however discover, that writing by hand made the story flow better. So I bought some notebooks and started to scribble away. This was all fine and dandy up to a point, but when I came home my panicky state meant I could barely bear to go near a computer, so I ended up writing the majority of the book by hand.

It was only when I came to type it up that I realised a) how little I'd actually written (the book was probably about 20 000 words light on its first draft and b) how very long it takes to type things up. So it was I had another deadline FAIL and Spouse wasn't best pleased when we went to my mother's for the weekend and I spent the whole time typing away on the laptop.

However, I got there in the end. Finished book sent it off and waited for a response.

Now, my normal MO for writing is, I get an idea, the characters form in my head, usually a pivotal scene jumps out at me, all during my prevarication period, and THEN I sit down and write a reasonably detailed synopsis. It's kind of like an essay plan, or a hanger on which the bare bones of the plot are laid out, and I fill in the gaps. I've got into that way of writing, and its where I feel comfortable. However, this time, my brilliant system went tits up.

For a start, the characters all started clammering to talk to me. Although Doris is my main character, the others wanted their share of the limelight too, and they all wanted to tell their story in the first person (something I haven't attempted since my very first failed ms), PLUS there had to be a lot of switching back and forth between past and present which quite frankly did my head in. And I was conscious the whole time that I needed to get their individual voices right - Doris was relatively easy, she's quite dappy but also terribly smart (I knew two fearfully clever girls at uni who were brunettes but behaved like dizzy blondes, then freaked boys out by being cleverer then them, and I thought it would be fun to have a character like that), and Caz, who is probably the spikiest and least likeable character I have written was great fun as she belligerently popped out of nowhere, but in my first draft Sarah (the sensible one) and Beth (the shy one) were in danger of appearing interchangeable, though I hope I've sorted that now.

Another reason that this book was hard, was because while I haven't had any of the experiences my characters have, I did dip into a whole well of emotion from things I have experienced to tell their stories, and it turned out to be quite a difficult thing to do. I think it would have been tricky anyway, but the writing and rewriting coincided with one of the most stressful periods of my life in recent years, and hence the first draft was a little short on humour, shall we say. Again, I hope I've fixed that now(-:

Finally, when I came to do the first rewrites, my lack of planning showed through woefully - my editor said wisely that it was like trying to fit a jigsaw puzzle together, and I can tell you getting the bits in the right place was bloody hard work. And I had another Major Fail when I missed that deadline twice (I really thought I could do it before Christmas, but no, and then promised to get it in in January, and Christmas was such a disaster I missed that one too.)

I am IMMENSELY grateful to all the lovely people at Avon who a) have been sympathetic and understanding beyond the call of duty during my trials and tribulations and b) have bust a gut to make up for my tardiness, whilst also working their rocks off to get me the loveliest cover imaginable. Thanks guys, I promise to do better next time.

When it came to rewrite 2, I then realised that for a wedding book, it wasn't really very weddingy. So I spent ages researching dresses (I am really really crap at describing what people wear), and tapped into as many wedding memories of mine and other weddings I've been to, to get the right feel. Phew. I think the balance is right now.

But my worst moment was at the copyediting stage, when I had less then a week, as it came in over half term, and I realised to my horror that NONE of my dates matched up. I think I've got it right now, as I had to write a proper timeline (NOTE TO SELF: Do this at the beginning next time), but if you do happen to find a mistake, please don't send me dozens of emails to tell me. I really don't want to know...

Still, I got there in the end, and like I say, to the best of my ability (it is almost impossible to judge your own work accurately) I think its ok. I certainly like the characters and their situations, and I hope I can make you laugh and cry with them.

Having done it all wrong this time around, I am hoping to learn from the experience next time. So my latest plan is to disappear periodically to the library with my laptop to escape the perils of internet timewasting and make me feel like I'm properly going out to work. Working from home, particularly with my current set of domestic responsibilities means it's all too easy to put work on the back burner. I am hoping if I can discipline myself a bit more, I stand some chance of meeting my next deadline. Well that's the plan....

As usual, my story has a soundtrack, and for the Bridesmaid Pact it goes like this:

White Wedding by Billy Idol - had to be soundtrack for the book, didn't it? I've always loved the energy of this song, and I think it's particularly apposite for Caz's wedding at the beginning of the book.

You Know I'm no Good Amy Winehouse for Caz. You have to hand it to Amy, she has a brilliant knack of turning her personal disasters into fabulous songs. Caz is the wild child of the quartet, so this song sums her up.

However, when I heard Wire to Wire by Razorlight on the radio one day, I thought wow, this could have been written for Caz. It really fits her self destructive sadness, and sends shivers up my spine. Fab, fab, fab song.

I love the high energy of Let me Entertain You by Robbie Williams , which is a great party track and totally suitable for Doris' joie de vivre, battiness and hen night with her mates.

Pure by the Lightning Seeds is one of my favourite love songs, and just for Doris and Darren's relationship. Pure and simple all the time. I'm always a little in love with my leading men, but I adore Darren. He's very cute.

The Shadow of Love by the Damned is a great gothic song which fits Caz very well - if she were to get married, I can see her doing it goth style...

and Always on my Mind by the Petshop Boys (yes I know they covered Elvis, but I do love their vierson) is just right for Caz and Charlie

Thanks to a flurry of tweets on Twitter one day, I had a great Fleetwood Mac fest, and have ended up with Go Your Own Way by Fleetwood Mac for Sarah - is there a better break up song?

As well as, Love is a Losing Game by Amy Winehouse - the sad poignant melancholy of this song fits Sarah's sense of loss perfectly.

Caz doesn't know her dad and feels the loss keenly, so Oh Daddy by Fleetwood Mac (thank you Twitterverse) was the obvious choice here, more for the emotions then the lyrics. I think it is powerful, sad and heartrending. Perfect!

Songbird more Fleetwood Mac for Beth, who hides a painful secret, and somehow this song sums up her pain for me as well as giving hope for the future. Plus it's just BEAUTIFUL.

The Man with the Child in his Eyes for Beth and Matt - don't know why, it seems to fit their story somehow.

The Sadness Runs Through Him by the Hoosiers is another heartrending song which fits Beth and Matt, whose situation particularly gets to me.

Before I fall to Pieces by Razorlight is for Caz, who has to stumble a little on the way to finding redemption. Again this song seemed to capture her perfectly.

Hurt by Johnny Cash is the pivotal song of the book, for Doris and Darren particularly, but for al the characters in their own different ways. And it always makes me weep...

And finally, Doris is obsessed with all things Disney and this is a book about friendship, so You've Got A Friend in Me by Randy Newman from Toy Story is the perfect swan song!

Music and Lyrics Part 3: Soundtracking the story

I have just accidentally deleted a very long post I was writing about this, which is deeply frustrating as I have spent ages explaining the way my odd mind works. Never mind. Let me start again...

I previously wrote two posts about how music inspires my writing here and here, but thanks to general busyness, haven't got round to writing about how I actually use it to create my stories.

The way I choose and use songs is a bit of an organic process, a little bit rambly and probably makes no sense to anyone but me, but here goes.

The first thing I'm looking for I suppose, is songs with emotional heart, the sort of songs that make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. This is obviously a very personal thing, and some of the songs that have that effect on me, may be different from your favourites, but as its the emotion I'm after, hopefully that shouldn't matter.

The current book I'm working on is about weddings. Given that I have now been married for nearly 20 years, it's a bit of a challenge to remember exactly how I felt when I was newly in love(though I can remember EXACTLY how I felt on my wedding day), so I've gone back to some songs from the soundtrack to my own courtship to help me reconnect with the emotions I think my characters should be feeling. The first song inevitably, I suppose is Billy Idol's White Wedding, I first heard it at a time when marriage was the farthest thing from my mind, but I was contemplating a long and lonely summer away from Spouse, so for me its always had a bitter sweet feel. And for two of my characters, unsure of the choices they've made, it's a perfect fit. I think it sums up particularly well that feeling of being on a rollercoaster ride which you can't get off, which I'm sure most brides experience in the run up to the wedding.

Hey little sister what have you done
Hey little sister who's the only one
Hey little sister who's your superman
Hey little sister who's the one you want
Hey little sister shot gun!

It's a nice day to start again
It's a nice day for a white wedding
It's a nice day to start again.

The next song is from this album by the Damned (ok, I just wanted an excuse to put up this very fine cover which I love).

I first heard Shadow of Love at the same period as the Billy Idol song. And without sounding too corny about it, I realised with a jolt that where I had been larking about and having fun before (I was ridiculously young when I met Spouse), I had actually fallen under the shadow of love, which made that parting even harder. I'm still not sure I'm going to use this song in this book, because it maybe too gothic, but I do love it. And for a punk band it is rather poetic.

The hour is late and you know that time waits for no-one
See the glow of the soul in her face
Then you know that you're caught in the shadow of love

A brief embrace and fear and restraint have all gone
Innocence burns, -yes a fire that burned all along
See the doors about to swing both ways
See the answer mirrored in her gaze
Then you know that you're caught in the shadow of love

As I'm sure is common for most people, the course of true love didn't run exactly smooth for us, so after that summer apart, Spouse and I split up, I thought at the time, forever (ha, little did I know!). When we finally got back together, we danced to Simple Minds Don't You Forget About Me, and I still cannot hear it without feeling a churning of emotions: excitement, fear, joy, anxiety all rolled into one, all of which I hope to use for all my characters at some point.

Don't You Forget About Me
Don't Don't Don't Don't
Don't You Forget About Me

Will you stand above me?
Look my way, never love me
Rain keeps falling, rain keeps falling
Down, down, down

A similar tale is attached to Always on my Mind by the Pet Shop Boys. When I finished uni, Spouse still had a year to go, and I headed off to the bright lights and big city genuinely unsure that we would make it through the year. That we did, in part, was a result of this song. We're all guilty of taking our loved ones for granted, and sometimes that's a difficult thing to admit. So this song is perfect for one of my characters who has a good marriage, but is keeping secrets from her husband.

Maybe I didnt treat you quite as good as I should
Maybe I didnt love you quite as often as I could
Little things I shouldve said and done, I never took the time
You were always on my mind
You were always on my mind

This book represents a bit of a first for me, in that it is very character led, and the plot is forming as I write, rather, then as is usual for me, plotting it out first. It is both a liberating and scary way to write, so I feel the need to know my characters more then I usually do. I've started with Caz, the most difficult and unlikeable character I've yet written, who I hope will be going on a redemptive journey. I had my eye on two Razorlight songs for Caz - Before I Fall to Pieces and In the Morning, which I still may yet use. But when I stumbled on Wire to Wire, which I burbled on about yesterday, I knew I'd found the key to Caz's character.

What is love but the strangest of feelings?
A sin you swallow for the rest of your life?
You`ve been looking for someone to believe in
To love you, until your eyes run dry

She lives on disillusion road
We go where the wild blood flows
On our bodies we share the same scar
Love me, wherever you are

As Caz also has a strong self destruct button she's also getting Amy Winehouse's You Know I'm No Good

I cheated myself
Like I knew I would
I told ya, I was trouble
You know that I'm no good

I'm still working out the rest of the songs, but thanks to a complete nostalgia blitz yesterday on Twitter yesterday(thanks fellow twitterers) about Fleetwood Mac Rumours (now there's an album built for stories about the broken hearted), I'm currently looking at: Go Your Own Way/Gold Dust Woman for Sarah whose marriage is in trouble and Songbird for Doris, the optmistic joyful heart of the story. Doris is also getting Pure by the Lightning Seeds

Nighttime slows, raindrops splash rainbows
Perhaps someone you know could sparkle and shine
As daydreams slide to colour from shadow
Picture the moonglow that dazzles my eyes
And I love you

Just lying, smiling in the dark
Shooting stars around your heart
Dreams come bouncing in your head
Pure and simple every time
Now, you're crying in your sleep
I wish you'd never learnt to weep
Don't sell the dreams you should be keeping
Pure and simple every time

I love that song. Such a simple but brilliant evocation of what it is to be in love.

Beth, my fourth character is the most tricky at the moment, as she is still a little in the shadows, but I'm currently thinking of Kate Bush's Man with the Child in his Eyes for her, though at this particular moment, I can't quite tell you why. That's another thing about this process. I don't always have all the answers. I just feel in my gut it's right.

And of course, I've mentioned before, Johnny Cash's Hurt is at the heart of the book, and though mainly Doris's song, it will be appropriate to all of them I feel.

Once I've worked out all the songs - and actually I can still throw in last minute ones, which I did in Last Christmas - I have them on my playlist on the computer. I often listen to the whole set while I'm fiddling about on twitter or on my blog, so that they are somewhere there embedded in my psyche, or in the case of Hurt, which in my head is very much like a soundtrack from a movie, I'll actually listen to it as I write the scene. This can be distracting sometimes, but in the case of such a powerful song I find it helps me really reach for the emotions I'm trying to portray. Whether or not I succeed in describing them is another matter of course, and that can be a frustrating part of the process for me, but hey, alot of writing is frustrating, so I can't waste too much time getting hung up about it.

When I've finished the book, other songs often occur to me as being more suitable, or just right for a particular scene or character (this happened with the character of Rob in Strictly Love who ended up with Robbie Williams Feel as his theme tune.) But what I usually find with the songs I've already chosen, is that I listen to them again as I rewrite the book, and this often helps me find an extra edge or depth to what I'm writing - at least I hope it does.

Like I say, it's an organic process, and it's one at the moment I'm just starting out on. And the best thing about it is, having really stalled badly with my writing of late, I've just discovered from my marathon Fleetwood Mac listening (and sharing with Twitter followers, particularly Marie) yesterday that music really does reenergise me and motivate me. So even if no one else notices the emotion, the fact that I've listened probably means I will finish the damned thing. Eventually...

Things you think you'll never do.

I was five when David Cassidy shot to fame. I can (just) remember the Partridge family, but I have never ever got the teenyboppyer adulation which so many of my peers fixated on him in my formative years. And I've certainly never got into his music which is far too saccharine for my tastes (if you have to have your hair long sing, Bed of Roses or Dead or Alive. That will do it). So things I thought I'd never do included going to see a concert by David Cassidy.

However. My very lovely friend who bought us tickets for Stratford is a fan. And some months ago she bought two tickets to David Cassidy. She was having trouble (I wonder why) getting anyone to go with her, so in the interests of girly friendship (and quite frankly when someone buys you tickets to see David Tennant a girl will be obliged to go a very very long way to repay that act of extreme generosity), I said yes. I was rather assuming she'd find another fangirl to go with her, but sadly she didn't.

Having said all that, I also think it is beneficial from time to time to go and do/see things you wouldn't normally do to break down the barriers of prejudice that form in your mind. I have discovered in the last year that Neil Diamond who I had hitherto regarded as churning out the same cheesy crap as DC is actually fabulous. I loved his last album, have used Pretty Amazing Grace as a key soundtrack on my latest book, and even discovered I liked Love on the Rocks. So anything is possible...

I have to say I haven't had a Pauline conversion to DC's ouevre, NONE of which I even recognised (how odd is that? Going to a concert and not knowing a single hit, apart from the covers he did). I realise that this is partly because I was too young (I was 7 when he had most of his hits), partly because I didn't hear him at the right hormonal moment (though I was a late developer in that area - it was Sting who turned me onto music and by then I was 13), and partly because his hits are the cheesy crap I thought they were. However, it is quite clear that though I don't get it, thousands of women (mainly middle aged and older then me, phew) obviously do. So like Mills and Boon which I don't read or write, but I know lots of talented people who do both, I accept that David Cassidy is a strand of the music industry who entertains royally, which is just fine and dandy. I don't have to listen.

What I will say though, which was a bit of a revelation, was that 1) DC was highly entertaining, keeping up a constant patter throughout the show 2)He was quite daring (well if he wasn't full of bullshit anyway), taking himself out of his comfort zone and (allegedly) playing songs he hadn't rehearsed, trying new stuff for the first time and 3) he has a great voice, plays guitar AND even went and did the drums when his drummer (a really foxy chick) got up and sang Brass in Pocket.

So despite the fact that I have a rotten cold, didn't know a single song, and still think his hits are rubbish, remarkably, I had a really great time...

Being Human

Last year I stumbled by accident on a pilot episode for a series called Being Human. Only being a dickhead, I didn't realise it was a pilot and wasted a week scouring the airwaves to try and find an elusive and non existent part 2. Given that Spouse and I are both big horror/fantasy fans, we couldn't have stumbled across a programme we were going to like more. The plot (if you haven't seen it) features a werewolf, a vampire and a ghost flatsharing in Bristol. It was properly dark, properly funny, and featured three engaging characters. I haven't been so entranced by a new series of anything, ooh, forever...

I was therefore delighted to discover it was going to be made into a series, but slightly disconcerted to find out that two of the orginal trio (Guy Flanagan who played the vampire, Mitchell and Andrea Riseborough who played the ghost Annie) had been replaced. Also gone was the malevolent head of the vampires, Adrian Lester, which was a shame I thought as he was shaping up well as a character.

However, having watched episode one last night, I was really pleased that if anything I enjoyed it more. Russell Tovey as George really carries off the horror of turning into something you don't want ot be. Mitchell as played by Aidan Turner, feels a lot more dangerous and you get the sense he is grappling hard not to succumb to his bloodlust. The moment when George the werewolf discovers that the colleague whose memorial service he's just attended is in fact a vampire created by Mitchell was spinechilling, particularly when he also realises that Mitchell may have designs on the girl they both fancy. I liked the tension of George not being sure he can trust Mitchell, and yet Mitchell is the one who protects and helps George overcome the difficulties inherent in his condition.

There were also some really touching moments in this. Annie's shock at seeing what happens to George when he transforms; George's irritation towards Annie's obsessive tea making transforming to tenderness when she realises the loss of her fiance once again; George's realisation at the end that by allowing the girlfriend to die Mitchell has actually saved her.

The ending was heartrending as you really felt Mitchell's pain. Thanks to Medium Rob I was introduced to a great song last week, Hurt by Johnny Cash, and it was used here to fabulous effect. (In fact I like it so much I think I may have to steal it for the soundtrack for the new book).

By the end of this episode I felt all three characters had really grown and understood one another more. It was great.

I also liked Jason Fleming's Herrick - the head vampire, who somehow seems more menacing played as a policeman. Not quite so sure yet about Lenora Crichlow's Annie, but Andrea Riseborough is a tough act to follow, so maybe she'll get better.

But still, it looks like I've got something to keep me occupied for the next few Sundays. After the disappointment of Demons which is much sillier (and not in a good, silly Primeval/Dr Who kind of way) then I thought after episode one, that is a relief. My only problem now is persuading the two big ones that they really aren't quite old enough to watch this...

Not quite the soundtrack for spring, but...

It's not one of my seven, but bubbling away in the background for a book that may or may not ever see the light of day. It's quite different to anything I'm currently writing being a time slip/parallel universe darkish fantasy. So there's going to be lots of fighting probably, and this song sooo fits. Well the song does. Not sure about the video which probably demonstrates why most pop artists don't write novels, but I do love these lines:

Come ride with me on the veins of history
I'll show you a god, falls asleep on the job

and

Don't waste your time or time will waste you...

which always sends shivers up my spine - one of my criteria for having a song on my book playlist. The others so far for this book are: Blackeyed Boy by Texas, Somewhere Only We Know by Keane and Who Wants to Life Forever by Queen.

But for now I leave you with Knights of Cydonia by Muse. Enjoy....

Music Meme

Lovely Persephone who hangs out at: postitnotesfromhades.blogspot.com, and with whom I have regular Dr Who discussions on other people's blogs has just tagged me for this music meme...

List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring. Post these instructions in your blog along with your 7 songs. Then tag 7 other people to see what they’re listening to.

Well, music as I've mentioned before plays a big part in my creative processes, and I'm currently dabbling round the edges of book 3 before diving in. So my first choice is an incredibly cheesy and most unspringlike Last Christmas by Wham, as a) it's the title of the book and b) I am trying to get myself sufficiently Christmassy to write about it in the summer. Bloody hard I can tell you...





Next is The Hills are Alive from The Sound of Music, which we saw last week. Emily, the heroine of Strictly Love is a fan, and I nearly came a cropper having another character quote from it. (I shall be blogging about our trip over at the Other Place)



Thirdly, well... not exactly the sound of my springtime, but more like part of the soundtrack of my life, which Terry Wogan played first thing this morning. Another cheesy one, but it was the song Spouse first asked me to dance to, far too many years ago to care to contemplate. I had pitched up very late to an end of term disco, and was in blissful and ignorant conversation with him, not realising his friend was poking him in the back, saying, Go on, ask her to dance... Had we known then that here we'd be over twenty years later with four children, I think we might both have run a mile...

Anyway it's Drive by the Cars. Check out that mullet... Weren't the eighties fab?




Fourth, is Behind Blue Eyes by the Who. We've managed to watch and video the same documentary on them twice in the last couple of weeks, and this song always makes me weep.



Fifth is a song for the new book. I wasn't a fan of the BeeGees and disco in the seventies, but nostalgia is a wonderful thing and they've grown on me. And it wasn't till I heard this song, that I realised just what a talented bunch they were. This is Where I Come In is from the album of the same name, which is the last they made before Maurice's untimely death. I love it, and it's perfect background for the mood of this book...



Sixth, thanks to Persephone I found this by the Mumm-Ras which was driving me mad...It's called She's Got You High and is the perfect song for describing falling in love. So here are the Martha and Doctor again (any excuse to show pictures of David Tennant on this blog I can tell you...)



And finally. My musical tastes are not my own anymore. Thanks to the children I get to hear all sorts of things I wouldn't otherwise. I absolutely LOVE Mercy by Duffy....



Oh and the other part of the meme is that I have to tag people, so....and apologies for not doing the links properly. Still have trouble with that, and at the minute I don't QUITE have time to do it properly. So... Here goes, I tag, Liz Fenwick, Nic, Expatmum, Dulwichmum, Amy Appleton, Rivergirlie and Mad Twin (I know you don't have a blog MT, but you can leave your comments here... instead)

PS Music

I'm also finalising the soundtrack for the book...

Currently I have for my married hero and heroine Noel and Cat:

Let's Stick Together, Bryan Ferry - their marriage is in difficulties but they're trying to remember they still want one another.
Your Love Alone is Not Enough Manic Street Preachers - Love itself doesn't save the world, you have to work that bit harder...
Put the Sun Back Coral - where ahs all the joy gone in their life, if only they could find that out, everything else should fall into place.

For my my other hero, Gabriel's s musings on his ex wife and how he is unable to help her:

Other Side of the World KT Tunstall

For Gabriel and Marianne, the other heroine (with huge thanks to Persephone for tracking it down for me), for that joyous tumultous early love feeling:

She's Got You High Mumm-Ra

For Noel's midlife crisis:

This is Where I Came In by the Beegees
and the fabulous brilliant
Pretty Amazing Grace by Neil Diamond which is the heart of the book.

Last minute additions from writing the last few chapters are:

Angel by Robbie Williams for the relationship Cat has with her mother.
Streets of London Ralph McTell for a scene which owes not a little to A Christmas Carol.
I Can See Clearly Now Johnny Nash for an epiphany moment for Noel, but also probably a bit for Gabriel and Marianne at different points.

There may be a few more where those have come from. Am thinking I need a song for both Marianne and Gabriel about mending broken hearts, but it hasn't quite found me yet...

You Really Got Me

As a girl of the eighties, I shouldn't by rights be into sixties music. Indeed. Until I met my husband I wasn't. As a teenager I spent rather alot of time bopping to the Beatles at the end of parties which rather put me off the whole decade.

I tend to think of music as adding the soundtrack to my life (which is why I always use it to inspire my writing).

Roxanne represents the moment I suddenly got pop music - coincidentally the first time I heard it was also the first time I got asked to dance. I had no idea it was about a prostitute, but hey, what the hell. Every time I hear it now my thirteen year old heart does a little leap - he asked me to dance, thereby fulfilling the most important desire of a girl's teenage years...

All that ska stuff, like Ghost Town and UB40 makes me think of strikes and pickets, and rocking against racism; the new Romantics took me through the trials of my late teens when I learnt that boys not only asked you to dance, but then they stopped asking you, too; Madonna, King, U2, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Everything but the Girl exploded into my life as I experienced freedom for the first time, mainly on the dance floor late at night in Liverpool's seedier drinking holes...

But sixties music. Now in the main that had passed me by till I got together with Spouse. He introduced me to the Zombies, the Animals, the Mamas & Papas, loads of stuff I'd never heard of. And I haven't been able to enjoy the Beatles since, as there was so much more that I like far better.

California Dreamin' by the Mamas & Papas remains a favourite of mine (indeed, I used it for mood in Pastures New), as does She's Not There by the Zombies (which I haven't used yet, but I certainly will).

But the band I am most grateful to Spouse for introducing me to are the Kinks. Ray Davies in my book is a living genius. I love his storytelling capacity, his ability to poke fun, his wry social comment, and above all his ability to produce great simple songs that you can not only dance to, but which stick in your head forever...

My role of honour for Kinks' songs goes to:

Waterloo Sunset - two things coincide there for me. Waterloo Bridge happens to be my favourite bridge in London. I used to walk across it every day when I was commuting, and I love the grand sweep of vision you get from being on a bend in the river which means you can see London laid out in all its glory on both sides. Every time I hear the song I can picture that view.

All Day and All of the Night - encapsulates love's young dream so perfectly. And let's face it, who wouldn't want Ray singing to them he wants to be with them all day and all of the night... That will no doubt make its way into a book one day too.

Lola Bearing in mind I was a lot more innocent the first time I heard this song, I can remember the moment of revelation when I suddenly realised, that the singer not only knew he was a man, but so was Lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-Lola... I love that song. It is so funny and Ray Davies at his mischievous best.

But my favourite Kinks song is probably their simplest.

It's You Really Got Me and its the only song I can guarantee will drag my husband to the dance floor.

When I first met him, he had recently had the disappointment of driving all the way to Southampton to go to a Kinks gig which was cancelled. So last year I managed to book us tickets to see Ray Davies at the Royal Albert Hall only for that to be cancelled too.

Tonight, however, all things being well, we are finally going to get to see the man himself.

Here he is.




Isn't he lovely? (OK, not a patch on David Tennant, but David Tennant doesn't have a voice to make your soul sing).

I'm really looking forward to it.

I do hope he doesn't cancel.

Because I'm looking forward to a dance with my husband...

PS. A very kind friend has pointed out that apparently Waterloo Sunset was originally supposed to be Liverpool Sunset, and was about Liverpool Station, not about Waterloo at all... Although according to Wikipedia it IS about Waterloo Bridge... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterloo_Sunset

The truth is out there I'm sure...

Where was I?

Oh yes...

Trying to find my happy place. This hasn't been quite as possible as I'd like it to be because life does keep conspiring against me. Today's part of the conspiracy was to hear the sad news that a much beloved cousin on my mother's side had died. I don't normally go this personal here, but I think she deserves a shout out for being an utterly brilliant human being.

My cousin Angela was like the best of all fun aunties to have (though she wasn't an auntie and we never called her one). She came at Christmas and birthdays providing exciting presents the likes of which we never got anywhere else (being one of eight teaches you to be grateful for what you get quite frankly). She came on holidays with us and was a source of fun and joy, usually conspiring with us the kids against the grown ups. I think everyone deserves at least one adult like that in their lives in childhood.

But the best thing about her was that she had the coolest job of anyone I never knew. Which you can read all about here, namely to find or provide sound effects for films. When I was 12 years old Star Wars came out. Angela had not only worked on the sound effects but get this, she knew Mark Hamill ,who was my pinup then (much prefer Harrison now). Apparently she'd met him once in the bar at Elstree or Pinewood with I think it was an alligator on his lap. Quite why I don't know, but that seemed dead exciting to me at the time. As our Christmas treat that year she took the whole family (all ten of us, immensely generous!) to see Star Wars at the Empire Leicester Square. I'll never forget the impact of those space ships going over my head. Seems so tame now but it was genuinely groundbreaking at the time, and we got to see it before anyone else at school. For a glorious week in January 1978, I was actually cool at school thanks to Angela. Later on she did the same for Superman, which she also took us to see. She also did the soundtrack for The Omen, allegedly recording one sound in the local catholic church which then had to be exorcised. At my sister's wedding she made all the female guests jealous by mentioning she just happened to have met Mel Gibson (this was when he was still a sex symbol and not weird.)

In her private life, though she never married, she spent years involved in local drama projects - much to her elderly mother's (my great Aunt Madge, another awesome character) disgust. "Don't know what she sees in all that drama," Auntie Madge used to sniff, even though it was Angela's raison d'etre. They were devoted to each other, but in the way two women living alone often do, spent most of the time sniping at one another, so it was easy to miss the deep love between them.

When Angela needed people for sound effects, she used to arrange what she termed as "Shouts" getting lots and lots of people together to make the sound she was after. Although we frequently got invited on these occasions, as we lived in North London and she lived in Essex, to my disappointment I never actually made it to one. I'm sure knowing Angela they'd have been a right laugh.

Over recent years I hadn't seen much of her. My family commitments mean I can't often venture into Essex, where most of my mother's family live (sounds pathetic now I write it down, but there really is not time when the kids are at school and the holidays go too fast). Recently though an aunt was over from America and knowing everyone was meeting at my godmother's house I made the effort to get over to see them all. I knew Angela had been ill, and was delighted to hear from my mother that she was out of hospital and would be there. However, when I arrived it transpired that she'd been taken ill again. On the way home my older sister was planning to stop off to see her. I dithered for a minute, knowing I was needed at home, then thought, bugger it, I'm never in this part of the world, who knows what will happen. So I made the effort and went to see her. I'm so glad I did.

Angela was clearly not well, but still cracking jokes as much as ever. She laughed at the miserable old woman in the bed next door who kept saying she wanted to die, and talked longingly about getting well enough to get involved again in her beloved drama. She was delighted to see us, and remembered (as I to my shame had not) that the last time we'd met was at no 3's christening. When we left she got up and walked us to the door. I had a feeling we weren't going to meet again.

She did get out of hospital again, but was admitted last week. Yesterday she spent the afternoon laughing with her cousins (my mother and my aunts). She seemed in such good spirits my mother judged it ok to go back home. Sadly she deteriorated overnight and died at 6.30 am this morning.

I cannot mourn her passing for the fact that her quality of life was so very grim, and she isn't suffering anymore. But I am sorry the world has lost someone with such a joyous sense of fun, who enjoyed the absurdities of life to such a great extent.

I've been thinking about her all day, and the memory that has come back more then most was of a couple of nights before my wedding. She and her mum were staying down the road at a little bungalow, attached to the house of the landlady. She'd put Auntie Madge to bed and come up to us for dinner, but because of Auntie Madge she couldn't stay out late. My dad decided she couldn't go back to the bungalow empty handed so provided some alcohol (beer?) to keep her spirits up. We went clanking down the road with all the bottles, giggling like a bunch of school kids, especially when we went into the bungalow and were trying not to waken the very stern landlady. The harder we tried not to laugh the more we laughed. It was a joyous moment with the two people in my life who've taught me there is always time for giggling and being silly.

So, a sad day today, but I think, thanks to Angela, I've been reminded of the importance of laughter however grim life seems, and I've found my happy place. Or certainly one of them. I hope she has too.

So little time, so much to do...

If anyone is still out there, you may have noticed I've been rather quiet. (oh good I hear you say).

The main reason was I was up to my eyes in my pesky deadlines.

I can now reveal that one of them is for my first novel - the allotment book is going to make into print next autumn, published by Harper Collins, it's going to be called Pastures New. Which is all very exciting. But having spent eight years writing pretty much for myself it's a wee bit scary suddenly having to live up to people's expectations. Every line I wrote now seems crass beyond belief, and in the end I just had to send it off otherwise I thought I'd be tinkering forever.

My other deadline is for a children's story called Awkward Annie, which will be published by Evans, although I'm not quite sure when. I'm really pleased about this as the character is based on no 2, so not unnaturally, I'm rather fond of her...

In between all of this of course, I have been attending all the various Christmas events for the children.

So far we've had:

No 2 as a cool wise man wearing shades. I know I'm biased, but she and her confederates stole the show. Sadly I don't have a picture as years of returning from these things with crappy pictures of my offspring means I tend not to bring a camera these days.

While we were doing this Spouse went with nos1 & 3 to be ecowarriors and cut down our Christmas tree (along with about twenty others - the deal is you help clear the heathland and then take a free tree home. Or four in our case. Spouse got one for mil and the kids decided they needed one each in their bedrooms. Right....)


Last Tuesday saw nos 1&2 at their carol concert. The church where this is held has very little vision so I was lucky to spot no 2 at all. No 1 surprised me by leaping up halfway through the service, to do something, I knew not wot. It turned out she'd lit a candle.

They do a repeat in the evening to which I normally don't go, but as the littlies are a bit bigger now, we all went on a moonlit walk through the allotments, which was actually rather nice. I felt a momentary pang when I realised this is no 1's last Christmas effort at her current school, till I realised I still have six more performances to go. Poor no 4, I'll be cheering when it gets to her last show...

No 4 put in an appearance as a villager last Wednesday. She had to say WE WANT PEACE AND QUIET, which she did very loudly. She then complained that she only had one line...

Last up is no 3 who is narrating in a Christingle service tonight.

Then that's us done and dusted till Christmas Eve when we go to the family service at 5pm.

So I am thoroughly Christmassed out, but in quite a nice way.

At the weekend Spouse and I did some last minute panic shopping as we were all out of ideas for everyone. Nos 2&3 have copied out the entire contents of the Argos catalogue for their Santa lists. I told no 2 she wasn't getting the Bratz house, because a) it's too expensive and b) as Spouse rightly points out, it looks like a bordello. However, her cool response was well, Santa doesn't pay for presents does he? Oh damn...

We also had the surreal experience of singing carols at high speed in our local pub on Sunday night. It's great fun, but not such a good idea on a Sunday, as neither of us felt very clever yesterday....

And we still have a week's heavy drinking to go...

Thanks to a heavy cold I can't even be virtuous and say I'm exercising.

But I have done this...

Never one to miss a trick me. I've just posted this on You Tube. The soundtrack should of course be Running on Empty, but Vivaldi can't sue!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVV7aXpg8B0


Happy Christmas!

I'm so excited... I just can't hide it...

I'm about to lose control and I think I like it...

Tonight is the last ever episode of Ashes to Ashes. I have been very bad about blogging A2A this time around, not quite sure why, but may try and attempt a whole series round up next week.

Suffice to say, at the moment I am in the blissful but enjoyable position of not having A CLUE about wtf is going on, except, that a) I think the number plate of the Quattro is significant b) the box which Gene kept the roll of film in is one which all returning WW1 vets had (I got this courtesy of Spouse as his grandad had one), so am guessing the disfigured soldier Alex keeps seeing is a WW1 soldier, possibly related to Gene. In fact, maybe it is Gene... Have a feeling they are all dead and about to cross over or something and Gene needs to LEARN a Lesson... but I may be wrong about that.

In the meantime, I shall sit back enjoy the music (the soundtrack to A2A is SUPERB) and ogle at Gene for one last time, and laugh at Alex's Dennis the Menace jumper as it is EXACTLY like one I knitted for Spouse c 1987. He insisted on having it in mohair, and then put it in the wash, so it ended up fitting a teddy bear. Hmm.

Am devastated it's the end for Gene, but I guess he can't go on forever.

I just hope in true cowboy style he goes out in a blaze of glory....

I've finished! I've finished!

I have mentioned on and off that I have been writing a romantic novel, and it is with great relief that I have finally finished it. I have been attempting to write novels for the last eight years, but between childrearing, freelancing, running marathons etc, writing always gets a back seat. So I tend to write in spurts, and my poor heroine has spent most of the last two years being left languishing all over the place - either the hero's about to her kiss her and she's standing there waiting, or he's just disappeared off on holiday without a by your leave and it's taken me six months to get back and sort them both out.

Actually, considering everything else that's been going on, I suppose two years in the telling isn't too bad. Goodness, I might be able to manage a book every six months if I had the time... OTOH, knowing me, procastinator extraordinaire that I am, if I had more time, I would probably wittle it away somehow and end up taking longer.

I set myself a rather knotty problem with this book as well. I took my inspiration from some allotments at the back of our house, and it's where my hero and heroine meet and spend most of their time. I also took inspiration from Radio 2 which I have on constantly, so a kind of recurring theme is that the radio is like a friend in the kitchen.

I started off heavily using radio references, but cut them back because as in all contemporary fiction, things date so quickly. And I nearly came very badly unstuck as my heroine was dancing to the Cruisin' tracks on Drivetime at one point (something I used to do when I was cooking the tea), and then to my consternation the wonderful Johnny Walker left and Chris Evans took over, and Cruisin' was axed. As my heroine dancing in the kitchen was a fairly pivotal moment for her making up with the hero again, I was loth to lose it. But luckily Chris Evans has come up trumps with You Choose the Tracks on Friday evenings. Phew...

Another difficulty I had was that I've always found music really inspiring and helpful in the creative process something common to lots of my writing friends. One in particular, Elizabeth Chadwick uses rock music to great effect when writing her wonderful mediaeval historical novels. (For a great explanation of how she does it go to: http://livingthehistoryelizabethchadwick.blogspot.com/2006/05/greatest-knight-soundtrack.html)

I decided for this novel I wanted to use six songs to reflect the themes of each section of the book.

The first was easy. Forever Autumn by Justin Hayward. My heroine arrives in a new town, heart battered and bruised by the death of her partner in a bike accident. She thinks she can never love again, and that for her it will always be forever autumn. It was relatively easy to work in references to golden leaves/walking in the woods etc (quoting verbatim from songs is very costly and to be avoided), but getting across her sense of loss/generating the emotion the song provokes in me was much harder, and I have no idea if I have succeeded or not.

The second part is entitled Such A Winter's Day. My heroine has now met the hero and several other characters, and California Dreaming is the theme tune here. My hero is being pulled back to his past lover who has gone out to California, while being attracted to the heroine, but will it always be a winter's day for her? She meanwhile has developed a chink in her armour, and is starting to see the sunlight poking through. For the first time since I've been a writer, my characters took control at this point and insisted on kissing each other at the end of the section, which wasn't quite what I had in mind for them.

Part three is called Soak up the Sun, from a Sheryl Crowe song of the same name. The hero/heroine have a misunderstanding as he disappears off skiing without telling her, just at the point where she has decided Sheryl is right and she should lighten up. The point when they make up is when he finds her dancing to Sheryl Crowe in the kitchen. There is such a brilliant line about not having what you want, but wanting what you've got which is perfect for my heroine's tentative steps towards her new life.

Part four is based on a Texas song, Here Comes the Summer's Son, and again, it was listening to a specific line (about reconsidering before the lover takes the singer's heart, and opening a door and going through) that just naturally slotted in to what I was thinking for my heroine. She is on the verge of entrusting her fledgling new heart to the hero, and then his ex pitches up out of the blue and causes trouble. By the end of this section, the hero and heroine are at odds, as she thinks she can't trust him.

Part five - is possibly the least successful, so I may change it. This was again because my characters didn't do things the way I wanted them to. I needed a major character, who the heroine is very close to, firstly to be ill (as a means of bringing the hero and heroine back together again) and then die, but he persistently refused to die till part six! The song I've chosen is Sing by Travis. The singer talks about the love he brings meaning nothing, unless she sings. He also talks about her being so low/crying etc and it seemed to me about those times when however much you love someone, you can't help them when they are in pain. My heroine isn't quite into the height of her suffering here, so I may have to rethink it!

Part Six's theme is Fix You, a wonderful achingly haunting tune from Coldplay. My character dies here instead, and my heroine takes it as a sign that everyone she loves dies/leaves her and so she runs away from the hero, who has taken the view that life is too short and they should get married. He wants to fix her, take her pain away, but can do nothing. Until the end of course, when (using the song again) he guides her by candlelight to where he is waiting for her, and finally she can let go of her past.


It was damned hard work trying to convey the emotions I was after, and I have no idea whether or not it's worked, but at least I've done it. And now it's with my agent and I have to bite my nails till I find out if this will be another one to bite the dust or not...

Still, while I'm waiting I am thinking out the plot of my next book: about a dentist who gets sued by a Z list celebrity. (No prizes for guessing where that inspiration came from - though the suing bit I got out of listening to the Jeremy Vine show - yes, yes, I know, I am sadly obsessed with Radio 2, but I need something to keep me out of trouble).

And I have my first theme tune already: The Miracle of Love by the Eurythmics, for when my hero and heroine get it together for the first time. I have a whole scene playing out in my head, like watching a film at the moment.

Sometimes, it is so great being a writer. Even an unpublished one....

Is It Me?

As my favourite Radio 2 DJ would say.

I have been pondering the fact that though I am probably completely out of tune with the rest of the world and am about to commit a sacreligious act, by even thinking it, let alone saying it, I just don't get the Beatles.

There. Now I feel much better.

Don't get me wrong.

I was born half way through the sixties so the Beatles formed the soundtrack to my early life. When I was a teenager everything was retro sixties, and to those of us who boogied our way through the eighties there was always some slight feeling of having been cheated that being in nappies at the time, we somehow missed out on the biggest decade of the twentieth century. (Mind you, maybe that's just youth - my niece felt the same about the eighties...)

Nearly every party I went to in my teens featured I Want to Hold Your Hand/Hard Day's Night/All You Need is Love etc, so maybe my feeling of bafflement about the Fab Four as I approach middle age is simple ennui. I was overexposed to them at such a tender age, it is no wonder that now I can't bear to listen.

But actually, the simple truth for me was, that once I got to hear the Kinks, the Stones, the Zombies, I just felt the Beatles were overrated. Sure they wrote some catchy numbers, but maybe they only hit the big time because they were there first... I wasn't even born when they had their first no 1 so how should I know. And anything John Lennon wrote on his own was just a pile of crap as far as I'm concerned. I always fantasised about having some rock god writing me a fabulous song when I was young. But Woman would have had me pouring water on his head (Had it been Layla, then you'd be talking...) And as for Imagine. Well. What a load of idealistic nonsense that was. Possibly the most pretentious piece of musical writing in the history of pop music.

Still.

The Beatles.

They are iconic.

And we have just been given the new George Martin remix album for Christmas.

Spouse put it on in the car while we were driving back from Shropshire, and I have to say I listened with great anticipation. Maybe George would reach the aural parts that normal Beatle tracks couldn't...

I have to confess it was a little tricky listening, as the kids were watching a DVD at the time, but I got the general gist, and the answer is ...

Nope.

Sorry George it didn't work.

At least not for me.

All you need is love irritates the hell out of me more then ever.

I am the Walrus is plain stupid.

And Hey Jude sounds even wetter twenty years on. (We always used to hate that one as kids).

Having said that the ones that always worked for me: Eleanor Rigby, Lady Madonna and While My Guitar Gently Weeps still blow my mind.

But - is it me? This album has been hyped to death. Does it really sound so different?

I didn't think so.

But then.

I'm not a big Beatles fan. And I don't really get it.

But then I don't get: Big Brother, Russell Brand or Pop Idol either.

There's obviously no hope for me...

Music and Lyrics Part One

A while back I was mentioning here, as I do periodically, the way I use music to get the old creative juices going, and Marie asked me to explain how I do it. As I've been a bit busy finishing the rewrites to Last Christmas and generally playing catch up from having had too many children at home too often of late, I've only just got round to it. So thank you, Marie for being so patient. You've probably forgotten you even said it by now...

I think I may have rather a lot to say on this subject, so I probably need to write more then one post about it. You are very welcome to skip these posts entirely if you don't find the way my creative synapses work that fascinating. (And let's face it why would you really?)

At the risk of being a tad self indulgent, I'd like to start by giving you some background to my interest in music and why it's so important to me when I'm writing.

In some ways it's highly amusing that I do now find music so important in my writing . As a child, coming from a vast family (there are eight of us. Yes, I know. I did say eight.), and being a twin to boot, I was always desperate to find my own identity. I was also incredibly pig headed. So as all my siblings bar one took up a musical instrument, I went my own way and decided not to. I even went out of my way not to learn music properly. So while I recognise what a double clef is to look at, I can't read a note of music, because, though I found it relatively easy to learn, I just mentally switched off. Much to the disgust of my music teacher who awarded me the only D of my academic career.

I regret this of course now. Particularly now the sprogs are all learning the piano and no 1 is also having singing and guitar lessons. I so wish I could join in with them. I did go through a phase of wanting to learn the guitar when I was fifteen (mainly inspired by a boy I fancied), and my fantasy life would involve me being a rock chick a la Chrissie Hynde (in fact, I have that all lined up for a book some time in the future), but sadly I never pursued it, and while I can reasonably hold a tune, I cannot count musical talent among my accomplishments.

Having said that of course, you don't have to be any good at music to appreciate it.

My parents were never keen on pop music, but loved classical, and while I couldn't claim expertise in this area, I do recognise Beethoven, Bach, Mozart et al, and have some firm favourites from the classical canon (Pachabell's Canon in D, Vaughn Williams Theme from Thomas Tallis, The Carmina Burana to name but a few). Thinking about it the Theme from Thomas Tallis, is probably the first music that inspired me creatively. I used to listen to it obsessively when I was revising for my A levels, as I found it incredibly soothing. Try it if you're stressed, it's very calming. But it also makes me think of green rolling hills, and English countryside, and probably because I was revising it at the time, Far From the Madding Crowd. I can remember "seeing" images in my head very clearly as I listened to it, of grand sweeping landscapes rolling out before me like the opening credits of a film that could be adventurous, heartbreaking, romantic , stirring. It was the sense of incredible yearning that that music still engenders, which somewhere taps into the creative part of my soul. I haven't used that music for any writing yet, but I will one day.

As my parents weren't that keen on pop music, I was a bit of a johnny come lately in that regard, and whereas most of my peers were probably buying their first singles in their early teens, I didn't actually buy much music till I was much older. I was also very wary of stating my preferences, because at that time in my life you always had to be "for" a particular kind of music - you couldn't like ska and disco for example, if you were into heavy metal as I was, you couldn't possibly like pop, and you dared not mention anything as naff as enjoying a Cliff Richard record. If you opened your mouth and said the wrong thing you faced endless ridicule. So I spent a lot of my teens piggybacking other people's choices and passing them off as my own. The result I think is that I have a hodge podge of different kinds of music that I now like, so I'm fond of the Spice Girls and Girls Aloud, but I also like Franz Ferdinand and the Kaiser Chiefs. I love Bon Jovi so much I used to play it to no 1 when she was a baby, but I also love the pathos of Gary Jules' version of Mad World.

Spouse's influence has also been incredibly important. Growing up in the 80s when there was a big nostalgia for sixties stuff, I was of course familiar with the Beatles and The Rolling Stones, but Spouse got me into the Animals, the Swinging Blue Jeans, the Zombies and most importantly, the Kinks. As he has fairly eclectic tastes, I can also thank him for Lords of the New Church, Sisters of Mercy, Psychedelic Furs, Joy Division and New Order.

There aren't many types of music I won't listen too, although rap has never done much for me, and I can't claim to be all that keen on country, but generally speaking I am always keen to find new stuff where I can. My current new obsession is a band called Fleet Foxes, whose Mykonos I absolutely adore.

I do know the exact moment when I got turned onto pop music. I was thirteen, it was a youth club disco, and a boy asked me to dance for the first time in my life, to Roxanne by the Police. Being incredibly naive of course, I didn't really understand what it was about, but something about Sting's plaintive wailing lodged in my psyche and I was hooked.

As I suspect is the case for many of us, so many of the songs I heard growing up had significance at the time, and I hear them now and am instantly transported back. I listened to Ultravox's Vienna for the first time while doing my art O level a claywork project which took three weeks over lunchtimes. We'd sit in the art hut with our lunches, working on our pieces of art, listening the radio. Vienna was number one for weeks, and I cannot hear it now and not see my fifteen year old self, getting frustrated because my fingers weren't producing the grand vision in my brain. One of the reasons Ashes to Ashes worked so well for me was because they played Vienna as Alex wakes up in 1981. I was there instantly...

Simon & Garfunkel's Greatest Hits album reminds me of the sixth form and my best friends then, and all of the various traumas we had with the boys we fancied ourselves in love with. Careless Whisper is the summer before I left home. Like a Virgin is my first term at university, and don't get me started on the numerous songs which formed the soundtrack to the time Spouse and I got together.

I'm sure everyone has similar experiences with music. Because music above all other mediums, it seems to me, has the power to evoke emotions, inspire, reduce us to tears in a way no other medium can. It is pure and primal and rips out our souls.

And THAT is what I try and tap into when I'm writing. It isn't a structured kind of process. More an organic kind of thing. Sometimes I hear a song and it inspires me to a particular plot line, for example, ever since I heard Keane's Somewhere Only We Know, it's spoken to me of starcrossed lovers for some reason, and it's down on the list for the parallel universe story I plan to write some day.

Other times, a song takes me into the heart of a character. In Strictly Love, Rob, who started off as a jack the lad when I first envisaged him, suddenly turned into something else entirely and it became obvious that his theme song was Robbie Williams Feel, which seems to me to be all about wanting to be better then you are and not being able to escape your nature. You have to hand it to Robbie, he does know how to turn out gutwrenching stuff, I've used him again in Last Christmas, which is a lot about mothers and daughters and the moment when you start mothering your mother. Angel was perfect for that, and as it happens has turned out to be particularly poignant.

The way I write seems to be that I always have a pivotal scene at the latter half of the book, already worked out in my head before I even have a whole story. I don't know why that is, but it's the way the process works for me. So in Pastures New (if you've read it) it's the rainy scene in the allotments, and in Strictly Love it's the picnic scene on the downs. Both scenes had a song at the heart of them.

In the PN scene it's Travis' Sing, which seems to me to be a painful acknowledgement of the impossibility of ever truly reaching another human being, however much you love them: For the love you bring won't mean a thing/unless you sing, sing, sing. It was just perfect for the situation in which my characters found themselves, and I tried to capture something of the pain of the situation. That is the most frustrating part of the process for me. I know how a song makes me feel. Try to put that into words? Eek.


Mind you I don't think I'd have felt the same way about this song if I'd seen this video first. Sometimes it's better to have the song without pictures...



In Strictly Love, the song was Fields of Gold by Sting, which makes me think of long lazy summer days, and falling in love, and wanting to be together, with just a hint that maybe the love won't last: You'll remember me when the west wind moves/upon the fields of barley/You'll forget the sun in his jealous sky/As we walk in the fields of gold. That's so beautiful it makes the hairs on my back stand up every time I hear it, but it also has a poignancy to it, which again was perfect for the scene.



For Last Christmas (coming out this Christmas) I have another pivotal scene which I won't reveal because it would give too much away, but again I had had it in my head for months before I wrote it. I didn't have a song for it for a long long time. Then I heard Neil Diamond's Pretty Amazing Grace and it totally blew my mind, and I knew I had my song. This book is a little bit (I hope without sounding preachy) about the claims of the spiritual versus the material, and these lines encapsulated the heart of dilemma of one of my characters.
Stumbled inside the doorway of your chapel/Humbled and awed by everything I found/Beauty and love surround me/Freed me from what I feared/Asked for amazing grace /And you appeared.



I'm just about to start book 4, and already have my pivotal scene. This book is going to be as much about the love of friends as it is about romantic love (though as it's about weddings, it's going to be about that too). I have already alluded in an earlier post to some of the emotions I find myself tapping into for this story. And when I heard Hurt by Johnny Cash for the first time (having entirely missed my twin sister's attempts to introduce it to me) I knew I had my pivotal song.
I hurt myself today/To see if I still feel/I focus on the pain/The only thing that's real


When I saw how they used the song to great effect in Being Human, I knew I'd chosen the right one.

There is like I say, an awful lot more I want to write about this process, so I'm going to leave it there for now, but in the meantime I'll leave you with my favourite song of the moment. I have no idea what the video is all about. Like I say, sometimes it's better just to hear the song and let your imagination do the rest...