Road Trip Wednesday: Sing, Sing a Song...

Road Trip Wednesday is hosted by YA Highway. 

This Week's Topic: If your WIP or favorite book were music, what song(s) would it be?

I love this topic so much. I posted Building Forts' playlist awhile ago, and though those songs are still on it, it has changed from a focused playlist of twenty-three songs to a mess of, uh, 161 songs and counting, which you can see here if you're interested. Any song that reminds me of a scene in my novel makes the cut--whether because of music, lyrics, or both--and I can justify every song on that playlist (yes, including Like a G6), even if the connection's a bit of a stretch.

Needless to say, it was difficult to narrow my novel down to one song for this post. Many of the songs in the playlist represent specific scenes, so those are out, but there are also a fair number which fit the overall theme. So, honourable mentions go to every song by Thriving Ivory, "Car Crash" by Wakey!Wakey!, "Fix You" by Coldplay, "For Blue Skies" by Strays Don't Sleep, "Teenage Dream" by Katy Perry, and "Falling" by The Civil Wars. 

The song I think best represents my novel, however, is "Corner of Your Heart" by Ingrid Michaelson.

This was not the first song that came to mind when I read the prompt, because I don't write to it near as often as I write to the songs above. But, it is exactly what my MC, Callie, does throughout the novel. She has two romantic relationships, and though one is considerably healthier than the other, in both she gives the guy everything she has for next to nothing in return, her whole heart for a corner of his.

I also want to share this dance to this song, because I discovered it long after I began this novel, and was shocked by how the male dancer just is Chase. It's kind of ridiculous. He even has the right hair!

What song would your WIP be?

What Fuels You?

I am burned out.

The past month or so has easily been one of the craziest ones of my life, for both good and bad reasons. However, I finished exams on Wednesday and moved out of my dorm room yesterday, and now I feel a bit like someone stopped me mid-marathon and said, "It's ok, you can rest now." But, since I'm halfway through the marathon, I want to finish.

I'm currently unemployed open to opportunities, which means the best way for me to maintain my momentum is to write. Yet, I haven't opened my novel's document since I've been home.

The next scenes I have to write are big, messy ones, which have to drain me in order to be effective. The problem is, right now, there's nothing left to drain.

Of course, sleep will help with that, and I've convinced myself Boy Meets World marathons will as well. Then, I'll at least have the motivation to unpack, search for a job, and all those other things I need to do. But, to write? Not only to write, but to write scenes that will drain me all over again? I'll need more fuel than that to return to my novel, and to start my summer writing schedule where I'll spend more time with my novel in a day than I do in a week throughout the school year.

Above all else, I write my novel because I care about my characters, and need to tell their story. But, when I need motivation beyond that? I, shocker, turn to dance. Yesterday, though, I did more than just dance. I made a dance playlist for my novel.

And it was so much fun. I've come across dances before which remind me of my novel, as well as ones which have inspired dance scenes in my novels, but I also hunted for videos that would capture the moments I needed captured. Most of those scenes are dance scenes, and it was so cool when I found videos that looked like what I imagined. The first video, for example, just is the first scene of the novel.

I spent an embarrassing amount of time putting the dances in order, thinking about which ones best represent each moment, and how the playlist itself flows as a story arc. I cut dances which reminded me of my novel, but were fillers as opposed to scenes, just like I do when I revise. I made sure the dancers I used represented my characters in the way they danced, and in some cases, taught. Sometimes I had to ignore the fact that the dancers in the videos are, well, better dancers than my characters, but I did try to match skill level where possible.

Every time I watch the playlist, I get excited about my novel, and want to write it. Not all the dances look exactly as I imagined, of course, but the emotion behind them is always the emotion in the scenes they represent. That's all the fuel I need.

Beyond your love for your story and your characters, what fuels you write it? Is it a music playlist, pictures, videos, etc.? Let me know in the comments!

When You Feel Like a Fraud

I have been hiding out in a cave, where I have worked on essays, studied for exams, and written a polyphonic piece of nonfiction.

All of this was for school, but one of these things is clearly not like the others. The nonfiction piece was for my creative writing class, the same one which I wrote poetry for a couple months ago. I had less experience with nonfiction than I did with poetry--that is, I had none--and I'd never even heard the term polyphonic until the professor taught it to us.

As I worked on the project, I felt like a fraud. Who am I to write about my life? Who am I to put passages from other texts, including the Bible, into my story? Aren't they too good, too important for it?

Those questions led to others. What am I doing in a creative writing class when I'm clearly not experienced enough for it? How can I claim to have a voice as a writer? Who am I to edit my peers' pieces? What makes me think I can pull this metaphor off? Do I really know how to use a semi-colon? 

Who am I to call myself a writer?

That's a question I ask myself all the time as I work on novels. It's easy to feel like you're faking it as a writer and that, one day, someone will realize how little you know and call you a fraud, because you are one.

But really, we're all faking it. All we can do is use what we do know to produce our best work, and to continue learning. We'll never know everything, and that's ok.

Whenever I feel like a fraud as a writer, "Swing the Cellar Door" by Hey Rosetta! makes me feel better.

I'm sorry to reduce you to this useless imagistic bullshit, but maybe that's all I got

and

I'm sorry to confuse with some foolish thing that misses truth, but maybe that's all we are

and

I'm sorry to abuse you with this ruthlessly sadistic music, but maybe that's all I want, I'm just a really pretentious guy

Maybe all we've got--useless, foolish, pretentious, or wrong as it may seem--is exactly what we need to write some awesome stuff. Only one way to find out.

I felt like I faked my way through my nonfiction piece, but I was truthful when I wrote it, worked hard on it, and took risks with it. That was all I had, and when I passed my piece in, I knew it was enough.

See you on Wednesday, when I'll move out of my cave for four months.