Thursday 23 February 2012

"Your mama don't dance and your daddy don't rock and roll!"

Music really is the spice of life, it's my other guilty pleasure :D

I remember delving into my Granddad's 'forbidden' record collection when I was left in the house alone and just sitting there listening to it. Before I was eight I knew all the words to Don McLean's 'American Pie' by heart (note that I didn't say "I could sing..." lol!). Then in high school I discovered that ordinary people could play music too, not just famous ones (yes I really was that naive once) and I fell in love with the guitar.

I decided right then I was going to be a rock god, platinum album selling, singer songwriter, selling out stadiums and arenas worldwide...after lunch I realised that probably wasn't going to happen anytime soon and decided to just enjoy the music, and I've never looked back.

Over the years I've fell in and out of love with various instrument's and styles of music. I'm a pretty good violinist (though I play more up beat stuff...but it sounds so wrong if I write "I'm a good fiddler" :S ), a competent drummer, I can hold a decent baseline and I'm a damned good guitarist...the vocals aren't too bad either. I'm definitely not 'rock god' material, but that's not what music is about.

I recently endeavoured to conquer the piano and it's going pretty well, I forgot how slow (and how awful) learning or re-acquainting with an instrument can be, but it's also lots of fun.

Now go on, take a bow. Ten points if you recognised the song title in the heading :P Kudos to you!

I typed "rock 'n' roll" into the genre tab in Itunes with the intention of creating a playlist to listen to while writing and was initially confused and then genuinely concerned about what it brought up. Honestly, when did Katy Perry become "rock 'n' roll"? Not that I don't like a bit of Katy Perry, infact I like lots of bits of Katy Perry, and Rihanna and Lady GaGa...but thats going off on a tangent lol!

But seriously, I'm not against 'pop' music, or dance, or RnB I love it all! I can go from a bit of 'Oasis' to some 'Sinatra' followed by 'Canon in D' without blinking an eye. But my all time favourite type of music is 'Classic' rock and roll and yes folks that's Classic with a capital C!

Bob Seger, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard...GOD I LOVE IT!!! The twelve bar blues in the left hand, the right hand shuffling between chord progressions and scale sequences and the music just SPEAKS to you!....Absolutely fantastic, I just love that "old time rock n roll"...

...

*Looks back at what's been written*

...I really should stop coming onto Blogspot and typing what's on my mind lol. Anyways, before I totally digress from the subject of writing, today was productive, met my quota of 1500 words easily. I made a really positive start on my Aeon One submission which is actually going to be the first three chapters of another novel in the Empire series *sigh* this may need some explanation but stick with it...my fingers are tired so you wont have to read much more :D. You see the way the first book works is:

Part 1: Introduces the characters, the main ones Keira and Fluke are children, ten or eleven years old and they see the world through the eyes of a child, their perceptions their Ideas, their understandings of life etc etc.  However at the end of Part 1 tragedy strikes and both children's lives change forever.

Part 2: At the end of part one  both children are seperated and the story skips forward ten years with very little explanation of what has occured in the space between. Both children have had a very different 'upbringing', one sees life from the view at the top of high society, the other from the dregs of the gutter...

See that wasn't too bad...bet you want to know more about the book now though don't you? Well that can come later.

Basically the Aeon One submission falls between that ten year gap. There will be two books which go into detail about the 'missing years': "Fluke -A Mercenaries Tale-" & "Keira -Wielder of Ice and Flame-" which explains everything the first book in the series doesn't (But its confusing becuase the 'missing years' books are actually books 3 and 4 of the series which you dont get to read until after you know whats happened in books 1 and 2 and they are totally inconsequential to book 5. But dont panic, all you need to do is get a flux capacitor and crank her up to eighty-eight  miles an hour and before you know it, GREAT SCOT! It all makes sense :D ).

For the competition I am submitting the first three chapters (roughly 8000 words) of "A Mercenaries Tale". I started writing it today (on my break) and my fingers just flew across the keyboard. The story has been in my head for months and today my brain went into overdrive. 2700 words in 45 minutes, I dont care who you are, those are some impressive numbers! Particularly liked the opening paragraph:

"The arena sands burned through the soft soles of his boots as he stood in the centre of the pit. They were slaves boots, the same ones he had been given when he was bought years before. They were boots without buckle or fancy lace trim, void of colour save dirt, blood and grime and no fancy design was marked in the heel. They were boots bought for men expected to die...and Fluke was such a man."

"Why the hell are we learning about his boots?" I hear you cry! Do not fear, I'm not trying to be the next Gok Wan (or maybe he's the food guy?) I am trying to apply a 'hook' which I think this does effectively. It's a writing technique I read about where the writer basically switches the importance of what he's describing. Here I describe in detail the mundaneness of his boots, and gloss over  the important point which is obviously "Why is he expected to die?" In theory it encourages the reader to continue reading and draws them into the story, they are often used at the beginning and end of chapters, which is why you often find yourself getting to the end of a chapter and uttering the words "...just one more..."

The difficult part of the part I am submitting is that it has to be short enough to be an independent story which means a beginning a middle and an end...but I also have to leave the ending open so I can expand it into a full book. Im leaning towards the idea of solely focusing on him gaining his freedom from the pit fights by fighting his way through the 'Deca Games' a once in a decade (you see what I done there?) event whereby the sole survivor and champion is granted their freedom.

Didn't I say my fingers were tired? I'm sure I mentioned it somewhere...anyways, that is the general idea with the Aeon One submission. It runs until November so it's not on my 'priority' list but it is on the list! Ill spend a good portion of the weekend working on Empire, hopefully I can knock out a couple of chapters which would be great...that being said I am indulging in my other guilty pleasure (*points to the top of the page*) on Friday night and going to see "Noel Gallagher and his High Flying Birds", hopefully be a good night and Saturday's hangover will be a gentle one!

Anyways

My fingers are now making rude gestures at me so it's time to call it a night.

If you read all this...WoW! THANKS!

Comment, Subscribe Follow and all that jazz (or just check back occasionally for more writing updates and a little glimpse at the mess that is my mind)

SBP

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