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Dear Reader,
If the music doesn't feel good in my soul, there's trouble brewing, and writing problems up ahead. Some writers need absolute quiet, but whether I'm writing something serious or funny, I need to do a bit of winding up, and that's what music does for me. The kind of music I listen to depends on what I'm working on. This very minute, I'm boogying in my chair, writing and listening to Joking/Indigo Girls. It's a guaranteed wind-me-up song, because there's a driving, relentless beat. So even if I don't feel like writing, (it may take a while), but for certain when I hear the pause in the song and then a raspy voice counting, "One, two, three, four," that's it for me, the words are flowing on the page.
Music sets an emotional mood that's difficult for me to get in touch with on my own. Sometimes it rescues me. If I want to talk about something in a column, but it's going to be painful to get there, and I need some help to pry it out I might listen to, Never is a Long Time/Roxette, Collide/Howie Day, or On a Bus to St. Cloud/Trisha Yearwood. Lately I've been listening to Wild Horses/Susan Boyle. I listened to that song for one week straight, over and over again, because I was having trouble getting back in a writing groove after the holiday. Opening up and talking about what's on my mind takes a bit of encouragement and that's what music does for me. Invites me to just put it out there on the page and not worry about what anyone else thinks.
Writing humor demands feeling funky (in a good way). Something funny happened in my life and the story's clear in my mind. But if I don't want it to sound like a high school, "what I did over summer vacation" piece I need to get a party going in my mind, too.
My favorite commiserating songs are: Bad Day/Daniel Powter and Hit Me With Your Best Shot/Pat Benatar. And on days when I know exactly what I'm going to write about, but I'm worn out, kind of like turning the crank on a wind up toy, that's what the songs Galileo/Indigo Girls and Free Fallin'/Stevie Nicks do for me. When I was writing my book proposal I listened to those two songs for two weeks straight--I'm not kidding. If I'm in the middle of a 9-1-1 Writing Emergency, Taking You Home or most anything else that Don Henley sings comes to my rescue.
I could go on and on about writing and music, (probably because half way through this column I started listening to Fallin' For You by Colbie Caillat and the beat keeps me going, but instead, let's get to today's weird giveaway: a CD of The Very Best of Don Henley, (which includes Take Me Home, my emergency writing song ). To enter the drawing, go to: http://tinyurl.com/ygofsbn
Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.
Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com
http://www.DearReader.com
AUTHORBUZZ: With so many new books out every week, we promise these are five that deserve your attention: Sabrina Jeffries, The Truth About Lord Stoneville, Book 1, The Hellions of Halstead Hall; Mary Ellis, Never Far from Home, The Miller Family Series; Janice Thompson, Swinging on a Star; Taylor Lebaron (Mary Branson, Jack Branson), Cutting Myself in Half: 150 Pounds Lost, One Byte at a Time; and Barbara Delinsky, Not My Daughter. Go to: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader
* This month's Penguin Classics book is Who Would Have Thought It? by Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton. To start reading and find out how you can save by purchasing this Classic from Penguin, go to: http://tinyurl.com/January10Classics
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