by Mayumi-H | Mar 5, 2012 | Fearless, Process
I do a lot of my initial writing (and drawing) to music. I like putting on my awesome headphones and queuing up my playlist, to help put me in the mood: to write a particular scene, or just to get the feel for the story in general. Part of that is also because I can’t write while I’m distracted; television or an engrossing videogame draws too much of my attention. So, when I put on my headphones, the family knows it’s time for me to write.
Now, for those times when I really need to concentrate, I will actually lock myself away in my work room, get under my toasty kotatsu, and work to no distractions. I highly recommend this approach for anyone who feels they need some space, for writing or drawing or whatever floats your boat. It’s just that it’s terribly anti-social of me to do that as often as I’d like to write, so the headphones become a compromise.
The first time I created a writing playlist was back in 2007, for Sixes and Sevens. Since the story took place in London, circa 1996-97, I listened almost exclusively to Britrock from that era and earlier; basically, music my protagonist would have listened to.
Good old classic British rock. Nothin’ beats that.
The second writing playlist came for 1 More Chance!, which takes place in modern-day Japan. That was actually about four different playlists, but all of them consisted of Japanese artists. That really got me into the groove of writing for another culture, let me say!
For Fearless, I wanted to use music to get a sense for the story rather than the location or the era.
When I drafted my original plot in the weeks leading up to November 2011, I had a mostly specific idea of the emotional and dramatic “waves” of the story (no pun intended as regards to the plot). So, I planned the music to help me remember how the story should flow, while I was writing it. Of course, the direction of the story changed a couple of times from initial outline draft to what finally was put onto paper, but I still listen to this playlist whenever I need to settle into the mood of writing for Ross (especially after watching something drastically different on the television, or playing a videogame, or – most importantly – reading another author’s work).
Since the story’s about a surfer, you’d think there’d be a lot of Dick Dale and Man or Astroman in this playlist, but there isn’t. (I did put some Los Straitjackets in there, though, so I’m not totally without my surf cred.)
I just thought I’d share the Fearless playlist here, for anyone interested.
Special note: Anything marked by artist “Kevin MacLeod” is available to listen to – free! – from Incompetech.com. If you like what you hear, why not even make a little donation?
“With the Sea” by Kevin MacLeod
“The Song Is Over” by Who
“1979” by Smashing Pumpkins
“On Melancholy Hill” by Gorillaz
“Here Comes The Rain Again” by Eurythmics
“Who Are You” by The Who
“Something About Us” by Daft Punk
“Bad Reputation” by Joan Jett & The Blackhearts
“I’ll Go Down Swinging” by Los Straitjackets
“Wild Wild Life” by Talking Heads
“Little Sister” by Queens Of The Stone Age
“Are You Gonna Go My Way” by Lenny Kravitz
“Let’s Go to Bed” by The Cure
“White” by Kevin MacLeod
“California Sun” by Los Straitjackets
“Stumble & Fall” by Razorlight
“Female of the Species [Fembot Mix]” by Space
“Lover” by Devendra Banhart
“Tell Me Baby” by Red Hot Chili Peppers
“Don’t Do Me Like That” by Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
“PDA” by Interpol
“Complete Control” by The Clash
“Are You Gonna Be My Girl” by Jet
“The Look of Love” by Susanna Hoffs
“Digital love” by Daft Punk
“Behind Blue Eyes” by Who
“There is Romance” by Kevin MacLeod
“Mysterious Ways” by U2
“Rock This Town” by Stray Cats
“And She Was” by Talking Heads
“Come Into My World” by Kylie Minogue
“Accidentally In Love” by Counting Crows
“Lazy Eye” by Silversun Pickups
“Luminous Rain” by Kevin MacLeod
“A Jagged Gorgeous Winter RB2 Remix” by The Main Drag
“Friday I’m in Love” by The Cure
“Stages of Grief” by Kevin MacLeod
“Feel The Pain” by Dinosaur jr.
“Downtown Lights” by Annie Lennox
“Overkill [Version]” by Colin Hay
“Creep” by Radiohead
“Wake Up” by Coheed & Cambria
“The Dumbing Down Of Love” by Frou Frou
“Parting of the Ways – Part 1” by Kevin MacLeod
“Is There A Ghost” by Band of Horses
“Bargain” by Who
“Daybreak” by Kevin MacLeod
“Rooftops (A Liberation Broadcast)” by Lostprophets
“Let Go” by Frou Frou
“Let My Love Open The Door” by Pete Townshend
“Touching Moments Five – Circle” by Kevin MacLeod
“Life on Mars?” by Seu Jorge
“Don’t Look Back In Anger” by Oasis
“Hallelujah” by John Cale
“Gymnopedie No 1” by Kevin MacLeod
“The End of the World” by Los Straitjackets
“Stubborn Love” by The Lumineers
“Float On” by Modest Mouse
“Clear Waters” by Kevin MacLeod
“Have It All” by Jeremy Kay
“I Can’t Stay” by The Killers
“No One’s Gonna Love You” by Cee Lo Green
“Real Good Looking Boy” by The Who
“My Heart Will Go On” by Los Straitjackets
“Village Dawn” by Kevin MacLeod
“Beautiful World” by Colin Hay
“Suddenly I See” by KT Tunstall
“Here Comes My Girl” by Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
“Eternal Hope” by Kevin MacLeod
“I Would Do Anything for You” by Foster the People
Remember that artists who make music are just as valuable than any other kind of artist. If you enjoy what they do, please support them the best way you can – with your wallet. Illegal downloading/sharing of artistic property doesn’t help anyone!
Do you listen to music while you work? What kind?
by Mayumi-H | Feb 16, 2012 | Process
I love heroes. Superheroes especially.
I grew up reading and watching and listening to stories about aliens who used their otherworldly powers to protect, charismatic billionaires who donned masks to fight crime, ancient warrior women who pledged to uphold virtue and truth. Their stories are fantastic and full of imagination, and a great outlet for a young, idealistic mind searching for meaning in a world that can be very confusing and intimidating.
Sometime during the 1980s (at least in my reading), superhero stories started to become more realistic. They became grimier, darker, exposing more clearly the layers of society that necessitated their own existence: drugs, gangs, perversion. These things all existed during the Golden Age of the superhero, of course, it just hadn’t been painted for us so starkly, for the most part. (Again, this was only in my regular reading library of titles. I had yet to graduate from the more idyllic stories of Superman to the starker ones of The Shadow.)
But that’s not my point.
As these superhero stories became more realistic, so did the heroes themselves. They were, more often than not, flawed in such ways that we could recognise in them the weaknesses of ourselves. Some were vainglorious bastards who relished a bit too much in pounding petty crooks to a pulp; others were simply snide smartasses who spent more time mocking their teammates than actually doing any good. One example of these was “Mystery Men,” created by Bob Burden and later adapted into the 1999 film of the same name. It’s got a very neat B-list cast of character actors doing a pretty good job of telling the story of the formation of a misfit superhero team. Another film came out around the same time (2000), called “The Specials.”
“The Specials” doesn’t have quite the star power of “Mystery Men” (Rob Lowe is the main actor attraction, though he’s supported well by Thomas Haden Church, Judy Greer, and Jamie Kennedy)…but it does have one line that has always stuck with me. At one point, the leader of The Specials (The Strobe, played so genuinely John Wayne by Church that the character is almost depressing) decides to bring the group together by telling his origin story. Every superhero’s got one, of course: how he or she developed their super powers and what made him or her decide to become a hero. During the middle of this, potty-mouthed upstart Amok (Kennedy) interrupts:
“Nobody wants to hear your boring fucking origin story!”
Now, all of that explanation above was just for me to say, that is what I often think others feel about my own writing: Nobody wants to hear my boring fucking story.
I think a lot of writers probably have these moments, when we’re floundering in the deep end of the pool, wondering just why the heck we bother. There are a million (more!) other stories out there, commanding attention, garnering praise, offering insight. So why do we bother? Why do we insist on struggling through the pages of plot and dialogue and description, when there are already far better and wider-reaching works than our own?
I’ll tell you why. I’ll tell you why I do it, anyway.
Because I’ve always been inspired by heroes. I’ve always read stories about Superman and Wonder Woman and Spider-Man, and I’ve always thought how fantastic it might be, to look up in the sky and see one of them swinging or flying overhead. What a beautiful world, to find adventure and romance and miracles in everyday existence. Not because you’d have super powers or see other people running around with super powers. But because those heroes made me appreciate life, appreciate love, appreciate all good things. And when I really thought about it, I realised: it’s not about the superhero. It’s not even about the hero, really. It’s about the story. The story that moves and teaches and opens us up to something greater than ourselves.
And that’s why I do it.
So. Why do you?
by Mayumi-H | Feb 8, 2012 | Fearless, Process, Uncategorized
(An old post from my deviantART, but worth mentioning, here, I think.)
It is no secret that my personal tastes (when it comes to writing, though drawing, too) lean toward the raunchy side. Anyone who has read my more recent work should realise that. And I’ve talked about this before (pardon me for beating the dead horse), but it comes up again and again, like…well, like a zombie version of aforementioned dead horse. And beating it several times in the head just won’t make the darn thing stay down.
My stories deal very intimately with adult relationships, and a large part of adult relationships has to do with sex. That is not to say that two people cannot have a loving, nurturing, give-and-take relationship that has very little or even nothing at all to do with sex – they can! – but that’s not how most of my characters approach their affairs. My main protagonists nearly always tend to be very sexual, very physical beings, who enjoy and even sometimes rely on sex to communicate to their partner what they can’t say in words. This is how I’ve often viewed my own adult relationships. We talk with our bodies in very simple ways – nodding, shrugging, smiling, hugging – but we also talk with them in equally complex ways: kissing, fondling, and – yes! – even screwing.
It was during a recent writing sojourn into another fandom (Doctor Who, for those interested, though it’s not particularly relevant to my point) that I realised that all of my (adult) characters express their affection physically and sexually. But I also realised that the issues that come with sex between one set of characters can be very different from the issues that come between others. And I enjoy examining that.
Is the sex that I write pandering? I don’t think so. But I’m the author, so I would say that.
Rather, I’ve found that I don’t enjoy writing sex so much for the shock value, as I do to explore what’s sometimes going on beneath the surface of two bodies slipping and seething over each other. (1 More Chance!, for example, examined these issues in spades, and nearly every sexual interaction that the main protagonists had was fraught with subtext and subconscious agendas and deeper meaning for the individuals involved, than just “and then they fuck.” Fearless approaches the subject of sex in a slightly different, though no less impactful, way, in that it’s somewhat central to the main external conflict.) So, I’ve come up with a word that I think sums up my position – and what I hope to convey with my raunchier stories – and that is:
smuff.
“Smuff” is a mix of smut and fluff. The smut part is obvious (I did say I get pretty saucy with my work)…but there is also an inarguable amount of fluff in what I write, too. The characters are never raping each other (because rape is not about sex, it’s about power…and I don’t think it’s a healthy part of any loving, nurturing relationship). They might get enthusiastic about sex, but there’s also a layer of tenderness that tends to crop up in nearly every sexual interaction through which I put them. That’s no mistake. I might be a filthy-minded individual…but I’m also an incurable romantic.
So, you’ll likely be seeing the “smuff” categorization popping up with some frequency for my posts. If you don’t mind, I appreciate the support to write what I please.
And if you do mind it, you can just click away quickly. I’ll never know.
by Mayumi-H | Jan 28, 2012 | Process
The very best description I’ve ever heard for the writer comes from a documentary called “Tales from the Script”, wherein a (screen)writer is described as, “…a megalomaniac with low self-esteem.” When I think about myself – and my work, especially my fiction writing – this description is damn near perfect.
While I didn’t always, I put a tremendous amount of effort into my work, and I look down my nose in disdain at drabblers who think that just because they slap some words together on a page, that makes them a “writer.” Because I create real people, and real worlds (even if they’re fantastic), and real situations that I think should be admired and fawned upon by anyone who happens across them.
Yet, at the slightest criticism that I feel is unfair, I’m ready to punch the criticiser full on in the face.
Both outlooks are admittedly unhealthy…and yet both, I feel, are warranted. Because literature is a form of art. Writing leads to literature, and it should be treated and respected as an art form. But the writer has a responsibility to that art form, just as much as the reader should have respect for the writer. The writer should be cognizant of spelling, grammar, and form. Plot and characterization are necessary tools of the trade, too. And there should be realism, as well. Without this respect for the art, it’s just words on a piece of paper (or a screen).
I’ve likely already lost anyone who stumbled across this site, but that’s who I am: a megalomaniac with low self-esteem.
I’m a writer.
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