Delta, side-eyeing me and speaking for the pack: “We will not be moving from the heater or taking questions at this time.” I think Delta has recently been reading over my shoulder while I was writing.
Below is my writing playlist for the day, and Steely Dan had me so mellow that I might as well have been stoned. Gwen Stefani got me back to the manuscript! The Steely Dan shown here is a collection, but I’m very sure that a million years later, if someone brought in the albums Can’t Buy A Thrill or Aja, I’d be able to sing along, every word to every song. Music memory’s a funny thing.
Smashing Pumpkins, 2-CD set, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness; Steely Dan, The Definitive Collection; Gwen Stefani, Love, Angel, Music, Baby.
So much good music, but school loyalty mandates that I link to the tune I’ve chosen. Roll Tide, and we’ll miss you, Coach Saban. I was there for some of the Bear Bryant years, and you, too, became a coaching legend. Tip of the houndstooth hat to you.
Several errands/appointments accomplished today, and though it was overcast, it was nice to be out in temperatures that aren’t brutal, especially when reading messages from family all over the country who’ve been getting it so much worse than we have in Texas (like in Colorado, Wisconsin, Utah–though the snowboarder likes it–and New Jersey) .
Speaking of New Jersey…
I’ll go ahead and put this here as the music I’ve been listening to for the last few days of writing that may continue into my first crack at the manuscript tomorrow (tomorrow’s photo is reserved for whatever theme Photo Friday throws at us).
All Bruce Springsteen: Born to Run; Darkness on the Edge of Town; Human Touch; Lucky Town; Greatest Hits; The Ghost of Tom Joad; The Rising; Magic; Working On a Dream; and Western Stars.
This doesn’t include my drowned albums Nebraska, Dancing In The Dark, The River, and Born In The USA, all of which WILL need to come back to me in some format. Bruce always feels uniquely mine in a way few other artists do. I found him at the beginning of his recording career on my own, no recommendations or friend influences, thanks to Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J., and I believed in his gifts long before anyone I knew got on board. The time when The River was new and I listened to it nonstop included an ex I’d rather forget, with whom I also saw Bruce in concert. Bruce is way more powerful than bad memories and poor judgment.
One time when I was at Half Acre Wood, I discovered that Lynne has a great live set on vinyl that I’ll find used at a sane price some day. I was dazzled when I wrote to it on one of my visits.
There’s nobody like Bruce.
A fun dedication between characters: “Let’s Be Friends.”
ETA on 1/19: After finishing up my Bruce collection, I just hit “Place Order Now.” I’ll soon have the Bruce Springsteen I lost and several I never owned. Art that brings me this kind of joy and comfort is so worth it.
Nothing clever to say, no anecdotes, no reminiscences. Very little writing done, but I tried. Replaced a couple of small broken kitchen appliances. Was VERY happy our frozen hot water line thawed with no damages that Tom can find. The cold has abated somewhat.
Dogs just wanna get warm.
Or watch TV with Tom.
Happy birthday to somebody I still like to think about and remember. Something you once said to me is engraved on my heart in a way that will always delight me. Also, you had a nickname for me, and I may let one of my characters use it for another character.
When I started the sixth book in the Neverending Saga, I checked all the previous novels to see which characters got the first (or first couple) of chapters from among the four characters who are allowed points of view in the series. That’s when I realized someone was way overdue, so it was an easy choice. By choosing that narrative voice, there was also a natural best choice for beginning the seventh novel.
Early in his life, this character began to think of himself as a lone crow. He was kidding himself, and I think he’s only now beginning to realize it. Crows aren’t loners. Not only do they stay in units that can include family members from multiple generations, but they’re monogamous and mate for life.
The birds in the corvid family hold endless fascination for me. They include choughs, crows, jackdaws, jays, magpies, nutcrackers, ravens, rooks, and treepies, but not grackles or the various blackbirds who come from other groups.
I like grackles, but there are a lot of parking lots and public areas in Houston where so many grackles gather that a walk is laced with all the suspense of a Hitchcock movie.
Of the corvids, I’m most drawn to crows and ravens. Debby gave me a beautiful drum with a raven on it.
It’s actually been a great rhythm instrument for me to use when I pause while writing the “Lone” Crow. The back of the drum is as beautiful as the front.
Far more musical than me playing the raven drum would be:
Frank Sinatra, The Columbia Years three-CD set; Patti Smith, Gone Again; Soundgarden, Superunknown and King Animal; Spin Doctors, Pocket Full of Kryptonite; and The Very Best of Dusty Springfield.
Right now I’m midway into listening to a group of ten CDs from another “S” artist, though it’s distressing me a bit when I realize all of the Harvey-drowned albums I haven’t replaced from this particular collection. Can you guess the artist?
More to come; gotta get back to my crow.
There’s a fun song by the Wilderbeats performed for children that will help you identify a crow versus a raven. Now that I think of it, I have a character who likes to sing to children. But I digress.
ETA: I almost never remember the significance of this date to me personally. I’m mostly glad about that. ♥
Apologies to Sir Elton John for misappropriating this title from the Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album, “Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting.” To add insult to injury, I’m not listening to Elton John today. I’m listening to this.
Frank Sinatra’s four-CD collection The Best of the Columbia Years, 1943 to 1952
Frank has helped give me a productive writing day, but he may have gotten some assistance from a couple of father and daughter muses.
Funny story: This young lady has a little friend who loves Elton John and does not love horses at all.
I don’t ride but I like horses, and I also like dolls, Frank, and Elton. In fact, also from Goodbye Yellow Brick Road is a song I’ve used as a theme song for this kilted gent (who I originally wrote in 1971, and boy has his character gotten a lot more story since then) from the first time I heard it on the Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album (thanks, Debbie M!) after seeing Elton John on his 1974 North American Tour (oh, the story I could tell about that fun and crazy night, David K).
I can see by your eyes you must be lying
When you think I don’t have a clue
Baby, you’re crazy, if you think that you can fool me
Because I’ve seen that movie, too
The one where the players are acting surprised
Saying love’s just a four letter word
Between forcing smiles, with the knives in their eyes
Well their actions become so absurd
So keep your auditions for somebody
Who hasn’t got so much to lose
‘Cause you can tell by the lines I’m reciting
That I’ve seen that movie, too
So keep your auditions for somebody
Who hasn’t got so much to lose
‘Cause you can tell by the lines I’m reciting
I’ve seen that movie, too
It’s a habit I have, I don’t get pushed around
Stop twinkling the star like you do
I’m not the blueprint
For all of your B films
Because I’ve seen that movie, too
The one where the players are acting surprised
Saying love’s just a four letter word
Between forcing smiles, oh, with the knives in their eyes
Oh, their actions become so absurd
So keep your auditions for somebody
Who hasn’t got so much to lose
‘Cause you can tell by the lines I’m reciting
That I’ve seen that movie, too
So keep your auditions for somebody
Who hasn’t got so much to lose
‘Cause you can tell by the lines I’m reciting
I’ve seen that movie, too
So keep your auditions for somebody
Who hasn’t got so much to lose
‘Cause you can tell by the lines I’m reciting
I’ve seen that movie, too
So keep your auditions for somebody
Who hasn’t got so much to lose
‘Cause you can tell by the lines I’m reciting
I’ve seen that movie, too
Listening to Carly Simon’s two-CD Anthology. These songs evoke certain times and relationships in my life when I first heard them, beginning when I was a young teen and into young adulthood.
It’s a little hard to focus on the character I’m writing when this music makes me think so much about Carly Simon’s memoir and Pattie Boyd’s memoir, both of which shared stories that made me hurt for them and the price love exacts from women who love men whose creativity and talent have brought them fame. Their stories aren’t my stories, but they do evoke my characters’ stories. In the end, after all, even if my life and circumstances and stories are different from those characters’, or Carly Simon’s or Pattie Boyd’s, a heart that loves is a heart that loves, and loss is loss.
Fortunately, the next to last song, “Actress,” made me laugh and drew me back into the world of the Neverending Saga, and it was time to write again, to the next music. Stay tuned.
And enjoy this song from a movie (Heartburn) that, while brutally eye-opening for me, was a film that promised something I needed to believe in: starting over.
