Music and Writing

When I first thought about submitting to Avalon, I knew the emotions of the characters had to be expressed more deeply in the words because of the PG-13 rating.

But how can we as writers put on paper an emotion or reaction to a situation we have never fully experienced and still make it viable to the reader? Love, hate, fear, passion, sadness. I think I can safely say we all have gone through something in life and have felt these basic emotions to some degree. But we write about so much more – Revenge, betrayal, terror, unrequited love, abandonment, ecstasy, rapture. How can we experience these at the time we need to write about them?

Enter music.

Using music, we can experience emotion almost on an as-needed basis.
Music is a powerful medium to express and experience emotion. It recreates aspects of lives that are recognizable and can be experience to some degree just by listening. By recreating patterns associated with human emotion, it recreates the emotion. Then listening, we are able to grasp the emotional content, and react emotionally to it. As an embodiment of the emotion, we are able to perceive it directly.

For instance, a piece of music may be quick moving, expressing energy, purposefulness, or excitement. When we listen to a piece like that, more often than not, we can feel the emotion. And when we feel the emotion, we are more able to put it down on paper in a way that can be felt and experienced through our writing.

I know you all have a particular song that makes you cry, or gets you to remember certain periods in your life. Now let’s take those songs and stash them in the USB drive in your mind. When necessary, hit the play button and use them next time you get stuck in a scene that is flat and lacking the emotional response you need to get the reader to turns those pages.

I’ve listed a few of my favorite songs that help get me from blank page to emotional genius. Well, maybe not genius; maybe just not one dimensional.

Here goes –
Abandonment - ­I Who Have Nothing by Tom Jones
Loving someone from afar – Invisible by Clay Aiken
Pain of Loss – Tears in Heaven by Eric Clapton
Love – Let Me Love You –Tim McGraw
Passion – Keep Coming Back - Richard Marx
Intense Attraction – Touch of Heaven – Richard Marx
Despair – Unbreak my Heart – Toni Braxton
Lost Love - Even Now - – Barry Manilow
Questioning your Heart – Measure of a Man – Clay Aiken
Losing a Love – Somewhere Down The Road – Barry Manilow
The First Time – Somewhere in the Night – Barry Manilow
Unrequited Love - – Melody for a Memory – Hall and Oates
Hopelessness – What About Now – Daughtry (Chris Daughtry)
Regret – I Go Crazy – Paul Davis

When you have time, take one of your favorite songs and listen for the emotion. Tag it, bag it, and save it for an emergency. You’ll be glad you did!

Hi and Welcome to My Life

When it comes to blogging, on a scale of one to ten, one being cave painting and ten being a true techno purist, I think I'm at a minus four, so bear with me.

I began writing with number 2 pencils and crayons when I went to Catholic School. The nuns gave me that yellow double-lined paper and no instructions on how to use it. So I wrote in the small lines and used the bigger ones for spaces.

Big mistake.

I washed the blackboard for a week that year. First grade and already I was in trouble.

But needless to say I kept on writing and here I am umpteen years later with eleven books under my belt. I write contemporary and career romances for Avalon Books and romantic comedy for Wings Press, and have big plans to win a Pulitzer for something. Now if only I can get someone important to cooperate on that.


But until then I am excited about my latest book from the Wild Rose Press. CYNTHIA AND CONSTANTINE is set in the Arthurian period. I've always loved Camelot, but we've heard enough about Arthur and Lancelot. I mean there had to be other knight, right? If not I made one up and I think he's pretty hot.

Here's the scoop on it:

Cynthia And Constantine Beyond Camelot - Brother Knights - Book 1 by Kathye Quick



Lady Cynthia of Abertaine is trapped. Not only has her fiancee. Sir WilliaM Leyborne, not been back to the castle for over ten years, but she’s also not a titled Lady. Lord Simon of Cowell, a renegade warlord aligned with Mordred against Arthur and his Knights, has declared himself sovereign over Leybourne Castle and everything that once belonged to Sir William - including Cynthia. Sir Constantine, Knight of the Round Table, has come to the shire to give Cynthia the news that her fiancee has fallen in battle. With him is William’s oral will giving all he owns to Cynthia as though they had been wed. But when he finds Cynthia and discovers that the shire under the control of an evil warlord, he knows he cannot leave without first driving Simon and his soldiers from the land. Drawn together by an attraction older than time, Cynthia and Constantine soon discover that though a vow made by a knight’s honor has brought them together, it may just also cost them their lives.

The Wild Rose Press
February 2009 – digital
March 2009 - Print


Review:

“Cynthia and Constantine is simply a Classic Romance, one you will read over and over again.” Noveltalk

So anyway, if you're curious about it, go on over to my website and heck out an excerpt - www.kathyequick.com.

TY - be back soon!