Clik here to view.
‘I wanted the words to sound like music’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Jessica...
I am seriously envious of my Undercover Soundtrack guest this week. As she developed her characters and their world, she found it natural to write the songs of the story too – and then headed into the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
‘Blues took me to the swamps of the Deep South, and the heart-rending misery...
Blues, slave songs and the decadant glamour of the Deep South. My Undercover Soundtrack guest this week stirs up a heady mix for her novel about an Englishwoman in the 1850s who marries a charming...
View ArticleClik here to view.
‘In that song I finally started to see the character who would introduce my...
My Undercover Soundtrack author this week was struggling to begin her novel when her musician husband handed her a CD containing just one track – a piece he’d composed especially to show her the way....
View ArticleClik here to view.
‘Music for telling the darkest secrets’– The Undercover Soundtrack, Kelly...
When Kelly Simmons was finding her way with her first novel, she put on the soundtrack for The Sopranos TV series and a new creative habit was born. Now, two thrillers finished, she still can’t abide...
View ArticleClik here to view.
‘If you can’t live it yourself, the song will take you there’ – The...
‘With that song I was a young man with jangling spurs, ready to ride.’ My guest this week used her Undercover Soundtrack to create the feral carnival of the bull-rider’s world – and to understand the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
‘I look for clever, lyrical music with a twinge of melancholy’ – The...
‘Music and fairyland go hand in hand’ writes my Undercover Soundtrack guest this week. After cueing up her playlist I can assure you this fairyland is not just rich and strange, but funky, cheeky,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
‘She’s just a kid, flying high, full of imagination and life’ – The...
My guest this week was stopped in her tracks one evening by a Springsteen song, which became a young girl pushing boundaries, which became a finely drawn portrait of a family in turmoil. Other songs...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Music that changed my book – post at Authors Electric
More than 50 writers have now contributed to The Undercover Soundtrack and plenty more are on the way. Today it’s my turn at Authors Electric, more properly known as Do Authors Dream of Electric Books...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Only connect: how to wake a dormant muse
My muse is in trouble. I’ve spent too long on facts and analysis. I’ve been longing to tackle the Mountains Novel. Ideas and concepts have been piling up in my files, but now my schedule allows, I can...
View ArticleClik here to view.
‘To draw a curtain around a mental space’– The Undercover Soundtrack, Bryan...
My guest this week measures his novels in rainstorms. More accurately, I should say he measures them in how many times he has listened to one rainstorm during the writing. His novel is about a dreamy...
View ArticleClik here to view.
‘Music used to be background until this character’– The Undercover...
My guest this week used to regard music as a mostly-ignorable atmosphere. Then one inspirational moment changed everything. She was listening to Mike Oldfield when a character leaped, fully formed,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
‘I write about love and hope’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Kim Cleary
My guest this week says she writes about love and hope – and that her writing is in thrall to songs about finding or losing love. She describes her novels as urban fantasy for anyone who longs to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
‘Music is my writing cave, my TARDIS’– The Undercover Soundtrack, Rysa Walker
I was so delighted when I found out my guest this week writes to music. She’s the winner of the 2013 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award (ABNA) with a story of genetically enabled time travel, death...
View ArticleClik here to view.
‘Music to find inspired randomness’– The Undercover Soundtrack, JB Dutton
My guest this week says that when he writes he chooses his aural environment carefully. There’s a cafe in his native Montreal that plays just the right music: not too loud, not too unfamiliar; exactly...
View ArticleClik here to view.
‘Music that flows into the marrow of the soul’ – The Undercover Soundtrack,...
Once upon a time, a schoolgirl resolved to never be a slave to music. She says she is glad this promise never lasted, because she cannot imagine having a creative life without music to guide and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
‘This song says it’s time to get serious’– The Undercover Soundtrack, Rebecca...
My guest this week says she always begins a project by assembling a sequence of music tracks. To start with, she notices every word and note, but after a while they settle into a familiar environment –...
View ArticleClik here to view.
‘Drumming is my heartbeat’– The Undercover Soundtrack, Wendy Storer
This striking phrase is a manifesto for a character who lives, breathes and seeks refuge in music. She is Daisy, an aspiring musician coping with a family member who is slipping into dementia. In the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
‘Everyone is haunted by something’– The Undercover Soundtrack, Rochelle Jewel...
No matter how many of these Undercover Soundtrack pieces I post – and by now it’s nearly 300 – I still get a thrill from reading a new one. There is such pleasure in delving into the essence of a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
7 essentials for writing a good novel – notes from the Undercover Soundtrack
You’ll have seen the posts here about my blog series the Undercover Soundtrack. Over the years, the posts consistently repeat certain bare essentials, both for reaching the writing mindset and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
‘Pictures in melody’– The Undercover Soundtrack, Aaron Sikes
You could divide my Undercover Soundtrack guests into those who aren’t put off by lyrics and those who are. My guest this week is one of the latter. He says that music with lyrics is too domineering...
View Article
