I first wanted to mention how UberEtc has been a very enlightening place. The realization of how truly large the web is, way beyond the Xena universe I stumbled across a few years ago, has been amazing. Reading LJ Maas and finding the web was a great thing. But looking further has been even more splendid. Many other writers share their talent and joy and it all exists out here. I encourage everyone to take the time and seek more. You may be amazed at what you find.
We are honored to have a writer who has played in many genres ramble for us tonight. Get to know Lara Zielinsky, she is worthy of your time. Her first book, one which I plan on purchasing, will be released in March of 2007.
Many questions authors and writers get asked when interviewed is "Where do you get your inspiration?" Following on a similar theme, there's "Do people you know, or you, end up as characters in what you write?" and "What type of music do you listen to while writing?"
My topic, as I've been pondering these questions lately, is on inspiration and how music plays its part in it for me. Maybe I'll come back and ramble another time on the "people you know" question.
Most writing occurs alone. For some, they sit only when "inspiration strikes", then writing occurs in a blur of fingers over keyboard because the inspiration comes "pouring out." For others, writing occurs with regularity, perhaps rigidly scheduled, perhaps scheduled irregularly, but often with a session goal, either set by numbers of words, scenes, or time. I've done it both ways. For me when preparing short stories the first method is best. For longer stories, I plan things out a bit more and inspiration can't so much as strike on a whim but instead needs to come out when I have set aside the time to do so.
I'm probably a lot like other writers in that regard.
However, when that "put the butt in the seat and type" time comes, for many writers, music is an accompaniment. For some, it bolsters their inspiration, like "the couple songs" of the soaps - playing the same mood music as the scene gives it flow.
Playing a character's "theme song" for the author can define the character more clearly. For others, music is a "blockade" against the rest of the world, the isolating tactic in a noisy, crowded-with-demands world, so that they don't hear the phone ringing, the doorbell sounding, the buzzer on the washer/dryer.
I use neither method. My preference for writing. SILENCE.
I've asked for a digital voice recorder for my birthday so that I can dictate to myself in the car or later writing sessions. I've gotten so fast typing from the dictaphone at work (I'm a secretary in an insurance office) that it's something I probably should have considered long ago for improving my writing output. Music in my ears would be distracting.
My characters occasionally have "theme songs", or at least, songs that make me think of them. I catch one in the car all the time for this or that, or another of my characters. At most, though, any song can only capture a fleeting moment of the text of their lives. A momentary reflection. They have moved on from, or are moving toward, that moment. But it's a frozen moment, a photograph.
If I listended to that music, and I have tried, when I write the text has no movement. The characters wallow in that emotion, over and over again, never resolving, never moving forward. When I listen to music, I hear what the author, score composer, or singer, has created. I appreciate its unique art too much to see or hear my own characters voices through it.
So... My writing itself can't have other influences. My characters need a "stage" of their own. They create their own music to their stories.
A look back... When I was writing fanfic for Xena, right before a writing session I might have replayed an episode from which I was springboarding, the images reacquainting me with body language, facial expression and the like. But then off it would go, and off I would go to the closet where I wrote at the time, closing the door and closing my eyes as I wrote new stories into the motif of that world.
When I shifted to original characters even within that world, it became even more important to let them have their own voice. My initial vision of Janice Covington and Melinda Pappas may have been the same as everyone else, the single episode of "The Xena Scrolls." But for my story "Going Home", I needed to see them in other settings, in Casablanca, on boats, planes, trains. I also needed to see inside them. I needed to see them as children, to characterize their memories of their fathers - something I was planning to use to strengthen their connection to one another. I had to envision them younger, envision their environments far away from those presented in the single episode. For that, there was no inspiration better than letting their own voices come through.
Letting them tell me, in the silence, the song of their lives.
Certainly no top-40 artist has ever written it.
I took that discipline to my original characters for my novel Turning Point recently acquired by PD Publishing for publication in March 2007.
While you might recognize certain physical inspiration, their hearts and minds are all mine, gifted to me in draft, word after word, image and expression unique. Even as I write the sequel now, Bren and Cass are more real to me, good friends that I love chatting with, than the women I "knocked off."
Lara Zielinsky
www.lzfiction.net
author of Turning Point
coming in March 2007 from PD Publishing
Once again take the time check out Lara's words and let her know what you thought. If you'd like to be kept up-to-date about Lara's work, join her yahoo group: groups.yahoo.com/group/LZFiction/join.
Enjoy your updates,
Elisa
p.s. Reminder that 7/1 is the last day to vote on the Shatterstorm Productions Dog Days of Summer Advent calendar contest.
- BtVS
- Wishes Do Come True chapter 5 by subtle_grace (Extra Flamey).
- Forever You chapter 20 by Warrior Angel24 (Extra Flamey).
- Reclamation chapter 23 by Eli (Extra Flamey).
CSI - Stranded by Ann (Fluff!).
Law & Order: SVU - Gossip? by ncruuk (Fluff!).
- Tequilla! by ncruuk (Fluff!).
- Legs to testify for by ncruuk (Fluff!).
Original - Stud XIII by S. Berry (E-scribblers).
- Stud XIV by S. Berry (E-scribblers).
- Deception part 3 by Erin O'Rielly (Dragonjul's Storybook).
- Destination Unknown by Ingrid Diaz (her lj).
- Deception part 3 by Erin O'Rielly (Athenaeum).
Xena Warrior Princess - When Love Finds You by Xena's Girl (Academy of Bards).
- In An Age Before parts 64 - 65 by Phantombard (Academy of Bards).
- Xena and the Rose by Ri (Athenaeum).
- In An Age Before part 65 by Phantombard (Athenaeum).
