This is all I ever wanted from life

There's a song on Snow Patrol's latest album called Life-ning that lists out things the singer wants from life. For example:  

Words of reassurance 
But only if they're true 
Just some simple kindness 
No vengeance from the gods

The chorus is simple: just the line "This is all I ever wanted from life" repeated.

It's a beautiful song and it's been circling my head for the last few days. I started thinking, what would Megan (the main character in TLOS) have written for her verses of this song? And what would the main characters of the book I'm currently working on write?

Understanding what motivates your characters is absolutely essential to writing a good story and crafting good character development. I make sure I understand that at a foundational level before I put any words on the page--like, what does this character want most? What is the thing that drives his/her decisions and actions? But thinking about it in terms of this song and the breadth of desires addressed in its lyrics and what I learned about the singer by listening to them brought it to a whole new level for me.

Dazzled

A new Snow Patrol album came out yesterday. I'm a huge Snow Patrol fan and I've been eagerly anticipating this new album. It's pretty good. I haven't been able to give it a good listen yet but I've liked the stuff I've heard so far and I can already tell a couple of the tracks will be added to my Snow Patrol favorites.

But while I was listening to it, I realized that I was so freaking excited about it, so ready for it to be great, that it would have taken more work (so to speak) for the songs to disappoint me than it would for them to make me love them. Snow Patrol has already earned my trust and so now I approach anything they do with open arms, ready to fall in love with it.

I'm like that with books, too. I expect and anticipate that every story--especially those by tried and true beloved authors--will kindle something in me, excite me, make me fall in love with it. Like I'm halfway there before I open the cover.

I don't think I'm alone in this, and I think that's kind of cool. We allow ourselves to be dazzled on a regular basis. I like the idea of all of us fans, us lovers of stories and songs and other works of art, having "embrace this" as our default setting.

Why hello there, NYC

We're heading into the city tomorrow night to see Matt Nathanson in concert. I CANNOT WAIT!

This will be the third time I've seen him live. I've gushed about his music repeatedly, but really. He is just so very talented: upbeat songs that have you tapping your foot, no matter what your mood is; insightful, clever, and emotionally-charged lyrics; quiet songs that touch the deepest parts of you, equally heartbreaking and hope-filled.

His first big label album is Beneath These Fireworks. If you're looking to start at the beginning, I recommend starting here. He has several earlier albums but a lot of them are the same songs recycled from one album to the next and almost all of the best ones are on Beneath These Fireworks in what I feel is their best versions (with the exception of some really excellent stripped down live acoustic versions I've heard of a few of the songs). In any case, I fell in love with Matt on this album. Really great, insightful lyrics backed by solid music.

After that came Some Mad Hope. OH MY GOD HOW I LOVE THIS ALBUM. I wrote this about it in '08 when it came out: "I'm *madly* in love with Matt Nathanson's latest CD, Some Mad Hope. I can't recommend it enough. Great melodies, Matt's enjoyable everyman voice and clever lyrics that are swelled with hope even as they're prodding at those bruised places inside you."  The song Sooner Surrender is one of my all time faves to this day. Even if you didn't buy the album, you might recognize the song Come On Get Higher. It got a loooooooooooot of air time.

Matt is touring now to promote his latest album, Modern Love. It's a great album and I definitely recommend giving it a sample on Amazon or iTunes. There are some really great songs on it. Two, in particular--Kept and Kiss Quick--absolutely kill me. And he's got this great rock song called Mercy. Like I said, it's a great album.

I'll stop my fangushing now and leave you with this video of Matt performing his current single, Faster (a fun sexy song), on Conan earlier this week.

Friday Five: Mumford and Sons Edition

I swear every post from now until the hereafter won't be about Mumford & Sons but I am going to continue gushing a bit and list my five favorite lyrics (of the moment, at least) from their album Sigh No More (available for a mere $5 through the month of May at Amazon!):

(in no particular order)

1.  from the song Roll Away Your Stone:

It seems that all my bridges have been burned
But you say that's exactly how this grace thing works
It's not the long walk home that will change this heart
But the welcome I receive with the restart

2.  from the song After the Storm:

There will come a time, you'll see
With no more tears
And love will not break your heart
But dismiss your fears
Get over your hill and see
What you find there
With grace in your heart and flowers
In your hair

3.  from the song Timshel:

Death is at your doorstep
And it will steal your innocence
But it will not steal your substance

4.  from the song Sigh No More:

Love, it will not betray you,
Dismay or enslave you
It will set you free
Be more like the man
You were made to be

5. from the song Thistle and Weeds:

Plant your hope with good seeds
Don't cover yourself with thistle and weeds
Rain down, rain down on me

Music PSA: Mumford & Sons

People. I have a new music obsession. Fear not! My love for Breaking Benjamin is eternal and undiminished. But I have just discovered Mumford & Sons and let me tell you: I. Am. In. Love.

Where do I start? Okay, the basics. They're a folk band. They actually sound like an Irish folk band but they're British. And oh yes, my friends, there is a banjo and it is played a lot. DO NOT LET THIS DETER YOU. The music is amaaaaaaaazing. The lyrics are poetry--insightful, gorgeous. OH EM GEE I HEART THEM SO MUCH.

Guess what? Their MP3 album Sigh No More is on sale at Amazon for $5 this month. $5! I got so excited, I wanted to buy it again. And that's not all! Other $5 albums, all of which I have obsessed over at some point, include: The Fray, The Fray; Incubus, Make Yourself (the lyrics of the title song are words to live by, my friends); Sara Bareilles, Little Voice; 30 Seconds to Mars, A Beautiful Lie. All recommended purchases.

But I digress. I was gushing about Mumford & Sons.

This is my favorite song off the album (at least, my favorite as of this moment), After the Storm. Sorry about the video--I couldn't find a decent enough live performance (because of crowd noise, not because of them--they sound great live) and there's no official video yet.



And you may have heard this one on the radio. It's brilliant! It's called Little Lion Man.



So anyway. Check 'em out.

/psa

If I had it all

I was listening to the Dave Matthews song "If I Had It All" the other day and I was struck by how some of the things we, as writers, experience are universal to all artists.

If I were a king
If I had everything
If I had you and I could give you your dreams
If I were giant-sized, on top of it all
Then tell me what in the world would I sing for

It's so true, isn't it? I hate the stereotype that writers (and artists, collectively) are a sorrowful, melancholy (substance-abusing...) bunch but when you get right down to it, if we were all perfectly content with everything in our lives and in the world, what the hell would we write about? I don't think we necessarily suffer more than non-artists but I do think that we are hyper-aware of the places in life where there's a gap between what should be or what was wished for and what really is. And I think we take that awareness and the resulting emotions--sorrow, anger, discontent, heartache, passion, you name it--and put it to good use. :) We make our misery work for us, dammit!

Anyway, it's just something I was thinking about: what on earth would I write about if I was 100% content with the world as is.

A Small Measure of Peace

I swear the score to The Last Samurai by Hans Zimmer is the only thing keeping me going right now. 49 days to go...

I wake up scared, I wake up strange*

The current state of me, list-style. Lately, I've been:

1. Largely spazzing out about finishing TLOS before going to Japan in the fall. By "the fall" I mean in 56 days. By "spazzing out" I mean: wondering if the ending idea I keep flirting with will actually work; wondering if it doesn't, what the hell I'll do then; trying, futilely, to calculate how many words I'll need to finish the book and to match that against 56 days worth of daily word count goals, both herculean and possible; wondering why the fuck it isn't socially and economically acceptable to just crawl into a cave with my MacBook for the next 56 days to make sure TLOS gets finished BECAUSE JESUS, IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE???

2. Listening to old music that feels new again. Breaking Benjamin has consumed me since I discovered them a few months ago. I have literally listened to almost nothing else. They're the kind of band that can make you forget there's other music out there. But lately I've been rotating in some old playlists and remembering how much I love some of the other artists on my iPod. Rediscovery is magical. (I still listen to Breaking Benjamin once a day, at least. I mean, come on.)

3. Trying to give up coffee. That started yesterday. Today I had a soy cafe mocha from Starbucks. Enough said.

4. Reading more. Holy crap, do I love to read. I recently finished Sarah Dessen's JUST LISTEN on the recommendation of Stephanie Burgis (thanks Steph!) and it was great. You should definitely check it out. Annabel's story really touched me, in ways I didn't fully realize until days later.

5. Beginning to see the new structure TLOS needs. I can't wait to get the rough draft finished so I can tear it apart. Heh. I feel bold. Well, boldish. I'm sure I know how the book needs to be written now. It's just a matter of getting it there.

6. Feeling...strange. Off. Not quite connected--to my life, my work, my friends, myself. I definitely get in moods like this from time to time, where I seem to sort of retreat to a place inside myself for a little while. This time, it seems to be sticking around and I'm not sure why. I suppose part of it probably has to do with #1 above but...I don't know. I do still feel connected to my writing and this whatever-it-is also feels like it's something moving through my creative center. Maybe something's shifting within me--some new well of creative energy is opening or some new story is surfacing. Or, yanno, maybe I'm having a mid-life crisis. We'll see.


*Lyrics from the song What a Good Boy by Barenaked Ladies. Also, part of this list.

Exclusive Tracks (or How the Fans Get Screwed)

I'm a Sarah McLachlan fan. I've seen her in concert a zillion times, I own her records, I am a member of her fan club and was even when you had to pay for it--hell, I even have a piece of her art work tattooed on my thigh. But I honestly feel like boycotting her upcoming album, Laws of Illusion*.

When the album was first announced, I was told that I would get a pre-sale code for Lilith Fair tickets if I pre-ordered it from www.sarahmclachlan.com. So I did. The pre-sale code was essentially useless for a variety of reasons I won't get into. In the intervening time, advertisements indicated that Amazon and iTunes were going to offer exclusive tracks, so I contacted the sarahmclachlan.com people. I explained why I wanted to cancel my pre-order--that I wanted the extra tracks. They canceled it with no problem.

Today, I saw an ad claiming that you can get an extra track available nowhere else by pre-ordering the album on sarahmclachlan.com.

Really? I mean, come on. So, as a dedicated fan who wants all of Sarah's music--someone who doesn't pirate (a.k.a. steal), someone who supports the artist in a way that makes her and her label money and ensures the continuation of her career--I'm expected to buy the album three fucking times in order to get all the tracks? Because, as you probably know based on your own mp3-buying experience, the exclusive tracks are typically packaged as "album only" and can't be bought as individual tracks off of iTunes or Amazon.

I get the idea behind it. It's a selling tool, something created to claim market share. Buy your music from __insert store name here__! We have stuff the other guys don't!

But the only people who end up getting screwed are the fans.

And, really, what can I do about it? Send an email to Nettwerk (Sarah's label)? Like they're going to care.

Not cool, Sarah/Nettwerk/iTunes/Amazon/whoever else. Not cool at all.



*Isn't that such a great title? It's sparking story ideas in my mind.

So this is your maverick

Monster writing weekend. Woo!!

27188 / 70000 words. 39% done!

Tomorrow: Big scene with Bad Dude and Bad Dude's Minion

Tonight: Going to see these guys (EEEEEEE!!!!) with my friends Brian and Theresa:

I've told you numerous times how much I love The Fray, but I'm going to tell you again: I. LOVE. The Fray. This will be Ben's and my second time seeing them on this tour, though last time the lead singer was recovering from bronchitis. I'm super excited!!!

(Incidentally, the title of the post is one of my favorite lyrics from their song Vienna on the How to Save a Life album.)

OMGWATCHTHISRIGHTNOW!

Dudes this is RIDICULOUS. I love this kid.



And believe me, people, I loved the shit out of this song and knew it well enough to attest that he is not simply lip syncing to the actual Whitney Houston version.

Amazing. 

Music bargain alert!

You can buy The Fray's latest, self-titled album on Amazon for only $2.99 as their MP3 deal of the day today. This album is fantastic, I am Fray-obsessed and you should already have clicked off of this post to snap it up. Go!! Here's a link!

BB love

Vid-spamming, as promised. My current fave--So Cold by Breaking Benjamin:



I freaking love that song. The video is pretty cool, too. And it makes me want to pierce my tongue again...

Blogfodder

It was really cruel of you not to tell me that today was Fill Renee's Morning with Idiots Day. I would've stayed in bed. Let me give you a little sample of my morning:

I decided to get a bagel at the cafeteria. Two women were barricading the toaster. Before I could figure out the best way to break through, a third woman breached their defenses and got her bagel in ahead of mine, then joined the barricade herself. I finally elbowed my way in and dropped my bagel into the toaster. Then the enemy women decided the toaster wasn’t toasting dark enough, so one of them cranked it up. Flames immediately erupted from my bagel. Not kidding. I said, “You just set my bagel on fire.” She said, “I don’t think so.” I looked again. Still on fire. I said, “I’m looking at the flames.” At that moment, the bagel tipped over the edge and slid down the chute, charred and smoking. We stared at it. She said, “Oh.”

Luckily, things got better as the day went on.

In case you haven't already seen it, I'd recommend checking out this (astonishingly long) article on James Patterson. It's a very enlightening look at one way to make it big in the publishing business. I especially enjoyed reading about Patterson's business approach to his career and his very different way of making the business work for him.

Last thing for tonight: Here's my latest song obsession. It's called "Same Mistake" by James Blunt, someone whom I normally can't stand (oddly enough). But I heard this song during the credits of the movie P.S. I Love You (love that movie) and instantly fell in love with it. It got me through the morning on repeat.

PSA: Some Mad Hope for $5!

I'll be posting more later, but this is just a quick drive by to let everyone know that Matt Nathanson's latest album Some Mad Hope, which I've gushed about at length, is available for $5 at Amazon as an MP3 download. Well worth it, my friends. My summary from an earlier post: Great melodies, Matt's enjoyable everyman voice and clever lyrics that are swelled with hope even as they're prodding at those bruised places inside you. Go. Buy. Love.

On obsession

The song "Gravity" by Sara Bareilles had been playing incessantly in my mind since yesterday so I put it on repeat as I settled in to get some queries out...two and a half hours ago. When I announced to Ben that I'd listened to the same song 60 times, he asked if it was on purpose.

I've turned it off now, but the truth is I'm only sort of tired of it. Do you ever get that way with music, where a particular song just grabs you and you can't get enough of it? The real test, of course, will be if I still want to listen to it six months or a year from now. Sometimes these things burn out fast, but sometimes it's a lifelong love affair.

i <3 my iPod nano

First, don't forget to check out the interview and contest for THE ETERNAL KISS!

I've spent most of the evening moving music from our home server to my iPod Nano.

(Ben has spent most of the evening yelling at a computer game. It's how he "relaxes.")

I got the 16GB (PRODUCT) Red version which is terribly exciting on three counts:
1. It helps fight AIDS in Africa (well, not my Nano per se, but $ from the purchase).
2. It's a great conversation starter: "How'd you decide which color to get?" "Well, the red one helps people with AIDS in Africa."
3. It's got twice as much room as my old MP3 player! (Here endeth the humanitarian portion of tonight's post.)

This is so exciting. I moved over every song I could possibly want to hear and still have over 4GB free for new music!! EEEEEE!!!!

I also made a new playlist for Megan's Story, which could warrant its own post. My last book was all angsty emo rock. This one wants scores and Enya. So weird.

I did manage to make my word goal for today, though:

1061 / 60000 words. 2% done!

*dink dink dink* Is this thing on?

Oh hai. I am back from my whirlwind* period of social activity! I give you a quick recap of the past several days in photo-form, because I have become addicted to posting pics on my blog:

Friday:
Our friends Justin and Larissa got married! Yay! I love marriage!

There *might* have been some dancing. Just sayin'.

Saturday:
Friends of ours renewed their vows in honor of their tenth wedding anniversary. It was lovely and makes my head spin to think that Ben and I will celebrate our tenth in the fall. Where did the time go?

Sunday:

Spent Sunday evening with these guys.
Have I mentioned how much I effing <3 The Fray? I believe I have.

The show was really good. The only thing that kept it from being great was that poor Isaac was recovering from bronchitis and sounded a bit squeaky. Well, squeakier than normal. :)

Jack's Mannequin opened. This dude = insane:



As you can see, this pic is not from the show Sunday night. However, I wanted to try to show you how crazy he is. See how he has two mics and is half standing up? The dude is a freaking powerhouse of energy and passion when he's performing. He's up and down from his piano stool, bouncing all around, switching from mic to mic, sometimes even jumping on top of the piano or keys. In. Sane. They put on a great show and I'd highly recommend seeing them if you get the chance. I'll be picking up their album.

Sunday night through Tuesday were spent in Boston, doing this:



Playing with electricity at the Museum of Science, and creating fake identities:

Can you guess who belonged to each ticket?

We also toured the Sam Adams brewery.

We had dinner at a yummy Thai place with a beautiful fish tank. Unfortunately, one of the fish distracted us through the whole meal:



There he is on the left, showing off his fearsome teeth (gnashers!). But on the right, you can see him sort of listing to the side and his tail is arching in a weird way--that's how he looked for most of the meal. We thought he was going to go belly up right in front of us! So much so, that Ben went and alerted one of the waitstaff in the middle of the meal. She assured us that he was fine and we didn't believe her--until he suddenly started swimming around again fifteen minutes later like nothing ever happened. It was quite distressing, I assure you.

Well, I'm sure I've tortured you enough with the pictures. What's that? Not *quite* enough? Okay. Here's one more:

Tragically, this weekend did not include a visit with the bundle of ridiculous cuteness that is Baby Nephew.

I should be back on a regular blogging schedule now (yay) with *actual* content (gasp!). Topics to be addressed shortly: 1st person POV and hooks (the literary kind, you pervs!).

*Am I the only one who wants to put an extra h in there: whirlwhind? (Besides JR Ward, obviously.)

New music recommendation: Keri Noble

Here's my latest musical obsession - "Ooh Oh" by Keri Noble. So far, I've only purchased this song after freaking out every time I heard it on Pandora. I'll report back when I've checked out the entire album. She has a gorgeous voice and the song is so honest and emotionally raw. Just my kind of heartache.

Friday Five

1. I made it all the way to 10:57 a.m. before I had to jam my headphones on with shaking hands and get my Fray fix like the junkie I am. I consider this progress. It also helps that I'm learning the songs enough to be able to play them in my head when I can't have them in my ears. :)

2. Have I told you of the curse of the nail clipping? Oh yes. I believe I've mentioned one of the incidents before. In my humble opinion, clipping one's nails (fingers or toes) is private hygiene business meant to be taken care of at home. Apparently, this isn't a widespread opinion. In my old department, I would hear a clip-clip-clipping noise at least once a week in the mornings. An investigative stroll around the surrounding cubicles revealed a coworker clipping her fingernails at her desk. WTF?, I thought. That has got to be the strangest thing ever, I thought. What a singularly weird person, I thought. Several months later, we hired a new manager. Clip. Clip clip. Clip. Yep. New manager is clipping his nails at his desk on a regular basis. (Oddly enough, the original nail clipper reported to him.) Then came the freakishly disgusting incident I linked to above. This week? A new department moved into the room next door to us and my cube has a direct diagonal line of sight (and sound!) to one in the new departments. Clip. Clip. Clip clip clip. You guessed it! She's clipping her nails at her desk!! WTF???

3. Does incorrect grammar in songs bother you? When you sing the song, do you correct the lyrics? For me, it depends. For example, in Kelly Clarkson's "Sober", she has a line that says, "At the end of this road I might catch a glimpse of me." The me should be myself, if I'm not mistaken. However, I let this one go because it fits with the rhyming scheme (ends with an "e" sound, rhyming with maybe in the previous line). However, there are other songs where I'll correct the grammar when I sing. Probably because I'm the world's biggest dork. The one that really gets me is using "that" when it should be "who", because I think it's such an easy rule to remember. Are you talking about people? Use who! Ta-daaaa! Easy peasy. For example, "You're the one who broke my heart." Not, "You're the one that broke my heart." There's a Staind song that screws this rule up and I always correct it when I sing it, but I can't remember which song it is now.**

4. (Jesus, this is long for a Friday Five!) I'm trying to cook more. Does anyone have any easy, tasty vegetarian (or easy to fake-meat-swap) recipes that don't have any dairy and don't take a long time to cook? Eggs are okay. I'm struggling a bit with the new no-dairy restriction.

5. My to do list for the weekend has 25 items on it. Toooootally do-able. O.o


ETA: I meant to add a little footnote last night to correspond with the double asterisks to acknowledge my very imperfect grammar. This rant is by no means implying that I'm a master grammarian--just that I sometimes wish songwriters paid as much attention to their lyrics as we writers do to our manuscripts.