Soundtrack to the Story
I have almost 10k words done for the anthology piece due to Dark Red Press on the 20th of January. I'm pretty sure it's only half done. 15,000 words was my minimum, but I know I'll go over that and hit closer to 20k. It's a post-apocalyptic tale, just as the other 3 will be from the other DRP authors, for a book entitled 4POCALYPSE. An interesting premise, each of us taking a spin on that speculative fiction sub-genre. Like an idiot, I decided to set mine in the ruins of 2270 and fill it with advanced tech and my twist on zombies. (I didn't foresee the amount of research that would have to go into this one.)
As with all of my longer works, it took me a while to find the "voice." Mostly, this was because I hadn't found the soundtrack yet. Each of my novels or e-novellas have had their own selection of music. THE STITCHING was done entirely to Murder By Death, while IN BLEED COUNTRY had a lot of Puscifer and Tool. A COMPLICATED DIVINE was set to Alkaline Trio and other modern punk bands, while my out-of-print novel BETWEEN US AND OBLIVION was penned exclusively to the post-rock band 65DaysOfStatic. It took me a while, but this current novella is getting hammered out to a mix of DeadMau5, Skrillex and The Glitch Mob. The music created by those groups fit the vibe of the tale.I know some authors who must write in near silence - that would drive me insane. At the same time, once I've found my tale's soundtrack, I won't listen to it during the writing process except when I'm actually writing the story. It forces me to keep going and doesn't dilute the feeling. When I'm writing random articles, blogs (or just pissing about on Facebook), I find any instrumental post-rock works well for me. While emotive and creative, it almost acts as a default sound to be, those guitars from This Will Destroy You and Explosion in The Sky and the vocals from Sigur Ros.After this novella is done, the sequel to IN BLEED COUNTRY is supposed to be next on my plate. Perhaps I'll find the soundtrack in one of Maynard Keenan's acts again, but I wouldn't necessarily say it was set in stone. Certain aspects of a story writes itself, and a tale demands its own tune.
