Logjam cleared

Good morning, Self!

As I told you yesterday, I had a problem with knowing what to write, both in this blog and in my novel. The negligible exercise of writing what I felt in the blog yesterday worked for me and I was able to re-enter the world I have created in the novel and interact with the characters, memorializing their actions and emotions.

It's possible that my choice of music to listen to while I wrote had something to do with it. Incongruously, soft, emotional, soft-rock puts me in the mood to write violent action; which was the setting I was dealing with yesterday. When I started writing, I listened to music that inspired me while I wrote, but I have found that certain songs engender moods and emotions in me that spur me on to write a certain type of sequence. I don't listen to slow, sappy, emotional stuff when I write about a character's emotions. Instead, I listen to a few of the raunchier songs that have passed in and out of the public's consciousness over the past forty or so years. I'm not sure what that says about my own emotional state. Do I relate certain emotions to that type of song? I don't know. I only know that when I listen to them, I can write of the betrayal, loss and redemption that certain characters feel.

I'm not saying that I am averse to listening to music that sets the atmosphere for what I am writing. It's just that other music allows me to reach into myself and tap the reserves that feed the creative process. If the music seems jarringly inappropriate to other ears; I can't help that. It's what I need and since there is no one here but you and I, and I know that you won't object, then I'll listen to what works for me.

That will be all, Self. You can return to whatever you were doing and I will get on with the rest of the day. Many things to do and many fictitious characters to rend, maim and lead into temptation.

Thank you,
Derek A. Murphy
Author of Eggs of Empire, A Quart of Djinn and others.
Available on Kindle