Soundtracks for Novels

By Holly Lisle

There’s a discussion about the music writers listen to while they write. I put together soundtracks that help focus me on the story, but that I think may influence the mood and shape of the books, too.

But I thought this might be of interest to readers as well as writers — to have the same soundtrack running in the background while reading the book that was running while it was written. Maybe not — but in the interest of science … or something like that … I’ve posted the soundtracks for both of the upcoming World Gates books here.

The soundtrack for The Wreck of Heaven (on the shelves in April, which is sneaking closer) changed as I worked on the book. This was the final version.

Stand By Me, Ben E. King
Burning For You, Blue Oyster Cult
Don’t Fear the Reaper, Blue Oyster Cult
Secret Garden, Bruce Springsteen
Let The River Run, Carly Simon, Working Girl Soundtrack
Breathless, The Corrs, Visit For More Hits and Albums
Don’t Dream It’s Over, Crowded House, Crowded House
Time After Time, Cyndi Lauper
Name, Goo Goo Dolls
Overcome, Live, Ecstatic Fanatic
Time of Your Life, Green Day, Nimrod
Lightning Crashes, Live, Throwing Copper
Time Will Tell, Sara Hickman, Necessary Angels
The Fishermen’s Song, Silly Wizard, The Best Of Silly Wizard
Cello Suite No.1, 1. Prelude, Yo-Yo Ma, Bach: 6 Suites for Unac. Cello
Cello Suite No.1, 2. Allemande, Yo-Yo Ma, Bach: 6 Suites for Unac. Cello

Here’s the first soundtrack I did for Gods Old and Dark. I just cut and pasted from iTunes, so this is the order in which the songs were played, including repetitions. You’ll notice heavy rotation on Goo Goo Dolls “Acoustic #3” which turned into the them song for the first 3/4 of the book. “Don’t Fear the Reaper” is Molly’s theme, “Bad Moon Rising” is Baanraak’s theme, “Don’t Dream It’s Over” is Lauren’s theme, “I’ll Be” is Pete’s theme.

J. S. Bach- Bouree I & II, Andres Segovia & John Williams, The Art of the Guitar
Ferrington Guitars, Albert Lee, Ferrington Guitars
Acoustic #3, Goo Goo Dolls, Dizzy Up The Girl
Stand By Me, Ben E. King
Don’t Fear the Reaper, Blue Oyster Cult
Iris, Goo Goo Dolls
Turn the Page, Bob Seger, Greatest Hits
Bad Moon Rising, Creedence Clearwater Revival
Acoustic #3, Goo Goo Dolls, Dizzy Up The Girl
No Particular Place to Go, Chuck Berry
Johnny Has Gone For A Soldier, Civil War, The Civil War
Name, Goo Goo Dolls
The Fairy Queen, Clannad, Celtic Collection
Fanfare for the Common Man, Copeland
Don’t Dream It’s Over, Crowded House, Crowded House
Turn the Page, Bob Seger, Greatest Hits
Time After Time, Cyndi Lauper
Come Again, Damn Yankees, Damn Yankees
High Enough, Damn Yankees
Acoustic #3, Goo Goo Dolls, Dizzy Up The Girl
Where You Goin’ Now, Damn Yankees
The Dreaming Tree, Dave Matthews Band, Before These Crowded Streets
Acoustic #3, Goo Goo Dolls, Dizzy Up The Girl
Taking You Home Don Henley, Inside Job
Classical Gas, John Williams
Barely Breathing, Duncan Sheik, The Absolute Hits
I’ll Be, Edwin McCain
Iris, Goo Goo Dolls
Epona, Enya, ENYA
Acoustic #3, Goo Goo Dolls, Dizzy Up The Girl
Exile, Enya, Watermark
Storms In Africa, Enya, Watermark
Classical Gas, Eric Clapton
This Kiss, Faith Hill, Faith
Name, Goo Goo Dolls
Iris, Goo Goo Dolls
When I Come Around, Green Day, Dookie
Time of Your Life, Green Day, Nimrod
Acoustic #3, Goo Goo Dolls, Dizzy Up The Girl
Fisherman’s Song, Irish Descendants, Look to the Sea
Name, Goo Goo Dolls
Classical Gas, John Williams
Far and Away, John Williams
Hanging by a Moment – Acoustic, Lifehouse, No Name Face
Concerning Hobbits, Lord Of The Rings OST, The Lord Of The Rings- The Fellowship Of The Ring
Overcome, Live, Ecstatic Fanatic
Lightning Crashes, Live
Prisoner In Disguise, Linda Ronstadt / J.D. Souther
Name, Goo Goo Dolls

My needs changed significantly for the last 3/4 of the book and for the revision, where I suddenly discovered what the whole thing was really about. So I did a second soundtrack. “Acoustic #3” maintained heavy rotation, but the book picked up a new theme song — “Superman” by Five for Fighting. Baanraak picks up two new theme songs, “Every Breath You Take” and “The Unforgiven II”. Lauren gets “I Will Never Be the Same” and Molly’s new theme is “I Don’t Want to Wait.” June Bug and Heyr get the “Adagio for Strings.”

Acoustic #3, Goo Goo Dolls, Dizzy Up The Girl
Ferrington Guitars, J.D. Souther, Ferrington Guitars
Canon for Three Violins, Pachelbel
Concerning Hobbits, Lord Of The Rings OST, The Lord Of The Rings- The Fellowship Of The Ring
Superman, Five For Fighting, America Town
Like The Way I Do, Melissa Etheridge, Melissa Etheridge
Canon in D, Pachelbel
Acoustic #3, Goo Goo Dolls, Dizzy Up The Girl
Every Breath You Take, Police
Superman, Five For Fighting, America Town
Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Pachelbel, Rachmaninov
Fields Of Gold, Sting, Ten Summoner’s Tales
Ruins, Melissa Etheridge, Yes I Am
Acoustic #3, Goo Goo Dolls, Dizzy Up The Girl
The Bridge Of Khazad Dum, Lord Of The Rings OST, The Lord Of The Rings- The Fellowship Of The Ring
Superman, Five For Fighting, America Town
Yo Yo Ma – Bouree, Bach
I’m The Only One, Melissa Etheridge, Yes I Am
Adagio for Strings, Platoon Soundtrack
Come To My Window, Melissa Etheridge, Yes I Am
Acoustic #3, Goo Goo Dolls, Dizzy Up The Girl
Superman, Five For Fighting, America Town
Downeaster Alexa, Billy Joel, Greatest Hits Volume III
Don’t Fear the Reaper, Blue Oyster Cult
I Will Never Be The Same, Melissa Etheridge, Yes I Am
Superman, Five For Fighting, America Town
Run Around, Blues Traveller
Fields Of Gold (Acoustic Unplugged), Sting
Acoustic #3, Goo Goo Dolls, Dizzy Up The Girl
The Unforgiven II, Metallica, Reload
What A Wonderful World, Paul Simon, James Taylor, & Art Garfunkel
I Don’t Want to Wait, Paula Cole
Superman, Five For Fighting, America Town
Catch The Moments As They Fly, Lifescapes, Celtic River

Contents © Holly Lisle. https://hollylisle.com All Rights Reserved


New Agent, After Eleven Years

By Holly Lisle

Well, it’s done as of today, and some of the private stress I’ve been carrying around since November of last year is done with it. I have changed agents; Robin Rue of Writers House now represents me.

Saying goodbye to Russ Galen after eleven years was tough; however, I’m changing my direction, my goals, and with luck the course of my career, and I had to have an agent who shared a love for the new path I’ve chosen for myself. Robin was that person. I’m excited about the future, excited about my goals, and at the same time nervous. But it’s a good kind of nervous.

So.

Onward, with bated breath, to discover what the future may hold.

Oh, yes. Gods Old and Dark trotted out the door today. Tonight, Midnight Rain takes its place on the taskbar.

Contents © Holly Lisle. https://hollylisle.com All Rights Reserved


Edited, Printed, Wrapped and Ready

By Holly Lisle

Finished the edit at 11:00 AM on the nose. Finished the print-out (my daughter had 3/4 of a ream of 25lb bond paper in her room — on of the OTHER advantages of living in a house full of writers. The book is packed, I’m waiting to hear back from Diana Gill with a send okay, and other than that, I’m well and truly done. For now.

So tomorrow, back into the dark last day of Midnight Rain, and out the other side. I’m so excited.

Contents © Holly Lisle. https://hollylisle.com All Rights Reserved


Almost done with the fixes

By Holly Lisle

Some of the questions raised required some immediate thought and a little reworking — mostly, however, this line edit has entailed trooping backward through the manuscript fixing cases where, when I really get going, my fingers choose spellings that my brain doesn’t bother to notice. I’m hell on too/to errors, and its/it’s, and their/there/they’re. Also thought/though/through. And of/off. Ack. And as usual, there have been a lot of those. Mostly leaving off the extra o in serial uses of too — as in “too little, to late.” My readers found a whole lot of those, as well as places where I rewrote a sentence, but overlooked places where a bit of the skeleton of the previous sentence was still in there. I have a few pages still left, but I also have a couple of hours to work. It’ll be done today.

Amazingly, some of my Slow Turnaround beta stuff is already coming in — I hit the jackpot with readers.

I’d be able to print the book off later today, except I just checked supplies and discovered that I have one ream of paper left — which means I’m about 30 pages shy of minimal completion, assuming no printer devourage, and no flub pages. So I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to do the printing.

I’m going to spend some of the rest of today going over what I have in Midnight Rain and getting back into the story. I’ll be fighting to finish that book next month. With diligent effort, I might even be able to make it through revision by the middle of March, which is my goal.

Contents © Holly Lisle. https://hollylisle.com All Rights Reserved


The details of beta reading

By Holly Lisle

Joel asked how someone becomes a beta reader.

I’m trying something different this time. Used to be, I didn’t ask for the help of outside beta readers. The only people who saw the manuscript before I sent it off to my editor were the people in my household and me. But the people in my household got tired of doing crits.

The last few books, I’ve had a friend or two look over things and let me know if they found any problems. Having outside eyes has proven such a huge help that I’m trying something different now.

I asked for a very small number of readers who could take a finished project, read it very quickly, and give me a finished, formatted report — page number, line number, error — about 36 hours after I sent the manuscript that would answer the following questions. I wanted to know: where are the spellos, where are the typos, where are the grammatical errors, where are the internal inconsistencies, where have I dropped threads? This would be my fast turnaround team.

When I got their reports, I cut and pasted them into a text file, sorted the text file by reverse numerical order by page number, then line number (so that I’m working through the book backwards), and started fixing things. I’m working backwards so that I don’t screw up the page and line numbers — if I went from front to back, the first big change would completely trash everything that came later.

I also asked for another small, though slightly larger, number of readers who would tear the book apart over about three months. From them, I wanted a different sort of answers — where did the book slow down, where did characters act out of character, where did the story work especially well, where did it not work at all, where have I missed the boat or introduced continuity errors related to the previous two books? This group is my slow turnaround team, and they’re still hard at work.

I realize that there are probably a pretty good handful of people who would enjoy doing this. I asked the site moderators first — they volunteer a tremendous amount of time and effort on the site, and it couldn’t run without them. So I wanted to give them first choice. Had the number of people I needed not volunteered from the moderator pool, I would have asked staffers next, and following that, would have posted an open request in the community. But the list filled up with moderators.

I may use this same process next time, or may try something different. But I have to say that so far, this has been the best pre-send-off prep I’ve ever been able to give a manuscript, and I’m looking forward to finding out what the slow turnaround team comes up with.

Contents © Holly Lisle. https://hollylisle.com All Rights Reserved


“That you have no Drunk of Death …”

By Holly Lisle

I’m doing the revisions and corrections gathered up for me by my superb Fast Turnaround beta readers. And just hit my favorite of my screw-ups so far.

I’m eventually going to have to do something with it, I think. It’s the phrase “that you have no drunk of death”, which would seem to be a thing to be much celebrated. The correct line, of course, is “that you have not drunk of death.”

But the image of the Drunk of Death is calling to me. Going to have to figure out who and what that is, and where the creature could be inserted into something else I’m working on.

Meantime, this will go into the acknowledgements in the book, but I’d like to do a public thank you now:

My unending gratitude to:

The fast turnaround crew — Sheila Kelly, Kay House, James Milton, Jim & Valerie Mills, Linda Sprinkle, and Lazette & Russ Gifford, who between them found 497 mistakes that I missed, and got these errors back to me in typed, line-separated, database-sortable form in three days from the day they received a manuscript they�d never seen — and in some cases got them back in hours, rather than days. Your comments were brilliant, your eyes were keen, and I am deeply grateful. You were wonderful.

Contents © Holly Lisle. https://hollylisle.com All Rights Reserved


Beta day

By Holly Lisle

I spent three hours this morning putting together my beta reader copies and getting them out the door. I got to switch over the work in progress listed in my community signature from Gods Old and Dark to Midnight Rain — I finally get to get back to it and do that last few thousand words, and then jump into the revision. I’m so excited about that that I almost can’t type.

And I’m doing career assessment this week. Big stuff, and not a lot of fun — trying to figure out where I am and where I want to be and how the hell to get there. I’ve now finished off the last of my contracted books, and it’s time to see where I stand, with twenty-five books written and twenty-three sold. If I’d had this same career twenty years ago, I think I’d be farther along. But much as it’s pleasant to think about that, it’s pretty pointless — I have my career now, and the issues writers face now are the ones that I have to deal with.

On the 25th, I’ll get my quick-turnaround beta comments back, and on the 26th I’ll collate them and get to work fixing the manuscript so that I can have it out the door by the 30th.

Contents © Holly Lisle. https://hollylisle.com All Rights Reserved


I’m done!

By Holly Lisle

I’m done, I’m done, I’m done! 106,000 words, and I like the ending. Hah! I think I like the whole thing. I’ll package it and send it to my beta readers tomorrow, but tonight, I’m just going to celebrate. Hot chocolate and pretzels and maybe a sappy movie.

Contents © Holly Lisle. https://hollylisle.com All Rights Reserved


Down to the last two scenes

By Holly Lisle

I’ll finish sometime today!

Contents © Holly Lisle. https://hollylisle.com All Rights Reserved


Four scenes

By Holly Lisle

The big finish is going well. I got four complete, brand-new scenes done this morning, and I love what I got. Manuscript is right at 108,000 words, though after I finish the climactic scenes, I’m going to have to lop off the old ending — so I figure it’ll go down to about 104,000 or so. But then I’ll still need to write a couple of new wrap-up scenes. If I got froggy (and managed a nap this afternoon) I could conceivably finish the thing tonight. More likely, however, I’ll work on it tonight, and tomorrow, and do the final words on Wednesday. I don’t want to rush, but I really am getting good flow through this leg of the run, and I want to stay with it and stay in the story as much as possible. I’ll see how it goes.

Contents © Holly Lisle. https://hollylisle.com All Rights Reserved