In a Bad Space: From Lizzie to Ash

You don’t get more proper than Elizabeth Rae Perry. She was born in the late 1800s and lived through three major wars—the Anglo Boer War, as well as World Wars I and II. Life for a woman in the Union of South Africa was very different for those who were lucky enough to live later. Back then there were very few job options available for a woman, and you were either a housewife, a teacher, a secretary or a nurse.

Elizabeth or Lizzie, as she prefers to be known, went on to marry a man her parents thought was a good match. Richard Perry was a successful businessman involved in the railways. Little did they know that he was also a member of a highly secretive ancient Egyptian reincarnation cult, the Inkarna, and Lizzie was to be his next initiate.

And that’s also the point at which her life became a lot more interesting, as she soon found herself the soul custodian of House Adamastor’s Cape Town-based chapter house.

Richard assured her that death was not the end, and that through a series of rituals she’d be able to survive after death, and find her way to House Adamastor’s mystical “house of life” Per Ankh in the Tuat (or afterlife). Of course she had no way to prove his words, but being the ever-dutiful wife, continued to maintain his legacy after his passing.

By the time she popped off this mortal coil in 1966, the old lady could pack quite a punch, and was in possession of a formidable arsenal of daemonic powers, which included telekinesis and psychometry. On top of that, she was also hyper aware of the spirit world. While her body aged normally, as all humans do, she was equipped with power and wisdom beyond that of a normal person. A decent trade-off, if you ask me.

She trained up her own initiate to take her place once she died, before making her own journey through the Black Gate.

The scope of my novel, Inkarna, is such that I couldn’t cover all that transpired while Lizzie dwelled in the Tuat, but I can share this much that the Inkarna use this space to meditate and regroup. They are able to access the memories of the “Blessed Dead”—regular humans who have died—as they move toward the primordial chaos that is the Sea of Nun, and thereby keep in touch with changes that have occurred in the land of the living.

Surprisingly, Lizzie finds that she does have the next opportunity to return to the world of matter when her House needs to send someone new. But complications arise when she wakes in the body of a 21-year-old male instead of the three-year-old girl she was promised. To make matters even more uncomfortable, Lizzie has to pick up the pieces of the previous host’s life—and Ashton Kennedy really did make a hash of things.

Why did I do this to my main character? I asked myself, what is the worst possible thing I could do to a prim and proper lady? It doesn’t get much worse than sticking her consciousness inside the body of a virile male with long hair, who’s covered in tattoos and used to be a barman. It’s how she deals with her predicament that provided me with the most entertainment while writing. The contrast between the man everyone else thinks they know and the person Lizzie has become, is quite delicious, and results in quite a few unintentionally humorous situations.

At the end of the day, Inkarna explores the theme of love that transcends the boundaries imposed by gender, time and death. It’s a story about doing what is right, even though one’s actions might be considered morally reprehensible. It’s a tale of magic, myth and adventure, set against a backdrop of eternal conflict.

Follow me on Twitter
 @nerinedorman
or see my website here-
Nerine Dorman

Buy Inkarna

A Song is Worth a Thousand Words Melissa Ecker Talks Music

Melissa Ecker has made a name for herself in both the Romance and Erotica worlds. Her most recent book Giving up the Ghost  has elements of Urban Fantasy and Horror as well. Talk about a writer who can do it all, that's Missy! Here she tells us what music does for her writing. Enjoy

I started reading on my own when I was four years old. I remember that feeling of being able to look at lines of letters and understand what they meant. First, it was cereal boxes and hairspray cans. Anything with words caught my attention. I didn’t spend hours in the bathtub playing with toys like other children. I read shampoo bottles and soap boxes and toilet paper packages, anything I could get my little hands on.

My parents bought me a record player along with the soundtrack to Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and a whole new world opened up to me. Sure, I’d heard songs on the radio in the car but this was my own music with words I could understand. It was another form of storytelling. I would close my eyes and listen to the lyrics and see pictures in my mind. This was how the tie between music and stories began for me.

Someone recently asked me what kind of music I like. My response was simply, “I like it all.” I can’t pinpoint one particular genre that moves me more than another. I grew up listening to country, Motown classics and 50’s and 60’s rock and roll, including Elvis Presley. Lots of Elvis Presley.

When I hit my teenage years I went through phases where my mood dictated what I listened to. My taste ranged from Duran Duran and Tears for Fears to hard hitting punk like TSOL and the Sex Pistols and into the beats and rhymes of The Beastie Boys and Run DMC. I never subscribed to any one type of music. Every song tells a story and either it speaks to me or it doesn’t. My likes were, and are, mostly artist motivated.

As I sat down to write this, I realized how significant of a role music has played in my life. With today’s technology, we often hear, “There’s an app for that.” In my mind, I think, “There’s a song for that.” So it goes with my writing. There are songs that can reduce me to tears or make me giggle like a school girl and I use that.

In Giving Up the Ghost, I really had to dig deep to grab a hold of the emotion and sorrow I wanted to convey to the reader when the main character loses her husband in a tragic accident. I read somewhere that some of the best writers are those who have suffered. They know what pain feels like and when you write what you know, it’s authentic.

It wasn’t hard for me to pinpoint my most profound pain. I lost both of my parents in a three year period. As morbid as it sounds, I listened to the selections from my mom’s memorial service while I wrote the first chapters of Giving Up the Ghost. I needed to feel that kind of pain to write that kind of pain. And, once my character moved on to a happier place in the book, I segued into more upbeat music like Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift. Yes, I like Miss Swift and I refuse to defend myself.

My latest story came to mind while I was reading about the untimely death of Type O Negative’s singer and bass player, Peter Steele. I had the urge to listen to the October Rust album. Love You to Death came on and a new character popped up and insisted on telling me a story. A ghost story. The music I play while writing isn’t always for my benefit either. This ghost happens to enjoy not only TON but Nine Inch Nails, The Pretty Reckless, 30 Seconds to Mars and Five Finger Death Punch.

At the end of the day, I don’t really have a formula for how I use music in my writing. It serves different purposes for me. Sometimes it forces me to feel something deeper in order to convey a particular message, sometimes it makes me happy dance in my seat while typing like the wind and other times it sparks a new idea. I can only say it’s important to my process in one way or another.

In closing, I’d like to share one of my all time favorite songs. Closer to the Edge by 30 Seconds to Mars. This song makes it onto all my writing playlists because it touches me on so many levels.

Melissa Ecker is the bestselling author of horror, paranormal and erotic romance. She is a member of Romance Writers of America and Diamond State Romance Authors. She lives in Central Arkansas with her husband, two children and a myriad of pets.

To learn more about Melissa, please visit her website www.melissaecker.com and her Amazon Author Page You can also follow her on Twitter @MelissaEcker and like her on Facebook

Character Theme Songs, Chelsea Mueller talks MC's

Chelsea Mueller is the face behind the wildly successful blog  Vampire Book Club, she is a friend to all writers and readers, and an aspiring writer herself. Having just finished and submitted her first novel, I wanted to hear her take on writing and music. Here is what she had to say about things

I rarely listen to the music inspiring my writing while actually, you know, writing.

Instead, I use music to fuel my characters.

For me, anything with lyrics has me singing along or, worse, writing along. When I’m actually fingers-on-keyboard writing, my music picks are instrumentals. Movie scores (Lord of the Rings and Tron: Legacy were primary on my dark young adult novel) and baroque pieces dominate my actual writing playlist.

That said, I do a lot of listening to music before I write. This is especially true to get into characters’ heads. While my protagonist could link up to any number of songs, all of my secondary characters have theme songs.

Yeah. I know. Theme songs.

It wasn’t intentional. I just started adding to the playlist as I ran across a song perfect for a character. The most helpful here is that one of the lesser antagonists is going crazy in a literal sense. He’s under the influence of an underworld goddess and she likes to inflame insecurities, emotions and fear. This guy is having trouble processing why our protagonist ended their quasi-relationship.

As insanity flares, he acts out flashing from manic and violent to depressive and scary. As such, he gets two theme songs.

At times he’s everything in “Okay I Believe You, But My Tommy Gun Don’t” by Brand New.

And at other times he’s 100 percent “I Should Have Sent Flowers” by NORA.

Chelsea Mueller runs Vampire Book Club, blogs for Heroes & Heartbreakers and writes dark YA lit with a mythology bent. She loves strong heroines, paranormal worlds that feel real, TV vampires, nerd-ery and snarky comments from the crowd. Find her online at ChelseaMueller.net or @ChelseaVBC on Twitter.

Chronic Monster Baiter, Mark Henry baits our taste in Music

Mark Henry aka Daniel Marks is an evil genius, his upcoming YA novel Velveteen is chocked full of teenage angst,serial killers, ghosts and the best kind of dark humor. (the sick kind) Mark and I have a friendship forged on 80's shoe-gazing music and horror films. Although our taste is wildly different, we do agree on many bands with only one exception..Well two really,The Cocteau Twins(which he craftily snuck into this post) and Tori Amos. That bitch scares me something fierce.

TRUTH!!

So without further ado, I give you Mark Henry...gird your loins

I remember the exact moment I stopped being a casual listener of music and became an avid fanatic. 1985. Tower Records in Tacoma. The album was a compilation of rarities and b-sides from the Cocteau Twins called The Pink Opaque. From the opening strains of the sublime Millimillinery I was hooked. The music was strange, the vocals near angelic and yet quite off. See for yourself.

Fifteen and drifting--I hated school and connected with very few of my peers—music was a safe place to explore some really out there ideas. And I was ravenous, I’d skip class and drive to Seattle with friends or sometimes alone to pour over bins of records and haunt the nightclubs and concert halls. Southern Death Cult (later just The Cult). The Mission (later the Mission UK). Skinny Puppy. My taste was always a little dark. But that soundtrack really was a good backdrop for my thoughts.

My head was full of monsters. It still is.

When I started writing—back in 2006—my musical taste had gone through all the appropriate phases for an aging goth kid; Industrial (Front 242, Ministry, Swans, Nitzer Ebb) gave way to shoegaze (Lush, My Bloody Valentine) and pretty soon, we were back in the eighties. Still are. I compiled lots of songs as set lists that I embedded into my first three books (HAPPY HOUR OF THE DAMNED, ROAD TRIP OF THE LIVING DEAD, BATTLE OF THE NETWORK ZOMBIES). But I never used those songs as inspirations rather as accents for scenes. They were an afterthought.

When I sat down to write VELVETEEN, my first young adult novel about the victim of a serial killer plotting revenge from purgatory while her world crumbles around her, I specifically tried to do things differently. I wrote certain scenes to music, particularly the new wave of shoegaze exemplified by The Raveonettes. I love them. They have a retro, Jesus and Mary Chain vibe that destroys me. Here’s a Dead Sound:

They’ve got a fuzzbox…and they’re gonna use it (ten points for that reference)! By the time I got around to revising the book it needed to go a little darker. Luckily, Trent Reznor had traded in his bad boy hat for an orchestra leader’s baton and scored THE SOCIAL NETWORK, a great film about Facebook and Asperger’s Disorder, whether it’s mentioned or not. The themes he and Atticus Ross explore in that soundtrack were a perfect undercurrent for enriching my story with darkness. It certainly helps to get in a mood. Even if it’s a bad one. Here’s Hand Covers Bruise:

Feel the monotonous grating mechanics of it? Makes me stare into space and grit my teeth. Every. Time.

Well that’s it. My musical trip down memory lane is done. I’m going to go listen to some Book of Love and cleanse my palate from all of this darkness.

Just kidding.

Mark Henry writes adult urban fantasy, screenplays and young adult horror. He spends way too much time glued to the internet and collects books obsessively (occasionally reading them). He’s been a psychotherapist for children and adolescents, a Halloween store manager, has survived earthquakes, volcanoes and typhoons to get where he is today, which is to say, in his messy office surrounded by half empty coffee cups. He lives in the Pacific Northwest with his wife, Caroline, and three furry monsters with no regard for quality carpeting. None.

you can find Mark Henry/Daniel Marks here~
on twitter~
Daniel Marks
Mark Henry

facebook~
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website~
Daniel Marks

How I hear my books, Jaye Wells talks music.

I am really please to welcome Jaye Wells to the Music Series, she is one of my favorite author types, and we talk music on a regular basis. Here are her thoughts on music and writing.

It always confuses me when writers say they can’t listen to music when they’re writing. It just doesn’t compute. For me, listening to music is the quickest and best way to achieve specific states of emotion that I need to access to write.

To me, writing is a lot like method acting. I don’t just transcribe things on to the page. I generally have to tap into emotions that relate either specifically or generally to the ones my characters are facing. To do that I recall times when I felt that way or similar and I heighten it by playing music that evokes the same.

So when Synde asked me to write how music affects my writing, it was a little overwhelming because I can’t separate the two. Music is story to me and story evokes music.

I decided the best way to show you what I mean is to list some of my favorite songs for different types of scenes.

Fight Scenes:

“Temptation Waits” Garbage

“Clap for the Killers” Street Sweeper

“Heriarate Mich” Rammstein

“Killing IN The Name Of” Rage Against the Machine

Sex Scenes

“Bloodsport” Sneaker Pimps

“Ringfinger” Nine Inch Nails

“Fade Into You” Mazzy Star

“Paradise Circus” Massive Attack Featuring Hope Sandoval

“I Put a Spell on You” Marilyn Manson

Black Moments

“Hurt” Johnny Cash cover

“Brake” Melissa McLelland

“If I Was Your Vampire” Mariyln Manson

“Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” Guns N Roses

“Everybody Knows” Leonard Cohen

“The Trick Is To Keep Breathing” Garbage

“Hallelujiah” k.d. Lang version

I also have specific songs that reflect different characters. Early on in the series, Sabina Kane had a lot of Garbage and Hole kinds of songs, for example, but as the series progressed the songs became less angsty and more rock n roll tough chick-- Joan Jett and Chrissie Hynde.

I’m working on something new now and the songs are less shiny black metal and more rusty and gritty blues and Americana. But one thing is certain, I do not write a book until I have started compiling my playlist. I write my books using all my senses, so I can’t imagine writing without sounds to inspire me.

If you’d like to hear the soundtracks of the five Sabina Kane novels, check out my web site. 
Jaye Wells

After several years as a magazine editor and freelance writer, Jaye Wells finally decided to leave the facts behind and make up her own reality. Her overactive imagination and life-long fascination with the arcane and freakish blended nicely with this new career path. Her Sabina Kane urban fantasy series is a blend of dark themes, grave stakes and wicked humor. Jaye lives in Texas with her saintly husband and devilish son. Her work is represented by Rebecca Strauss of McIntosh & Otis.

Music for the Muse, Nerine Dorman talks Music

 

Nerine Dorman's writing is wildly innovative, her most recent release INKARNA proves that. 
Her music taste is just as imaginative! Help me in welcoming one of my favorite writers to the blog~

If I hadn’t gone into publishing I would have been a musician. I’ve played a number of musical instruments from a very young age, and studied classical music as a subject until I matriculated, majoring in guitar with piano as a second instrument. I played bass guitar in a selection of grunge, Goth and black metal bands, and sometimes gigged solo with my classical guitar. But, life has (sensibly) gotten in the way of me performing, though I have never quite quit fooling around on my bass or guitar when the muse bites.

When I write, music goes hand in hand with the process; the soundtrack I choose while creating a novel is carefully selected to match the story. And, of course I have my favourites, which shift according to my place in time. Most of my novels are fairly epic to some degree, but I’ll give you a short musical tour to give you an idea of what I ended up pairing.

I wrote my two Khepera novels to a steady diet of Siouxsie and the Banshees, Dead Can Dance and Bauhaus, sometimes interspersed by the film soundtracks by Hans Zimmer (mainly Pirates of the Caribbean and Gladiator). So, we have a contrast between 1980s Goth and somewhat dramatic and often exotic soundscapes. Dead Can Dance acts as an eclectic bridge between the two. Jamie, the main character, listens to those bands, a lot. In book one he still dresses the part, complete with eyeliner and an ebony mane teased into kingdom come. I wanted to capture that rebellious essence I felt during the late 1990s when I was still part of Cape Town’s Goth scene. We looked back to that era, gave little thought to the future, and went out of our merry way to be provocative in a culture where we, as European Africans, were adrift without identity. And, of course, who can say no to Peter Murphy’s rubber voice or Siouxsie’s sultry siren call?

 Here’s Progeny from the Gladiator soundtrack composed by Hans Zimmer:

In 2010 one of my musical heroes passed away tragically. Peter Steele had been an inspiration to me – the one who made playing bass not only cool but damn sexy. And that voice… Deep, baritone reduced to an almost subsonic growl… This coincided with an extended depression for two years. Not so much mourning for the man, but a sense of a profound sadness for lost potential, and at that time I looked inward, and didn’t like what I saw. His death made me remember the dreams I’d had when I was in my early twenties, and made me re-evaluate my direction in life. Consequently I listened to a lot of Type O Negative during this time, and wrote three stories that were heavily themed with music: Hell’s Music, What Sweet Music They Make and Inkarna. If I have to drag one song out that said the most of this time, it would be Suspended in Dusk. It evokes a darkly romantic and very tragic sense, which supported me during my meltdown late 2011. I realised something vital: I’m not ready to die.


 Suspended in Dusk by Type O Negative:

But I have started flirting with other bands. I’ve recently reawakened my love for Fields of the Nephilim. Frontman Carl McCoy has what I can best describe as a whiskey-raw voice and when I’m looking for a desolate feel to my writing, I listen to my collection of Fields of the Nephilim. I’ve a novella I completed during this time which I’ll need to rework at some point, but there’s dust, open spaces and an abandoned landscape. Civilisation as we know it has come to an end and man is at the mercy of the elements. At least that’s what I feel when I listen to McCoy. If you want to write a post-apocalyptic Western, listen to this band. Mourning Sun is one of my many favourites. See:

I must make special mention of Azam Ali. She’s a very prolific Iranian-born musician who stands with her feet rooted firmly in the musical traditions of both West and East, incorporating Middle Eastern sounds in a contemporary package. Oh my, and she’s lush. Now that I’ve finally embarked on writing secondary world fantasy, I listen to her a lot, as she invokes an undercurrent of exoticism that helps me visualise my settings. Eerie, soulful and enigmatic – she helps me seek the muse of mystery. Her musical endeavours are also marketed in groups such as Niyaz and VAS, and I’d say that she compares very favourably to the likes of Lisa Gerrard from Dead Can Dance.
 Go look up her Endless Reverie,

Before I conclude, however, I’m going to toss one
 of my all-time favourites – none other than JS Bach. He’s my special treat, and when I need to totally go into a writing trance, I listen to The Art of Fugue. There are some stunning recordings arranged either for the pipe organ or strings. Both types are sublime. If you want to hear a musical composer who speaks with the voice of the divine, Bach was one such. No other has been able to follow up with the complexity and sheer perfection of his preludes and fugues. He was a master of his art, and for me, as an author, to plug into the beauty of his creations inspires me to craft a tapestry of brilliance with my words.

Listen to Contrapunctus 1:

Bio:

Nerine Dorman is a somewhat grumpy editor, author and musician who resides in a Treehaus in Cape Town, South Africa, where she cares for her husband, who is an award-winning indie filmmaker and visual artist. Nerine is cultivating a steadily encroaching forest, likes Earl Grey tea and can be bribed with cupcakes. Sometimes she hand-rears pigeons, but only bites…a little.

Follow me on Twitter @nerinedorman
on Facebook~
Nerine Dorman 

My novel, Inkarna, is available from Amazon. Go grab it now while it’s on special. http://www.amazon.com/Inkarna-Nerine-Dorman/dp/0983160392/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1336592119&sr=8-1

A Warm Sigh with Tunes of Dawn

I can't claim discovering this band, but when I was made aware of them, I instantly fell in love. The baritone vocals and sweeping melodies turn my bones to jello. I’m excited to welcome Tunes of Dawn vocalist Hagen Schneevoigt here to the blog, so let’s get to it.

 Welcome Hagen, Tell me a little about Tunes of Dawn. How did they come into being? Who are the current members?

 It all started out in 1993 when we were a death metal band. But we became kind of bored over the years and decided to change our style. Also of the different tastes of the Members.
 Tunes Of Dawn is me, Hagen Schneevoigt, on bass and vocals, Martin Schorlemmer on drums, Gunter Büchau on keyboards and Rene Gödde on guitars.

 What are the band's influences? Personal influences?

 The main influences are of course rock and metal. But in fact we are all listening to different music like jazz, classic, pop, gothic and whatever, everyone brings their own taste into the band. The mixture of our tastes bring a lot of musical influences into our style. Type O Negative is definitely one of them, but there are so many others, ranging from Black Sabbath to Pink Floyd.
 Many times it’s not so easy to say which is the strongest influence, especially because it can differ so much from one piece to another. It was always important to us not to restrict ourselves to one style, to keep growing and try out new as well as old stuff.

What is the band’s writing process like?

 With most songs I have the outline in my mind and, by playing and everyone bringing ideas in, the song is created. Sometimes one of the others has a song-line created already. Other times I have a song completely written out and we just fine-tune it in the rehearsals.
 Within these different processes a song is sometimes created in one day; sometimes it takes a month or more. It depends on the mood we are in or we're trying thousands of different sounds for a song.

Two major themes for ToD seem to be suicide and hope. Care to elaborate on the juxtaposition of these two themes?

 Suicide always was a theme, symbolizing so much the extreme situations a human can get into, where taking your own life seems the most absurd thing to do for a living creature and, on the other hand, such a logical and easy solution of dealing with a world completely out of its mind. So, it breaks down to Hamlet’s contemplation whether there is more honour in bearing life in silent suffering, or to withdraw and refrain from taking part in this crazy game.
 Then again, it feels so helpless to just let everything happen, and there might be the option to fight. This is where hope comes into the picture. As long as we keep breathing there might be a way to conquer your own life and fill it with love instead of despair. And this is where you can find a strength in yourself you didn’t believe could be there and rise and rage. And, then again, you find it was all in vain in the end and all you want is to vanish and finally find time to relax, finally find peace. And be it in pieces. But because of that, our music is not just sad. Sometimes its hopeless too ;o)


What do you do when not playing with Tunes of Dawn?

Well, beside the band, each of us works in a regular job. Unfortunately the music does not pay. Some of us are also involved in some other musical projects, like playing in a cover band to gain some money or helping out friends in the studio with their recordings. It’s good to keep the diversity in our musical minds. Be it playing in a band with different music, sound- or composing-structure. Or keeping musically fit, for example playing in a cover-band.

What kind of bass do you play?

 Usually I play a 5 string LTD bass, but I also play Ibanez and an ESH bass. It depends on the sound I need.

 Favorite fan moment?

The last record release show in October 2010 in Berlin. In the middle of one song almost 500 people raised burning sparklers and fluorescing crosses. I almost forgot to sing. A stunning moment.

Most embarrassing moment?

 I think that was when a string of my bass and a string of Rene's guitar broke at the same time on stage. We just looked at each other and started to giggle. But mostly because we had to stop playing to change the strings. It felt like an hour. But shit happens.

 Whiskey or Vodka?

 Definitely both :o)


 If you could sit down to dinner with 5 historical people(living or dead, and they can be musicians) who would they be and why?

 I think that would be Elvis Presley, Peter Steele, Billy Idol, Jack the Ripper and Beethoven. The musicians are major influences for us. I would ask Jack the Ripper how he managed to never be caught.

 What is next for Tunes of Dawn?

What can we look forward to? Currently we are writing new material for the next album which will hopefully be released next spring. But before we are releasing a digital EP called "Basement Goodies" carrying some specialties like acoustic-songs, a remix and a song we have written for our friend Kilian Kerner for his show on the fashion week in Berlin. It will be out on June 1st.

 

you can find Tunes of Dawn at the following links~

http://tunesofdawn.bandcamp.com
www.tunesofdawn.com
www.myspace.com/tunesofdawnmusic
www.reverbnation.com/tunesofdawn
www.youtube.com/user/TunesOfDawn