Musical Musings

On Friday, I did something. (Aside from not writing a post on procrastination, which I certainly did, but did not get around to.) What did I do? I cut three thousand words. That's pretty good. As part of that editing, I rewrote a song. A song that I first wrote … well, a very long time ago. And then rewrote a slightly shorter time ago. And rewrote, and rewrote, and finally, rewrote. I'm quite pleased with the current version, but the horror and pain of writing it got me thinking about music in general, and music in books in particular.

Music is power. Or at least powerful. It can mess with my emotions better than almost anything else. (Exceptions being my book, my life, and mosquitoes, if by 'mess with,' you mean 'totally unhinge'.) And I know I'm not the only one. (You hate mosquitoes too, right?) Music evokes powerful emotions in just about everyone. For example, I recently came across the song Just A Dream by Carrie Underwood. I was bawling by the end, and feeling an insane urge to kill all the characters whose lives I've saved and save all the characters I've killed. I didn't do it, fortunately. That would be a lot of death. And how would all the little girls take care of themselves? (I really don't kill that many little girls. Less than ten, I think.)

Point is, music reaches people. That's why I use it in my book. It's an important part of my characters' lives, one in particular. The specific song I rewrote on Friday (Dance With Me, for those who know) hugely influences the most important decision above character makes in this book.

That's a lot of punch to pack into 150 words. That's the problem with music in books. Books are not musical. So, essentially, I'm writing down lyrics. Lyrics that need to convey the emotion of the song clearly enough that the reader can understand its effect on the character.

I hope I did a good job. I certainly spent long enough working on it. It's scenes like that one that make me wonder why I do such hard things in my books. Couldn't I write a book where words didn't exist and all they did to make music was bang trash can lids together and howl? (Come to think of it, that does have a powerful emotional effect on me. Especially when my little brothers do it.) I could, I guess, but that would be even harder. And it wouldn't be this book. This beautiful, awesomely-imperfect book, where music is important and is very hard to write. Maybe that would be nice.

Nah. Better save the emotional trash can lids for another day.