Brad Arnold, lead vocalist & lyricist for 3 Doors Down
Some people have asked if I write to music. I don't, unless it's instrumental and very soft in the background. I'm a lyrics girl and I find myself distracted by the words of songs if I'm trying to write. Really easily. It's like being distracted by bacon. That easy.
But, being a lyrics girl, as I'm writing a story and I'm doing dishes, working out, driving my car, I catch songs that resonate with what I'm working on. So when I come across a song or two that work really well with a character, scene, a choice, a mood, I add it to that book's Playlist.
I was sewing today, working on the last bridesmaid dress for the wedding, and pulled up my Playlist for OF GRACE AND CHOCOLATE. I tweaked it a little, moved a couple songs around, and I think it does a pretty good job of capturing the novel. Wanna listen? Here you go. Afterward, I'll tell you why I chose each song, if you're interested. *may be spoilers, though I'll try to be careful*
Times Like These, Foo Fighters. This song is a great summation for the whole novel. It's times like these you learn to live againIt's times like these you give and give againIt's times like these you learn to love againIt's times like these time and time again And the song isn't about good times. It's about turning points, trials, decisions. Breathe In, Breath Out, Matt Kearney. Taking things one breath at a time. Jill's very set world is crumbling and she has to do this, learn this. Hold on, hold tightMake it through another nightAnd everyday, there comes a song with the dawn. Away From the Sun, 3 Doors Down. This song actually makes an appearance in the book, and the band does as well. It's Scott's ringtone. Jill isn't the only one who's had it rough. I hesitated to put an actual song and band in the book for fear of dating it, but this song is pretty timeless, in my opinion. And later when a concert was needed, I didn't want a made-up band. I'm over thisI'm tired of living in the darkCan anyone see me down here It Doesn't Matter, Alison Krauss and Union Station. Jill's mother was an alcoholic. This song is for the tricycle scene. It just is. If you've made up your mind to goI won't beg you to stayYou've been in a cageThrow you to the wind, you fly away It doesn't matter if I cryDon't matter if I bleed Best of What's Around, Vitamin String Quartet. This reflects Scott's upbeat attempt in asking Jill out. It's a nice break from the more serious tones. I wish I'd found more songs like this for the lighter parts. I'll keep my ears open. So Long, So Long, Dashboard Confessional. Perfect. Costa Rica. Flashback. Song. How the girls can turn to ghosts before your eyesAnd the very dreams that led to themAre keeping them from dying And how the grace with which she walked into your lifeAnd stayed with you in your stepsAnd paced with you a whileFor so long, so long, so long, so long That I Would Be Good, Alanis Morissette. Introduction to Evie. This song tears at my heart every time, and I think it's what a lot of young girls yearn for. That I would be loved even when I numb myself. Your Arms Feel Like Home, 3 Doors Down. Scott and Jill find each other. I felt so many things this weary soul can’t takeMaybe you just caught me by surprise. The Only Exception, Paramore. Jill is breaking her own rules. The Road I'm On, 3 Doors Down. This song reminded me of Trey and Evie. What you thought was real in lifeHas somehow steered you wrongAnd now you just keep drivin'Tryin' to find where you belong. Blinding, Florence and the Machine. Evie makes her choice.No more dreaming of the dead as if death itself was undoneNo more crawling like a crow for a boy, for a body in the gardenNo more dreaming like a girl so in love, so in loveNo more dreaming like a girl so in love with the wrong world It Stops Today, Colbie Caillat. Jill makes her choice. This is such a stark contrast to the above song, but both girls are attempting the same thing: to face their fear. You can hide from all the pain but it will find you anywayYes I know, now I know That I can't keep on running. Plastic Bag, American Beauty Soundtrack. The alley scene. All the movement, the lights, the sound, the terror, all muted and slowed . . . bittersweet. Better Off Alive, Train. End credits. These guys are lyrics people, too. Hey, thanks for being interested enough to stick around! I really do love the emotion songs can lend to writing. What do you think?
I can finally post it! First, the link to the original iconic music video is here. The link to the parody starring a bunch of goofy and amazingly talented writers is here.
FICTION (Freedom, George Michael)
I might write it down
I might make it up
Gotta move the words all around
I’ll take my chances with this plot
I might write it down
I might make it up
‘Cause I would really really love to be contract-bound, oh yeah
Heaven knows I was just a young kid
Didn’t know what I wanted to be
I was every high school English teacher’s pride and joy
But it wasn’t quite enough for me
To win the race, a well-timed pace
A seamless plot and my MC’s face
On an ad for a Whitney
But the reason why I write this way is not the same
No way
You can think of it as therapy
I think there's something you should know
I think it's time I told you so
There's something deep inside of me
There's someone else I've got to be
I’ve got these voices in my head
You should be careful where you tread
I just hope you understand
Sometimes your lives end up in my hands.
All we have to do now
Is take these lies and make them true somehow
All we have to see
what might be lies to you
Are real enough to me yeah yeah
Fiction,
Fiction,
Fiction,
Be careful what you say
Fiction,
Fiction,
Fiction,
Be careful what you say
Heaven knows we sure have some fun, boy
What a kick, just my hero and me
We have every angst-filled villain bent on the run, boy
yes we’re living in a fantasy
finding romance
taking a chance
solving crime with a second glance
at my double-you-I-P
And the way I play the game ain’t gonna change
No way
Yeah, you can call it therapy
I think there's something you should know
I think it’s time the world should know
There's something deep inside of me
There’s someone else I’ve got to be
I’ve got these voices in my head
You should be careful where you tread
I just hope you understand
Sometime your lives end up in my hands
All we have to do now
Is take these lies and make them true somehow
All we have to see
what might be lies to you
are real enough to me, yeah yeah
Fiction
Fiction
Fiction
Be careful what you say
Fiction
Fiction
Fiction
Be careful what you say
Well it looks like the road to published
but it feels like it never ends
I submitted in the summer
now the snow is making the trees bend
Imagine my book signing
Going through a million pens
But if I get that far
Chances are
I’ll get put next to Mary Higgins Clark
That's what you get,
That's what you get,
That's what you get,
I say that's what you get
That's what you get for playing in your mind
That's what you get for playing in your mind
That's what you get,
That's what you get,
And after all this time
I just hope you understand
Sometimes your lives end up in my hands
All we have to do now is take these lies
And make them true somehow
All we have to see is what might be lies to you
are real enough to me yeah yeah
Fiction,
Fiction,
Fiction,
Be careful what you say
Fiction,
Fiction,
Fiction,
Be careful what you say
Be careful what you careful what you say
be careful what you say to me
it may end up in my mystery
what you say now
I’ve got to write I’ve got to write
(return to top)
Thanks to Crystal Leichty,Debbie Hulet, Elizabeth Mueller, Frank Cole, Jaime Theler, Heather Moore, Jessica Day George, Josi Kilpack, LeAnn Setzer, Marion Jensen, Melissa J. Cunningham, Michele Holmes, Sarah Eden, Paul Eden, and Stephanie Fowers. So glad I'm not alone in this.
I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions. ~James Michener
I am reading a book I won in a blog contest called "The Fairy Thorn", by Dorothy Keddington. I am only on chapter 3, but as I read today while waiting for my son's piano lesson to finish, I was reminded of the above quote. Dorothy's language is lovely, rhythmic.
Her opening sentences:
I stood at the edge of the drive with poems by Wordsworth and E.E. Cummings running through my mind and a bittersweet yearning inside. It was "just spring" and there were "daffodills fluttering and dancing in the breeze," and the world really was "puddle luscious" because it had rained softly during the night... And here I was, feeling the soft air and the fragrance and all the stirrings of spring, standing on the edge of things the way I always did.
And later:
Straight ahead, the massive steel girders spanned the deep gorge in a solid hand-clasp of metal arches and cantilevers, while far below, the restless waters made their own way.
It's just a portion, but being a Washington girl for the most part, her entire description of the bridge spanning Deception Pass takes my breath away, as does the memory of standing above those girders and looking at the swirling currents of ocean a very long way down.
I have heard so many writers share what music does for their voice, their expression of emotion, the tempo or pace of their scenes. "...the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotion."
Find the music in what you read, what you write. Writer's are given the opportunity to not only paint pictures, but compose as well.
Since I now have Remnant out to a few readers, I'll go ahead and post the "soundtrack" I've been sitting on for a few months. What? A soundtrack for a Book of Mormon-ish novel?
I told you, it happens. Enjoy!
Added 1-15-10: Thanks, David J. West for sharing your BoM playlist. Filter, The Killers, and Lacuna Coil rounded things out; just what I was looking for.
With the harsh scrape of chair against linoleum, Jill jerked out of her day dream as the dripping moss-hung trees of an ancient forest dissipated into the bland meeting room of the offices of Brasher Books, Inc. Blinking, she heard more chairs pushed away from the conference table. They had been dismissed.
It wasn’t like her, to lose focus like that.
She looked over the notes she’d just taken, circling the number she was to call the minute she returned to her desk, where she’d absently left her phone on a pile of paper. Again, out of character. People filed out of the room, murmuring about trends, clients, and the Labor Day weekend they had planned.
“Is this a manuscript?”
Jill hastily looked to the manicured fingertips pressed on the stack of documents next to her. “Oh,” her gaze moved up to the face belonging to the red lacquered nails, “Ms. Martin. Yes. I mean, no. I mean . . . I was just cleaning out my desk before the meeting and it was tucked in my—“
Rowena Martin, managing editor of Brasher Books Publishing, pointed to the name under the title. “This is you?”
“Yes.”
“What is it about?”
“Umm . . .” She swallowed. She had just read somewhere that an author should have two really good sentences at the ready, so she can answer that exact question. Jill hadn’t taken the time to think of any. “It’s a novel . . . based on a woman’s faith . . . and overcoming obstacles against all odds.” Ugh. Boring. “It’s a romance.”
“What faith, if I may ask?”
She took a deep breath. “I’m LDS.” Wait for it. “It’s a Mormon novel.”
Ms. Martin’s sharp eyebrows rose. “And this is the title?”
“Yes. Tentatively.”
In a quick movement Jill’s manuscript was in the woman’s arms. “Are you any good?” She looked down, lifting the top page. What kind of question was that? The woman didn’t seem to expect an answer. “I’ll take a look. We’re exploring a new division, as you heard. Faith-based fiction. Ripley and Grosskopf have already approached me with their own ideas.”
Jill thought to argue that though Ripley and Grosskopf were slush-pile editors, given the mind-bending task of sorting through doubtful first submissions, they were probably above mere secretaries on the publishing ladder. She held her tongue.
The woman perused the unbound pages. “This falls into that category, does it not?”
Jill nodded numbly, her voice receding somewhere deep inside her abdomen, not to be found. The woman turned on her heels and walked away.
Jill blinked, then panic slapped her in the gut, dislodging her voice. “Ms. Martin!”
The woman turned, looking over her rectangular glasses.
Jill stood and steadied herself, eyeing the manuscript in such powerful hands. “I’m sorry, Ms. Martin, but I can’t let you take that.”
The woman stared, disbelieving.
“I mean . . . that’s only the second draft, a partial. It’s a mess. Since then I’ve cut two characters, an aimless subplot, and thirty pages off the ending. That’s not the copy you want.” She swallowed and tried to stop grasping at her hands. She pulled them behind her back. “Actually, I’ve already submitted it to Brasher. The edits were based on remarks in the rejection letter.” Jill lowered her eyes, but then blew out a breath and stepped forward, lifting her chin. “I can get you a copy of the finished revision, though. It’s on my jump-drive.”
Ms. Martin gazed at Jill, then snapped her wrist over and glanced at her watch, then at the title page in her grasp. She handed the manuscript back.
Jill’s voice fled back to its hiding place, along with any hopes this encounter had conjured.
“I’ll be in Bob Brasher’s office until 2:00. Get the copy to me before I leave, Miss Parish.”
Jill’s heart raced. “Yes. Thank you. I will.”
The glass door closed behind Rowena Martin, soundless.
Jill stood, magnetized in place, trembling hand holding the partial manuscript. She had nearly thrown it out while cleaning her desk, but decided last minute to hang onto it with the crazy notion it might, just might, be valuable someday. It was sheer luck that she’d mistakenly grabbed it with her notebook in her haste to get to the meeting.
“I would get on that if I were you.”
Jill jumped at the soft voice next to her ear. A shiver dispelled any lock the moment had on her. It was not pleasant.
“Not so close, Ortiz, I’ve got your wife’s cell phone on speed dial.”
He put his hands up defensively, his dark eyes wide in feigned innocence. “Hey, hey. Just sayin’ you shouldn’t waste time, that’s all.”
Jill cut him a sharp look, ignoring his smoldering grin and heady cologne, and gathered her things.
He chuckled. “I love it when you call me by my last name.”
Ugh. She pushed through the door. She could think of a few things she’d rather call him. She made her way to her cubicle.
Marci popped up over the partition, her red bob bouncing. “Hey, how’d it go?”
“You mean besides the visual groping I just received from Ortiz?” Marci grimaced. Jill took a deep breath. “Ask me in twenty minutes.”
“Right-o.” Marci dropped back down.
Jill liked that about Marci. Not too pushy. She opened the top drawer of her desk. “Keys, keys, keys . . .” they weren’t there. She began again, methodically this time.
“My keys are gone. My keys are gone . . . Marci.”
Marci popped up. “Yes?”
“Have you seen my keys? You know, four keys, library card, very important zip-drive?”
Marci was nodding her head, searching the unusually littered desktop over the partition. “Yeah, with the silver palm tree. No, I haven’t seen them. Wow, I’ve never seen your desk this messy.”
Jill spoke from below the desktop. “I was cleaning it out.”
“Why are you cleaning your desk now?”
“I wanted it done before the long weekend.” Jill blew out an exasperated breath and scanned her desk on her knees. She attacked the drawer where she kept her keys once more. “Wait a minute.” Her eyes came up, searching. “Where’s my phone?” She stood up. I left it here on top of this pile.” She glanced around the office. “Has anyone been at my cubicle?”
“I didn’t see anyone while I was here. But I’ve been down in editing for the last hour.”
Jillian sat down hard on her chair and rubbed her hand over her forehead. “Okay, okay, I’ve got it at home.” She looked at the time. She’d never make it. And her keys were missing. She dropped her elbows on the manuscript. “Why would this happen right now?”
Abruptly, music started playing and she jumped.
“Is that your phone?” Marci asked.
“No, I don’t have that ringtone.”
“Well, it’s coming from your desk.”
“It is coming from my desk. What in the . . .?” She sorted under some files and wrapped her fingers around the slim phone. She pulled it up. 3 Doors Down played Away From the Sun. “This is not my phone, but the call is my number.”
“Well, answer it.”
“Don’t you think this is odd?”
Marci shrugged, her blue eyes unquestioning.
Jill lifted the phone to her ear. “Hello?”
“Hey, I believe you have my phone.”
“Who is this?”
“Stand up.”
She didn’t have time for this. “Why should I? Do you have my phone?”
“Relax, Sister Parish, and the phone won’t get hurt.” His voice was friendly. “Stand up . . . please.”
Carefully, she stood.
“Now, walk to the east windows.”
Marci followed her as Jill canvassed the east windows beyond the next row of cubicles. She entered the empty conference room she had just left and stood facing the next glass building on their block. Cape & Moore Publishing occupied the same floor in that building as her company did in this one. They were a smaller company, new.
“Is something going to blow up?” she asked, only half joking. Marci widened her eyes and stepped back, twirling a short lock of red hair in her fingers.
The voice chuckled. “No. Well, maybe your temper, but I hope not.”
Jill took a deep breath and folded her arms. “Who is this and how did you get my phone?”
“Fourth window from your right, straight across.”
She counted. She saw him. “Wave.”
He did. He placed his hand in his pocket. Scott Gentry.
Marci peered forward. “Ooh, do you know him?”
Jill covered the phone and steadied her breathing. She did know him. A little. She doubted he remembered. “He moved here a couple of weeks ago . . . goes to my church.”
“Hm. Church-going, and bold. And cute. At least from here. Well, what does he want? Not to blow us up, I hope.”
Jill’s curiosity was overcome by her sense of minutes ticking away.
His voice came across again. “Do you have a key to that drawer in your desk?”
Jill took a deep breath. “Yes.” She pictured it in the tray, next to the place her keys should have been.
“Hm. You should use it. By the way, your desk is a mess.”
“How dare you. Listen, I—“
She stopped at his soft laugh and watched him as he paced casually behind the window. “Please, the front desk was busy, so I asked someone where I could find you. I only wanted to get your attention.”
Her heart flopped unpleasantly. “Why would you want to do that?” If he remembered anything at all, he would say so now.
“I don’t know, I was hoping we—“
Wrong answer. “So you stole my keys?”
“Well, I didn’t want you driving off. And I borrowed them. They’re ransom.”
“My phone isn’t?”
“Well, you have my phone.”
“Not for long. You have my attention Brother Gentry, but I don’t think it’s the kind you’re after.”
“See, you do know me. And it’s Scott.”
Her teeth ground at the clumsiness of her heartbeat. “Listen, Scott, I am in dire need of those keys.” She glanced at her watch. “There is something on that zip drive and if I don’t get it in the next ten minutes, I could miss the opportunity of a lifetime. Do you understand me?”
She watched him fumble in his pocket, then look at the drive in his hand.
“I’m sorry.” The play in his voice had gone. “What do you want me to do?” He looked her way.
She thought. Elevators would take too long. Sprinting down the stairs in heels would be risky in more than a few ways. “Unless you have a high-powered slingshot, I suggest you stick that drive in the nearest computer and send me the file called Grace and Chocolate.” She’d like to tell him where else he could stick it, but hung on to what was left of her composure.
“You’re serious?”
“Yes, Scott, I am. So serious, my fingers are hovering over the number for the downtown Portland Police Bureau.”
He disappeared from the window. “I’m uploading the file right now. Where do I send it?”
“jparish at brasherbooks dot com.” She shook her head at the ceiling and made her way back to her cubicle. “What were you thinking?”
“Is this a book?”
“Yes, and you are to delete the file as soon as I receive it, got that?”
“Hey, this is you. So, you’re a writer.”
“Aren’t most of us?” She could name at least a dozen aspiring authors on her floor alone.
“There, it’s sent.”
She breathed a silent sigh of relief as she watched her inbox. “I hope it prints in time,” she mumbled.
Marci leaned over her back. “Does somebody want it?”
“Maybe. Rowena Martin.”
“Rowena Martin?”
Jill found herself annoyed Scott Gentry was still on the phone. “Yes, Scott, Rowena Martin, Managing Editor of Brasher Books. She gave me until two. O’clock.” His silence reminded her of her previous question. “Well, what were you thinking?”
“I . . . well it’s pretty lame, now . . .”
“I’m thinking it was pretty lame before.”
“I asked about you. I heard you were . . . well, that you were . . .”
“That I was what?”
“That you were difficult to . . . distract.”
“Distract from what?”
“From your busy life.”
She felt a small lurch in her stomach. “Well, Scott, you’ve certainly succeeded in distracting me for several infuriating minutes, but now I have to get back to that busy life and see if I can make something of it. I have the file. You can pick up your phone at our front desk. I’ll expect to find mine there, too. And my keys. Goodbye.”
She handed the phone to Marci. “Could you please take that down for me? Scott Gentry.”
“Sure.” Marci took the phone. “Mind if I wait around, have a peek when he brings yours in?”
“If you do I don’t want to hear about it.”
Marci gave her a pout, turned her petite frame, and pranced away to the elevators. Jill sent the file to the high-speed printer in the copy room, and only then did she fold her arms over her messy desk and drop her head on top of them.
Difficult to distract? Difficult to distract? Compelling a man to theft? Whatever happened to a rose and a telegram, like in the old movies? Or a chance encounter . . . briefcases colliding and eyes meeting over the mess of papers. That is a distraction. Finding each other at sunset along a tropical shore . . . But, theft? Who had he been talking to? And he certainly did not remember . . . it was a long time ago. A lifetime.
Jill groaned into her arms. “I have a busylife.”
Her eyes lifted to the computer screen. Printing: 85% complete.
She jumped out of her chair, stuffed her purse into the cabinet and locked it with the key from the drawer. She hurried to the copy room, only then remembering the phone call she had been assigned to make as the meeting let out. Jill reached for her cell phone, then pulled her hand back from her empty pocket. The call would have to wait.
Jill strode toward the desk in front of Robert Brasher’s corner office, the manuscript feeling warm, thick, and new in her arm. She had almost slipped it into one of the large copy envelopes, but decided against it, using only a big jaw clip on the top edge. Out of sight, out of mind. She looked down again at the title page. Right out in the open.
Saved By Grace and Chocolate
Jillian Parish
“Whoa—” Something heavy slammed against the book and her arms. She felt the pages fan out and her fingers grappled to keep them together in that thickness she loved, but the clip had other ideas, slipping away and flinging to the floor, followed by the gentle fluttering of three hundred and twenty-eight newly printed pages of a faith-based fiction romance.
“Oh no,” she heard him say.
She dropped to her knees as her eyes were drawn to the origin of that voice. Scott Gentry was dropping down with her, tossing his own things aside, scrambling to pick up page after page after page . . .
I have this thing about music to go along with these stories I'm writing. The Inn is the second book, after The Orchard, in the Finding Home Trilogy. Enjoy!
As I write, I cannot listen to music or television, humming, gameboy, or even gum-chewing. Too distracting from the movie I am watching in my head and desperately trying to describe with words. But I do listen to music when I am not writing; when I exercise, run errands, cleaning the house... I put together playlists like soundtracks, assigning a song as I hear it, for the first time, or an old song, to a particular place in the novel. It is not something I set out to do. It just happens naturally. Music is a huge part of who I am, a driving force. Do not think I am a musician. I was once asked to stop playing the piano by the primary children as I tried to plink out a song we were learning when our piano player was a no-show. "Please, Sister Jensen, we can sing it without the piano." Hm. They were very polite.
There are three key songs I could no longer find on Playlist. My Sweet Embraceable You, by Nat King Cole; All We'd Ever Need, and Can't Take My Eyes Off You, Derick and Alisen's waltz, by Lady Antebellum. I had written a waltz into the barn dance scene, and so it was in the back of my mind when I was finding All We'd Ever Need on Playlist. I had heard that one, and browsed around to hear Lady A's other songs. When I heard Can't Take My Eyes Off You, I couldn't believe it. It was a waltz, hard to find and SO perfect. It was the waltz they danced to in Ben's barn. These songs are so utterly romantic, I suggest you look them up and have a listen. Here is a Lady A site with some samples. Wish I could find a feed to upload them on Playlist. Ah, well. I have the CD's if you'd like to borrow them. By the way, their number one hit, Run To You, was on the soundtrack for The Inn before it was even released, and One Day You Will is the theme song to the entire series. Yeah, I'm a fan.
