Posts Tagged ‘inspiration’

I’m really loving this album. I play it at work all the time, but it just does no justice to it. I hear this song, and each time I have to stop and listen, because the song Basket is just amazing. Without doubt one of those songs which makes your soul shake just to hear [...]

It is almost as if Tolkien created a history book from which fantasy could refer to in the same way Gemmell referred to Roman or British history books. Not quite stealing, but more adapting and moving a few things around. That way you keep the basic feel and elements, but you create your own world which is both distinctive and easy for the reader to relate to because, thanks to the viral effects of Tolkien, they know everything they need to about Elves and Dwarves now. You don’t need to provide endless history, language and extreme depths to these characters because Tolkien already did it for us.

You see, it seems these days there’s a great emphasis on fantasy being a minimum of 120,000 words. Ideally, a fantasy novel should be begging the better side of 1000 pages, and more is better. I admit to being a bit like this. I feel that paying $25 for a book of 3000 pages is better than paying $25 for something only 180 or so. That’s just how I think. But, now I’m beginning to think I’m wrong.

You see, that’s capitalism thinking. That’s not me thinking the book is better because it’s longer. That’s me thinking I want more pages for my buck. I want more trees to die.

I personally prefer a lot of pumped up music, though I’n inclined to make small soundtracks which I can change depending on the mood of the piece I’m writing. For example, when writing fight, action, or just the plot, I listen to a lot of punk. The Cramps is fantastic for this. When writing moody self-reflections, monologues, or emotional moments, I go with something a little more electro. A personal favourite is Snog, or Black Lung. Industrial, such as Laibach, Lard or Pigface is great for writing badguy descriptions, and when trying to work on landscape descriptions, I love to go with classics, like Led Zepp, the Rolling Stones, or Black Sabbath. The key is to keep soundtracks with similar tempos. This causes less interruption and feels like I’m writing scenes to a movie in my head complete with the most appropriate soundtrack. I adapt the song to suit my purpose, and I’m always looking for songs whose lyrics match what I’m trying to achieve, too. Just to keep the spirit of the scene.