Modern Surprises

This is a guest interview with my friend Joan Marie Verba about her new project on Kindle Scout.

Hi Joan! How would you summarize your book, Modern Surprises?

Madeline Chang and the other women at Modern Surprises, LLC, needed someone to answer the phones. Jay Ecklund was hired. From the very first day, he found this was no ordinary company: the scientists there had secretly developed a portal that would allow them to go to anywhere on Earth. Billionaire industrialist Charles Vance found out about the portal, and was willing to lie, cheat, and steal to get it for himself. But Madeline Chang and the rest of the team were not about to let him have it.

How did you come up with the idea?

I started writing Modern Surprises after I finished my children’s chapter book (Wondry Dragon Finds a Home) and one of the members of my writing workshop said she enjoyed my writing and wished I would start another story. What I had in the beginning was the scene where Charles T. Vance threatens the Modern Surprises team in order to get them to give him Arachne, their portal. (I didn’t even come up with the company name until after I’d been writing chapters for a year.. In fact, I only had a vague idea what Arachne was.) Then I worked from that scene to build the background and first chapters, and after that, continued to the conclusion.

It turned out that the writing process paralleled the process of the development of Arachne. As I wrote, I was finding out the capabilities and limits of Arachne along with the Modern Surprises team. I definitely intended to have fun with the novel, and intended for the characters to have fun, as well--because I believe science is fun (I have a physics degree). Through the novel, I explore the fact that technology needs to be tested, that there are unexpected effects, and that technology doesn’t always work in the way the original design indicated it might (and that can be delightful). When the characters find that Arachne responds to music, it adds yet another dimension to the technology.

Then, when you have this exciting breakthrough technology, what do you do with it? Do you keep it secret, or do you make it public? And if it has a potential to be misused by those with selfish intentions, how do you keep it safe? Even more, how does technology affect your daily activities, and your interactions with others? How does it factor in with one’s ethical decisions and obligations?

I’ve summarized Modern Surprises as “scientists having fun saving the world.” It is my hope that readers will have as much fun reading it as I did writing it.

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You can read the excerpt from Modern Surprises here and decide if you want to nominate it for a publishing contract with Amazon.

DO YOU HAVE MUSIC IN YOUR WRITING?

Whether you love music or not, it may influence your writing.

When I write a story, I don’t always mention a particular song. Often though, I’ve heard or played a song on the piano that floats around in my head, and it seems to speak to me as I’m writing. SEALED WITH A KISS, from long, long ago, is one such song. Yes, I know, it’s outdated, but humor me. I enjoy the “old” songs because I understand them better than the “modern” music.

This song was a hit for several different singers, though not so much for the authors, at first. Later, it became quite popular. And as I wrote my YA contemporary novel, LIFE ON HOLD, in 2012, this song spoke to me. I thought of it often while telling Myra’s story.

Photo from Wikipedia

 

 

Amazon

"Sealed with a Kiss" is a song written by Peter Udell and Gary Geld. It was first recorded by The Four Voices in 1960 and released as a single, but their recording was not a hit.


"Sealed with a Kiss" Single by The Four Voices B-side "You're All There Is" Released May 1960 Genre Pop Length 2:03 Writer(s) Peter Udell, Gary Geld

In 1962, Brian Hyland, who often performed Udell and Geld's material, covered the song. Hyland's single began its run on June 6, 1962 and became a hit, reaching No. 3 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and the UK Singles Chart.[2] When re-released in 1975, Hyland's recording charted in the UK at No. 7.

One of my very first books, SECRETS I HAVE KEPT, the print edition published in 2006, the ebook much earlier, has music in it. Jennifer plays classical music on the piano. Casey writes country ballads for his guitar. This was so much fun to write. And opposites do attract. Sometimes.

 

Amazon

Then there’s Elvis Presley. Young people today may not know him, but he insisted I include him in the story I’m now shopping around. How on earth could I mention a singer from so long ago and relate him to today’s readers? Good question. We’ll see if I accomplished the task, meaning if a publisher offers me a contract. Some of Presley’s first songs were MY HAPPINESS, THAT'S WHEN YOUR HEARTACHES BEGIN, I'LL NEVER STAND IN YOUR WAY.

Photo from Wikipedia

This has something to do with my latest story.

How about you? Does music influence your writing? Do you use popular songs or write your own or just mention titles?

Happy Reading

Music as Character

Music is an important part of my life. It's also an important part of my writing life. I grew up in a musical household, although no one was professional. My father, a doctor by profession, schooled all of us in classical music because that was all he listened to in his car while he drove us to to various destinations. Being Asian, we also grew up with music lessons: piano for me and my sister, accordion and organ for my brothers. And most of all, my older siblings were so into rock and roll that some Billboard hits are part and parcel of my childhood memories. I was probably all of seven when I bought my first-ever 45 single.

That said, I found it only natural to include music in my writing life. There were certain albums I always listened to when I wrote, depending on what I was doing. Vivaldi was fantastic for school work as well as fiction, back when I was in high school. The current top 20 was what I needed for writing in my journal. And the Beatles went with just about everything.

The habit followed me into adulthood and I can give you the soundtrack for every novel I have written, up to and including the "anchor song." My anchor songs relate to specific characters and listening to those songs gets me into a mindset at the speed of sound. Maybe even quicker -at the speed of thought. I think what I call a "soundtrack" other writers sometimes refer to as a "playlist." (Unless I'm wrong, which is entirely possible, and the playlist is actually what their characters are listening to during the course of a story.)

The important thing is that it's all about the music. I can write without it, but have a much easier time if my relevant tunes are playing while I'm composing. I know writers who think I am insane -that music would be too much of a distraction from writing and that they could not possibly get anything done with the stereo blasting. Steven King, however, writes to AC/DC so I figure I'm in good company!

Recently, two different musical-type people I know tried to show me that I don't appreciate music the same way they do since I am able to write while listening to it. They told me that it must mean that it doesn't move me or affect me or transport me the way it does them. I must admit I found the observations from both of them, although well-meant, to be hurtful. There are times I feel music so strongly that I'm sure I could climb into its very substance and live the rest of my life in its protection. In Saving Jake, I mentioned that "music saved both his life and his sanity." Since I tell people that Saving Jake is actually my fictionalized biography, I must have been writing about myself.

As I mentioned earlier, every single one of my novels has a soundtrack. I frequently wonder how many writers out there are doing the same thing. I would love to know the background music, the other "character", involved in creating those novels I've read by other music-oriented authors.

BIRTHDAYS AND CHANGES

Recently, I celebrated my … mmm … birthday. Oh, well, I’ll tell you my age. Planet earth has been my home for three-quarters of a century. Wow! I never thought I’d say that. Anyhow, I was a teen in the swinging 50s. The word teenager was coined in the 1950s. The 50s were a time of change. As with any period, good things happened and also bad.

Music: We had Elvis and rock and roll, Frankie Avalon, Bobby Darin, Ricky Nelson, Paul Anka, Buddy Holly, Fabian, The Platters, and Brenda Lee.

On TV, when we finally got one, we watched Dick Clark and American Bandstand, I Love Lucy, The Twilight Zone, and The Mickey Mouse Club for younger kids.

Movies: (before we had DVDs we went to the “picture show.”) My favorite movie was Rebel Without a Cause, starring James Dean and Natalie Woods. I also loved Doris Day and her musicals.

We walked to school or rode our bicycles, (without helmets) until I had a boyfriend with his own car, which was fantastic. We went to Sock Hops in the gym after football games and met kids from the other schools.

How we dressed: Girls wore poodle skirts, as well as other skirts and also scarves and pedal pushers (similar to the Capris or whatever they’re called today). I remember going to the lumber yard and buying screen wire for my mom to make a petticoat for a dance I was attending. I didn’t sit down a lot there. This reminds me of the crinolines and hoop skirts women wore in the 1800s like in my novel Caves, Cannons, and Crinolines. Bobby socks and saddle shoes and ballet shoes, I think they were called adorned our feet.

Some boys wore jeans and leather jackets. (Like the Fonz). Others wore slacks with their shirts tucked in. School rules were strict. Boys either wore their hair in a crew cut, flattop, or ducktail. If a boy’s hair touched his ears he was sent home, or if his jeans fell too low on his hips or his shirttail hung out he was dismissed until the unacceptable behavior was corrected. Girls were not allowed to wear pants to school, and I thought it was great when we girls started wearing boy’s Levis at home. (No one made jeans for girls.) Girls wore their hair short and curled or pulled back in pony tails, French braids and also a style called the poodle cut, like Lucille Ball wore.

Good things in the 50s: Jonas Salk invented a polio vaccine. Paper Mate made its first leak free ball point pen. (Yeah, no more messy ink.) The Russians launched Sputnik I. Burma Shave signs kept you occupied on the way to visit Grandma and Grandpa. One I especially remember is “A man who passes on hills and curves is not a man of iron nerves. He’s crazy.” A gallon of gasoline cost .25 cents. A stamp was .03 cents.

Bad things in the 50s: James Dean was killed in his new sports car. We feared war with Russia and there was the Cuban Missile Crisis. People built bomb shelters to prepare for a nuclear war. We didn’t know about cholesterol and that the fatty foods we ate clogged our arteries. No one told us the sun caused skin cancer so we took “sunbaths” to look healthy.

Yes, times have changed. Sure gasoline was cheap in the 50s. You could buy three pounds of hamburger meat for $1.00. At my job I also earned $42.50 a week.

Now, instead of washing dishes at the sink, drying them, and putting them away, I stick them in the dishwasher, turn it on, and go read a good book. Instead of hanging the clothes on the line to dry, I stuff them in the dryer.

Instead of typing my stories on a manual typewriter, using carbon paper to make copies and White Out to correct spelling and punctuation errors, my computer does most everything for me. Even books are changing. Now, they can be read on eReaders where you can change the print size and even listen to the story if you want to. I really like this, because they help relieve the strain on my tired eyes from all the books I read. Hearing the story read also reminds me of the radio I once listened to every Saturday morning. I still like to hold a paper copy in my hands though. Guess some things never change.

Clothing, transportation, hairstyles, and school has changed. Good things still happen. Bad things still happen.

I wonder what our world will be like in the next seventy-five years.

Thanks for allowing me this nostalgic post. See what happens when you get older: you think about the past. Remember the saying, young folks live in the future, middle age folks live in the present, old folks live in the past. Well, that's partly true, but I also live in the present and the future, waiting for my books to be published. Okay. I did recently buy a baton. I wanted to see if I could still twirl it like I did as a majorette in high school.

Happy Reading.

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Music to Write By

I've always written with music playing in the background. When I was a teen writing at my desk in the basement, the music helped drown out the other members of the household. The same applied when I was trying to write while in college in my dorm room and later my room in the boarding house.

But the music was never just a form of 'white noise'. I usually choose music that would set the mood of the scene or the overall book. Soundtracks, instrumentals, New Age and electronic music are usually among my choices. For one important chase scene in an early book I remember playing "Classical Gas" over and over again.

That lead me to create the first of two rules I have for music listening/writing. Number one: Wear headphones - especially when in an area with other people who may not appreciate hearing your choice of music over and over and over again.

Rule number two: except for very rare scenes, no music with vocals is allowed. That's because if there is singing, I usually end up singing along and not writing. Which defeats the purpose of having music playing in the background.

The exceptions for that rule include Celtic music or the Lord of the Rings soundtracks or groups such as Clannad or Enya if I'm writing about elves or my wizards.

For science fiction writing I tend to use soundtracks from science fiction films and television shows or electronic music. I used to be able to find good electronic music in stores, but now I rely on visiting the Horizon Music booth at local science fiction conventions.

For fantasy writing I will use soundtracks from fantasy films such as the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Waterhorse, How to Train Your Dragon, or Celtic or New Age music. The Soundscapes channel on my cable TV network often has interesting pieces that I can then track down via Amazon.

It's not that I can't find classical pieces that make me visualize magical forests and fantastic creatures or inspire me to write about spaceships sailing starry vistas. I can and have. But these are what have worked for me. Right now the CDs for the current writing projects include Transformers Prime Season One music, Sherlock: Music from Series Two, the Real Steel soundtrack and several assorted electronic music CDs.

What are your favorite choices of music to write or read by?

Cross-eyed Dragon Troubles Book Trailer

In the last few years authors have had to take up more and more of the marketing duties which were once handled by publishers. One of the ways to do this are by the use of Book Trailers.

Book Trailers are meant to be no longer than a couple of minutes and pack enough punch to get you guys interested enough to bite and take a closer look at the book. (A lot like the hook I talked about a month or more ago.)

I've procrastinated making mine but am slowly catching up. (Trolling for appropriate pictures make my eyes hurt! Looking for fodder is harder than making the darn thing!) For this latest video I started using a piece of software called Anime Studio. I think it really pumped up the quality of what I can make by a lot!

Watch the video and then I'll go through the steps I took to get it to the finished product. (Hopefully it won't be too lame and you won't cry to get your 1 minute and 13 seconds back.) :P



It's always best if you have some kind of plan before you ever start. Basically what you hope to say/show and the order.

There are several picture sites where for a fee you can download royalty free pictures (a few even have video clips) to use in the book trailer. There is one I know of that allows you to use them for free, but you have to make sure to give the photographer credit. Always need to make sure you're not infringing on someone's copyright. This includes the music and photos.

Here's a few of the ones I've been to or used:
www.dreamstime.com
www.bigstockphoto.com
us.fotolia.com
www.istockphoto.com
www.freedigitalphotos.net

Another option too is Deviant Art. If you find something nice there, you can email the artist and see if they'd allow you to use it in the video, giving them credit at the end. Some will and some won't.

For all these though, be prepared for your eyes to want to fall out of your head after hours and hours of scrolling through stuff! But if you end up with the perfect picture/drawing, it is well worth it. (Just give yourself time to recuperate! lol.)

Of course using photos you took does make things even better! Those are yours to use as you see fit. :P You never know what you may have hiding in an album somewhere. And with camera phone, nowadays, taking pictures is even easier. Just make sure the photo quality is high enough for what you have in mind.

I use two pieces of free software to put the video together. 1) Movie Maker, which comes standard with all computers using windows. 2) Audacity, which is a free down loadable audio recording and editing software (you will need a microphone or headset to use this to best effect).

The great thing about Audacity is that once you find your background music, you can open it up in the software then record your voice to add to the track. Even better, (make sure to save as the project) it keeps the soundtrack and the voice track separate so you can add silences in your voice parts to manipulate when they occur. This becomes very important when you're putting all pieces together in Movie Maker.

Like I said before, this year I also bought Anime Studio. The great thing about this piece of software is that you can add 'bones' to pictures to make them move. Even the Text can be manipulated. So you can make the book trailer less static. And it's even kind of fun! (You will export your project as an .avi to add to Movie Maker)

So, you have pictures, video bits, the music. Now all you need to do is put them together. Movie Maker will help you do that. Movie Maker allows you to import all the bits and then you can arrange them in any order you like, adding transition effects, scrolling text, and end titles.

The beauty here is that as you add each thing, you can preview it, and also see what time it falls on the video. This allows you to go back to Audacity and tweak your spoken parts so the timing is perfect.

Hopefully at the end you will have something to be proud of that you can share. And while it may have taken a lot of time to create, it won't be going anywhere and you can use it for years to come at your website, promo CDs, and whatever else you can think of. Make sure to upload it to Youtube. You can get code there to embed it at your webpage, or blog. Even better join Blazing Trailers where you can join a ton of authors and display your trailer with theirs.

Is There Music In Your Writing?

One day I was working on my current young adult story when one of the major characters surprised me by saying he had learned to play the guitar. Now this was not in my original plans, but I went with him¾who am I to question my characters? In one scene, so far, he and a friend play their guitars. We will see where this new thought leads.

I started thinking about my other stories and whether they contained musical elements. To my surprise, music is part of four out of five of my books. In Listen to the Ghost Matt, one of the major characters plays the saxophone and piano. Jennifer, the pov character in Secrets I Have Kept, plays classical music on the piano, and Casey, the other pov character writes country ballads and strums the guitar. Then Rebel’s mother runs away with the drummer in a rock band in the novel Rebel in Blue Jeans, and Lizzie, from Caves, Cannons, and Crinolines plays the guitar. Though the music isn’t the main point of each story, it’s there, adding to the details of the characters’ lives, telling us a little more about their likes and dislikes.

So music does play a part in most of my work. And I believe it goes back to my early years when I took piano lessons. Twice a week I spent 30 minutes in Mrs. Patton’s home, sitting at her piano. At the time, of course, I’d rather have been outside playing with my friends. My parents wanted me to play the piano, and I did my best. Today, I’m so glad I did. When I’m tense and my world is going in ten different directions at the same time, I can sit at the piano, play some of my favorite tunes from the 50’s or my favorite hymns from today, and I relax and soon I’m ready to face the day with an improved attitude and sometimes ideas for new scenes or lines that popped into my head from the songs.

In addition to the piano, I once played the clarinet in the junior high and high school bands. At the time I enjoyed the music but never considered how it might affect my future life. From my experiences, however, I believe that writing is much like playing a musical instrument. I started from the beginning, learning the basics. With music, on the piano for instance, it’s treble clef, base clef, whole notes, half notes, quarter notes, rests, sharps, flats, and all the parts that go together to make a song. Then I advanced in my knowledge of music and put the parts together with words and lyrics and melodies. Soon my music was telling a story. Yes, someone else wrote the words, but when I was on the stage, playing for my recitals, I still relayed the message to my listeners.

With writing, I began with words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, commas, periods, and question marks. As my skills grew and developed, I put the parts together, introduced the characters, and added a plot and theme. Soon I was telling a story to my readers.

Sometimes, what we do as adults reflects back to things we enjoyed in our childhood. Is there music in your writing?