Rescue Me

So it's almost here, that special time of year when I'm completely anti-social and busy pulling my hair out in between typing. Only a few more days until Nanowrimo!! Hooray!!! Dismay!!! Hooray!!! Dismay!!!

So my plot has turned an interesting corner and has become a pseudo-religious piece that is neck deep in the prophecies of the seven scrolls and seven seals in the Book of Revelations. It'll be fun and quite a bit different than anything else I've ever done. I still have a ton of planning to do though. The research I'm conducting is both easy and hard, easy because I have google at my fingertips and it's very simple to find out what the weather is like in Scotland in the fall. But all of the Biblical histories and differing commentaries on Revelations makes it difficult. It's a good thing I'm writing fiction and not a theology paper.

Why do I call this a pseudo-religious novel you ask? Well mostly because I'm taking huge liberties with some of the mythos and visions in Revelations. Mainly the 144,000 people with seals on their forehead that will protect them from the Tribulations before and during the Apocalypse. Now, since I'm not a scholar and I've never taken a theology class I'm obviously not going to be depicting these people accurately or even close to accurately (since no one actually knows who they are aside from the 12 tribes of Israel). They will however be an important group of people in my book and like all groups of people will have both good and bad seeds. Also, I'm not writing an apology book which frankly a lot of Christian literature is. Apology in the truest sense of the word means 'to defend' and I'm not writing a defense of my beliefs in any way. I'm writing an action/adventure novel that just happens to have Religious roots and Divine Intervention.

What's the difference between Blood of Renatus and Untitled Nano2008 you ask? I think that's another blog post for another time, this one is long enough already!

So here's a treat for you, the theme song to my nano novel. It's called "Rescue Me" by Pushmonkey. I don't actually know anything about this band, nor do I know any of their other songs. This one happened to download itself to my itunes (i dunno why it sometimes gives me free music but i won't complain) and I really like it. I think it fits well with my theme and my characters even though I'm pretty sure it's a secular song and a secular band.

Hey..can you save me in any way?
Even though I hate to say
I'm not understanding me

Chorus:
I need someone to rescue me.
When I get a little bit crazy,
I need to you to save me from myself.
I'm waiting for someone to rescue me.
When I go a little too far,
I just want to be sure that you're the only one to save me from
myself

No words control
You're not

Chorus

When I get a little bit crazy
When I go a little bit too far
I come to you

Hey can you see the warning signs?
Can you help me recognize
where it's me

chorus

save me from myself
save me from myself
save me from myself

The Soundtrack of our Lives

I believe that at any given point in time in our lives we can listen to a song and really relate to it. We, as humans, can listen to poignant lyrics and feel moved and say to ourselves 'hey that's me right now!' It's quite common and I think perfectly normal, if one did not relate on a deep level to a song then I think I'd question either that person's honesty or sanity. So is it not equally logical to superimpose meaningful songs onto fictional characters? I propose that not only is it logical to do so but natural. With the never-ending variety of song choices of every lyrical meaning, of every genre out there it seems like a second nature to me to assign a theme song if you will not only to books I read or movies I watch but also in my own writing.

Before I began The Blood of Renatus I created a playlist basically of motivational music to keep me focused and pumped up through Nanowrimo. I included songs that were soothing as well as angry. I have a section of my playlist devoted to what I dub "battle music". You can almost hear the sword fights in the background of Metallica, Velvet Revolver and Godsmack. I also included songs just because of their title, for instance I have: 1000 Words; Famous Last Words; Things I'll Never Say; Speak; and Paperback Writer. As I wrote more and as I became more in tune with the specific needs and traits of my characters I started to think about what their theme songs would be.

Most of my characters I can assign one or two songs that feel like "them". Perhaps I've simply been inspired by the music that I listen to or perhaps I listen to that music more because I want to get into the mindset of whichever character I'm writing. Because I switch between my characters each chapter I have to really focus on making sure that the Rafe chapters sound like Rafe and that they don't sound like Katze. It's harder than you'd think mostly because Rafe and Katze are quite similar in some ways. To do that I tend to listen to music that I feel fits with that character. I find it so helpful that after a few bars of a single song I can suddenly write all Rafe in all his moody glory.

My character Katze--who I don't think I've really talked about much in this blog--gets an entire playlist all to herself. Why does she get 36 songs and everyone else gets lumped into the general "writing" playlist? Well mostly because she was the first character I created and is probably the most important and most complex character in the whole book. She's full of rage all the time, slightly crazy and kind of mean. There were just so many songs that kept coming to me that just were Katze. I'll give you a selection of my Katze playlist:

• Uninvited-Alanis Morissette
• Losing Grip-Avril Lavigne
• Learn to Live With What You Are-Ben Folds
• Bruised-Ben Folds
• Going Under-Evanescence
• Hollow-Godsmack
• Whatsername-Green Day
• Dead!-My Chemical Romance
• The Sharpest Lives-My Chemical Romance
• Damaged-Plumb
• Stranded-Plumb
• Life's a Bitch-Shooter
• You Got No Right-Velvet Revolver

That's just a few of Katze's songlist, I didn't want to post all 36. I'm pretty sure if she were a real person in modern day she would only ever listen to Emo or angry chick music. I think if you listened to those songs you would probably get a pretty good feel for her psyche without reading a word. For those of you who know Katze's character you can probably understand why I chose some of those songs based only on the title. I'd tell all you innocuous readers out there more about her but that would spoil the fun wouldn't it?

Music's good for the soul and to me one of the points of being a writer is to give soul to the people I've created on paper. At some point, they stop being text on a paper and become people with thoughts and feelings that as far as I'm concerned can easily be expressed in song. Anyway, I'd post my other MC's (main characters) theme song but it's time to go home. Maybe another day. :)