How to use this Page

Teko’s Magical Treasure of the Week!

“Teko found the hooded sweatshirt with the Fury of the Venom Legion Winged Crimson Heart logo, which is the Magical Treasure of the Week! Be sure to visit our Gift Shop today. We made a ton of new stuff this week, and we’ll have more new designs soon!”

Teko’s Magical Treasure of the Week!

“Looks like this week’s Magical Treasure is our brand new Ajan Warrior of the Sunrise black t-shirt.”

“Ooh, nice design. I guess this means we’re going to have a new Sunrise page in the Hall of Warriors pretty soon.”

“Yeeeee! I can’t wait. The best part is Shannon-sama donates some of what the Gift Shop makes to benefit the Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls! We got lots more gifts in Shannon-sama’s shop too. See ya!”

Wowsa. Long day at the dayjob.

Here's the highlight of the interwebs this evening: Salon.com's Best Books of 2007 List. They included two supercool writers who visited this site in 2007, including Vikram Chandra and Joshua Ferris. Also dig Caitlin Shamberg's video about Raymond Chandler's marriage, looking at one hardboiled writer I would have on this site, were he still alive. 

In keeping with that happy reading spirit, here's part three of my happy writing music list for 2007. 

10. "What Light"  by Wilco from  Sky Blue Sky. If you feel like you are writing something wrong, listen to this song.  

9. "To the Dogs or Whoever" by Josh Ritter from The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter.  If you feel like your metaphors are boring, then listen to this song.

8. "Satan Said Dance" by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah  from Some Loud Thunder. If you can't sit at your writing desk anymore, listen to this song. 

7. "Ultimate" by Gogol Bordello from Super Taranta. If you need to dance some more, listen to this song.

6. "The Underdog" by Spoon from Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. If you can't stop dancing, this song will chill you out. 

Click here to see 16-20 of my Best Songs of 2007 list. Or click here to see 15-11  on my Best Songs of 2007 list. Tune in later this week for the conclusion of our official Best Songs of 2007 list.

You need some writing music. Right. Now.

Don't take my word for it, listen to the wise lit-blogger Maud Newton. A good soundtrack saved her novel:

"Listen to different music as you work on each section [of your novel], and make sure it’s the same music every time. And then, [my friend] said, the words will just flow out. In essence, you’re training yourself the way Pavlov trained his poor dogs. But with fewer harnesses and wires, and considerably less detachment."

Because I love music, here's part two of my  holiday present for you, some of the best writing music I heard this year.

15. "Rehab" by Amy Winehouse from Back to Black 

14. "Like Castanets" by Bishop Allen from Broken String  

13. "In Our Talons" by the Bowerbirds from Hymns for the Dark Horse

12. "Up The Wolves" by The Mountain Goats  from The Sunset Tree    

11. "Forks And Knives (La Fete)" by Beirut from The Flying Club Cup

Click here to see 16-20 of my Best Songs of 2007 list. Tune in later this week for the conclusion of our official Best Songs of 2007 list.  

Seriously, I would stop writing without music. 

Hoping to save my friends and family, I make a compilation CD for the holidays, sharing the songs that I loved the year before. This year, my circle of friends and family has expanded to include you. 

So happy holidays, here's a long, long list of gorgeous writing music. I challenge you to listen to these songs without scribbling some stories.

Here's the first part, complete with links and stories. In all, there are twenty songs on my Best Songs of 2007 list. This year, the whole mix is entitled: "Turn My Life Over and Over Again." (Free CD to the first person to spot which song contains that wonderful line. The list is not ranked in order of my favorites, I put the songs in Ideal Listening Order instead.

Feel free to add your own selections in the comments section...

20. "Our Life Is Not A Movie Or Maybe" from The Stage Names by Okkervil River This is a choice cut from my favorite album of the year. It took a week, but I woke up one morning humming this catchy tune--I never looked back.  

19. "Missed the Boat" from Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank by Modest Mouse. A spectacular song from a so-so album. You will be wearing a big, big grin by the time that they start singing about "the tiny claps of tiny hands." 

18. "One Two Three Four" from The Reminder by Feist. This lovely new singer will rock every "Best Songs of 2007" list this year. But you already knew that.

17. "Chemicals Collide" from The Meaning of 8 by Cloud Cult. This sweet song cheered me up when I needed it this year.

16. "If The Brakeman Turns My Way" Cassadaga by Bright Eyes. When I couldn't be cheered up, this song somehow nailed every single anxiety and sadness that came crawling to the surface.

“The rest of the band waits, they're letting the groove get in the pocket, hit bottom. It does; and now two drummers join in, they weave a polyrhythm that brings in one guitar and some pops from a banjo, oh this groove is young, but it's growing, and people are starting to move. Now a singer steps up to the mike, puts out some blues that two more singers turn to gospel, harmonies deep and wide that make you want to believe.” 

That's a blazing passage from Spaceman Blues by Brian Francis Slattery, a first-time novelist who took his experiences with music, immigrants, travel, and politics, boiling them in a hallucinatory stew. 

He's our special guest this week, talking about writing tips, day job survival, novel publishing, and musical language. 

Welcome to my deceptively simple feature, Five Easy Questions. In the spirit of Jack Nicholson's mad piano player, I run a weekly set of quality interviews with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web writing.

Jason Boog:
Your novel sings. There are remarkable musical sections sprinkled throughout, and your sentences sound stunning when I read them out loud. You play music in real life. How did you inject music into your prose, thematically and line-by-line? Any advice for fledgling writers looking to make their prose sound more musical, more rhythmic? What did you listen to while you wrote the book?

Brian Francis Slattery:
I'm so glad you hear the groove in my writing--it makes it more fun for me to write like that, and I hope it's more fun for readers to read it. Continue reading...

Writers love to hate writing, it seems.  

After the MFA has generated multiple conversations over his essay, “Do You Love Writing but Hate to Write?” Recently, he added some support from screenwriter John August, (a prolific blogger in his own right). Read it and weep:

"The thing is, I love having written. I love going back and looking at the scene I wrote. So 'writing' is a necessary, painful process I go through in order to get to 'having written.'"

Smith Magazine blogger Rachel Fershleiser learned about the digital Wild West in a storytelling workshop she attended at the Blogher conference. Check out all her punchy bits of wisdom:

"• Good writing can make anything a compelling story...• While we’re on “I think,” using it on your blog can prevent lawsuits.• Legally, the internet is still the Wild West."

(And, as long as you are visiting Smith, why not submit your 200-word near-death experience memoir?)

Speaking of memoirs, PeteLit has the scoop on a possible memoir from post-punk legend Bob Mould. This guy's music and story can teach you volumes about how keep a razor-sharp focus on your personal vision, even if you don't have the blockbuster sales of a pop star. 

Publishing Spotted collects the best of what's around on writing blogs on any given day. Feel free to send tips and suggestions to your fearless editor: jason [at] thepublishingspot.com.

There are one hundred million websites (including this one) that will tell you how to escape the day-to-day grind of freelancing and move into a book writing career.

Today, I read an article that revealed the only fool-proof method to break out as a writer. The Big Top Secret Method for Becoming a Successful Freelance Writer is...WORK! 

This little gem of wisdom came from rock & roll journalist Matt Diehl, as revealed on the writing blog, SlushPile.net:

"The lifelong punk rocker, art history major, and respected music critic says you shouldn’t hesitate to review 'someone on American Idol,' he says. 'It may be against your value system on some levels. But you actually might learn something. That is being a professional writer. Take writing assignments that you would normally turn down for whatever reason and see what you do with them.'"

Work. That's the secret. Work whenever you can. You build clips and build relationships with editors. That's the only way it happens, that's the only way people learn to trust you as a writer.