Tag: writing

Writing a novel – the soundtrack part two

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

My last post listed some of the ambient music I had going while I worked on the first draft of my current novel. There were loads of others ambient artists on the list too – Adham Shaikh, International People’s Gang, Ryonkt, Coelacanth, Sawako, Minus Pilots, d’incise, Mollusc, Johnathan Hughes, etc. Too many for big write-ups and links in a post like this, I’ll do individual posts over coming weeks, as the next draft progresses.

I did, however, listen to other kinds of music too, though probably a little more well known and not needing their own links and plugs. Some of these show my age I guess, but I do try to stay somewhat current … somewhat.

Depeche Mode – Songs of Faith and Devotion (I’d always kind of liked them, but this one really captured me. I like them better being more bleak), Ultra, Playing the Angel, Sounds of the Universe

Limp Bizket – Results may vary. Don’t know why, but this is the only album of theirs I really like. Seems like not many other people did though.

Fort Minor, The Rising Tied – I like this more than Mike’s other project, Linken Park.

Genesis – lots of their stuff, but have mostly been listening to the Live in Europe 2007 double disk set, which covers material from most of their history.

Duran Duran – Astronaut, Red Carpet Massacre, Pop Trash, Both eponymous albums.

Blancmange – all three eighties albums got re-released on CD last year, so I’ve had them on high rotation. I wore my old cassette tapes out.

Plus others, a little U2, some Peter Gabriel, The Fixx, Talk Talk, Eagles, Jay-Z(!), Arcade Fire, Modest Mouse, Daniel Lanois, Joseph Arthur …

Language, language, language …

~ Sean Monaghan ~ 2 Comments

Thinking about my other post on using the word “Literally” to mean “Figuratively” – actually sometimes I think “literally” can work well: when something really does happen, but it’s surprising. “The cat, stuffed with explosives, literally exploded.” Actually, that’s a lame example, but I made it up just now. I’m sure there are better examples. But “literally” can work for emphasis if used with care, I guess.

Something that’s bothering me lately is trying to use words that work. I read something recently – “… suddenly the telephone rang …” Goodness me, how else do phones ring? Gradually? Limpidly? Gotta say I’m just as guilty too, was scanning something I’d written a while back (in my thesis, where I should have been at the top of my game) where my character was staring ” … utterly transfixed …”. Good grief, Sean, surely if you’re transfixed, the utterly is implied? Perhaps the alternative could be something like “vaguely transfixed” or “inattentively transfixed”. Yes, I like that last one better :-/

Shifting sands

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

It seems there’s a shift going on here as my writing year expands faster than my soundscape year. While this has been a good year for Venus Vulture, I notice that the blog has become more focused on my fiction and writing – it has been my best year for writing by far too. And typing this post will push the most recent music post off the blog’s frontpage and make my header “ambient music yada yada” sit atop a bunch of posts about flash-fiction. That’s kind of weird, so I’ll be re-thinking a little. Should I have separate blogs for each? Next year’s secret project will have its own blog, and probably my focus will be on that anyway. Perhaps I’ll just change the header. If I can figure out how to do that – it must be possible since I put it in there in the first place ….

Writing page updated

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

I’ll be tutoring creative writing again this year, so I’ve updated the writing page on the website, with a bibliography too.  Also located the link to another story I had in dotlit, so I’ve included that too.

     Bookhabit.com is a new site devoted to ebooks – I’m going to upload a novel there in the next few days … will post when it’s there.