My Hallowe'en Heartbreak Playlist

Many authors have rituals around their writing. They put together Pinterest boards showing the inspiration for their characters and settings. They write blurbs and summaries before they even begin the book. They put together significant playlists to listen to as they write.

Here on Planet Ting, things are a little different. I start a book by writing. I’m sure that if I created a process, things would go more smoothly. Unfortunately, my planning becomes so perfectionistic that it never gets done, so I have to dive in. Deadlines help.

I usually listen to the same music over and over as I write. For My Viral Valentine, I listened to BTS. For Hockey Is My Boyfriend, I listened to Hey Rosetta! The best writing music is music that I enjoy but has become familiar enough that my brain doesn’t listen to the lyrics anymore. Some songs get irritating on perpetual repeat, so I have to switch things up.

But when it came to writing a rock musician hero, I knew I had to up my music game. I did two things. Since I was writing about a Canadian indie musician, I used the titles from Canadian indie songs for my chapter titles. And I also made a playlist for the book. It’s not the same songs as the titles in the book, but songs that represent the moods and feelings in the book. It also contains the songs they mention in the Lyft ride, Taxi by Harry Chapin, and the Totoro theme.

If there’s one song that really represents the whole book, it’s Pools by Tim Baker. The song is about a man meeting a woman he used to love—but they never fully realized their relationship. The whole song is poignant, but especially the lyrics around how they once cared.

You loved me once
Maybe you could love me again
I know you have a new boyfriend
I’m happy for you, I swear I am

You can make it real again
You can make me feel again
And all the things I couldn’t give you then
I can give you now, I think

So, you could listen to My Hallowe’en Heartbreak playlist while you read the book. I’m hoping it will be an interesting multimedia experience, because music can heighten our emotions. And you can experience someone singing to you, like Sophia does.

The Music & Me, Part Two

Music is a very important part of my current work-in-progress, My Hallowe’en Heartbreak. In this book, lawyer Sophia Ando leads a very regimented existence but when her childhood best friend, Henry MacDonald waltzes back into her life everything changes. Henry is the lead singer of an indie rock band, and she had a big crush on him in high school.

We first met Henry in My Viral Valentine when Abby and Sophia went to see Henry’s band Shawville. Abby describes their music this way:

A man’s voice rang out unaccompanied and fragile. Then the soft chords of the guitar began. As his voice rose, more instruments joined in. The music rose, crescendoed, and swept me along.

This description describes the early music of Hey Rosetta! a Newfoundland band. I’m a huge fan of their music, and for My Viral Valentine, I’ve got a Hey Rosetta! playlist on repeat as I write. They were a big success in Canadian indie music, but I suspect that they are less well-known outside this country.

Unfortunately, this band has broken up now, but their lead singer, Tim Baker, continues to tour. Here’s a video from his first solo album. In an intriguing coincidence, this video is shot at the Museum of Nature—the place where Abby and Mason went for their first date. And further bonus, you can see the famous buffalo menaced by wolves diorama that traumatized young Mason.

For this book, I’ve had to do a lot of research into the process of writing music. Not surprisingly, there are as many ways to create a song as there are songs. Some are crafted in notebooks while sitting in nature, while others are created by a team in a studio. It’s an enlightening look into the creative process, something authors battle constantly. And one of the hardest tasks in this book is writing the lyrics to the songs that Henry performs. It’s like writing poetry, something I haven’t done since grade nine. I’m also putting together my first ever playlist to accompany the book. I’ll link to this closer to the book launch.

What I'm Writing

It’s natural in your writing life to have highs and lows in your productivity. I’ve been in a down cycle recently, writing less but doing all the things I ignore when I’m writing. Like housework, entertaining, and reading other people’s books.

But eventually the siren song of writing calls, and now I’m writing again.

Did you read my novella in the Hockey Holidays box set? It was the hate-turns-to-love story of Em Davis and her fake Christmas boyfriend, Ian Reid. Unfortunately, if you didn’t get the box set, Her Best Worst Boyfriend has now vanished. But it will be back and better than ever. We had very strict word limits for the box set and I had to cut out a sex scene (ouch), so I’ll reinsert that (heh, heh).

Do you remember Em’s two best friends in the story, Abby and Sophia? I am currently writing Abby and Mason’s story. Abby was actually married when we met her, so it’s a prequel. And here’s something from Her Best Worst:

“Who tells their parents that we have to have separate bedrooms because I snore?” asked Ian.

“It was the best excuse I could think of. You certainly don’t look like someone of high principles who wouldn’t have premarital sex,” said Em.

“Got that right. The point is, when people are into a new relationship, they want to bone all the time. Remember that first year with Abby and Mase?”

Em nodded. Those two had not been able to keep their hands off each other. After several embarrassing encounters, Em had learned to knock even on open doors before she entered. And she still knew way too much about Mason’s naked body.

So, that’s my challenge: to write a couple that fall into lust! These novellas are the “tropiest” stories I’ve ever written. Abby and Mason are a forbidden love story. And after that I’ll write Sophia’s story—it’s a best friends to lovers story. And these three tales will be my beer league romance trilogy. Once that’s done I have a bigger project to write.

The best part about writing is the way it occupies your mind. You can come up with plot fixes or character arcs when you wake up in the morning or while you’re taking a shower. You get dragged into the lives of these characters and obsessed by them.

And I wouldn’t have it any other way.