You. I. Us. Blog Tour

Hey everyone! I'm back again! Lots of news coming up this month, since I've decided to totally over-haul the way I'm going about my social media. But more on that later.

First things first, I'm welcoming Annalisa Crawford to The Five Year Project as part of the blog tour for her new book You. I. Us. Take it away, Annalisa!

Do you like listening to music while working on your stories?

Hi Misha, thanks for inviting me onto your blog today!

I go through phases, when it comes to music. During my first drafts, I watch a lot of TV—repeats of Castle and Murdoch Mysteries mostly—I’ve seen every season of each of those programmes multiple times! It’s nice to have a distraction in those moments when the next scene just isn’t quite right, and on occasion, they’ve provided a little inspiration too.

Music comes later, either an old-favourite CD that I play on a loop, or a fantastic 80s radio station that has a no-repeat guarantee. Recently, I discovered a YouTube playlist of all the songs from How I Met Your Mother (another series I’ve watched repeatedly), which is brilliant, because some of those songs evoke immense emotion.

For my current WIP, I’m listening to Try Whistling This by Neil Finn (from Crowded House, and fantastic as a solo artist!) This track is Last One Standing https://youtu.be/1BZFrYcgeGs If my WIP ever got made into a film, this would be the title track.

What music do you like listening to? 

You. I. Us.

Publication date: June 10, 2016
Genre: Short Stories (Single Author)

Amazon // Barnes & Noble // Book Depository // Kobo // iBooks // Nook

In You. I. Us., Annalisa Crawford captures everyday people during  poignant defining moments in their lives: An artist puts his heart into his latest sketch, an elderly couple endures scrutiny by a fellow diner, an ex-student attempts to make amends with a girl she bullied at school, a teenager holds vigil at his friend’s hospital bedside, long distance lovers promise complete devotion, a broken-hearted widow stares into the sea from the edge of a cliff where her husband died, a grieving son contacts the only person he can rely on in a moment of crisis, a group of middle-aged friends inspire each other to live remarkable lives.

Day after day, we make the same choices. But after reading You. I. Us., you’ll ask yourself, “What if we didn’t?”

 

About the author

Annalisa Crawford lives in Cornwall UK, with a good supply of moorland and beaches to keep her inspired. She lives with her husband, two sons, a dog and a cat. Annalisa writes dark contemporary, character-driven stories. She has been winning competitions and publishing short stories in small press journals for many years, and is the author of Cat & The Dreamer and Our Beautiful Child.

www.annalisacrawford.com

A bit nuts, but still alive.

Just when I thought I'd make some time for some serious blog visits, my internet connection goes down. What did I spend my weekend on, you might ask?

Compulsively staring at my computer screen while waiting for my e-mails to load, and picking figs. 

Lots and lots of figs. 

As in I'm so sick at looking at figs that I feel sort of nauseous when I do. 

As in, I spent most of yesterday picking figs. In 100 degree (Fahrenheit, in case you think metric like me) temperatures, picking figs. Over. And over. And over again. 

I wish I could say I used this manual labor productively to get some story thoughts done. 

Instead (I think it was the prolonged exposure to the heat. That, or my eternal search for optimism.) I had Vivaldi's Gloria stuck on repeat in my head. Mind you, it could have been Justin Bieber. *Shudders like a true rocker /classical/baroque/opera/old school jazz girl*

Anyway... I'm still unlooping Vivaldi from my thoughts, so there's not much going to happen today post wise. 

Luckily I'm doing a guest post at Carol's blog today. So head on over if you want to meet the other two main characters in my War of Six Crowns series. 

If not, feel free to share in the music stuck in my head.  

 See? Definitely not the worst thing ever to listen to all day.

Josh Groban sings Chess...

Hi all! This is going to be a pretty short post, because I'm still preparing for my economics test tomorrow night.


Just thought I'd share this with you. This song came up during my studies and although it comes from a famous musical (and I have the original cast recording), something about the Josh Groban version just hit me between the eyes.


See, the lyrics pretty much sums up one of the Doorways characters. In fact, it sounds like it was written for him, especially for the sequel. But, I'm not going to tell you who it is... you'll have to wait and see... Or if you're a crit partner, you can guess. Yes. I am that evil. ;-)




Any songs that capture your characters exactly?

New music and new characters

For my birthday, my cousin's boyfriend gave me a bunch of old cds that he thought would make for good writing soundtracks. 

About ten percent of it will work for Doorways. 

The rest? 

The rest is pretty much the soundtrack for Guardian. 

It's great to finally have the music I need. To me, music is more than the backtrack of the book I'm writing. 

It helps me hear my characters. 

No. 

It helps me to FEEL my characters. 

In fact, nothing helps me to know my characters better than listening to their songs - particularly new songs. New songs tend to let me explore a new aspect of them. 

How?

Easy. I hear a song and suddenly smile, realizing that the song fits a character somehow. Then it's my job to figure out why the song works so well. Random, but useful.

What do you do to figure out your characters?

Today I felt like blogging about something writerly.

Yes, I finally tired about writing about my life and how weird it is at the moment.

So I decided to write something about being a writer.

And then realized that my weird life is a writer's life and so it qualifies.

So I decided to write about writing.

And ran into a dead end.

OK... let me think...


Right. Here we go...

Certain songs always make me want to write. Other songs just remind me of my character so much that it feels like they're kicking my subconscious to remind me to write about them.

Yes, I know it's still early, but I woke up and pressed play to Muse.

And I must say that I love them. Their music is so emotional. Their lyrics are poetic - which is becoming rarer and rarer in these modern times.

It's also perfect that their songs seem to have been written for Darrion. (No, he doesn't sing in a falsetto.) But he tends to think about things that are themes in their songs. And of course, if you want to hear the most BAD-ASS song ever (and I'll be disappointed that you haven't heard it yet.), get Yes Please now. I'll give you a few minutes to enjoy...











With my homage to Muse out of the way. Let me move on to 30 Seconds to Mars. Their new CD This Is War always feels epic when I listen to it. (I'm so proud that I'm yet to mention that Jared Leto is the hottest male ever to grace guy-liner.) Oops. Moving on swiftly and with style... Kings and Queens is probably the song that sums Doorways up. It's all about potential, dreams and fighting for what you believe in. 

In the beginning, Callan is avoiding relationships with everyone. And then something happens... But I'm not going to spoil the story for you. But just because of her mixed feelings about love and relationships, her song is Love is Only a Feeling by the Darkness. There's another song, sung by the Veronicas that becomes her song as the story progresses, but due to the fact that some might catch on to what will happen, I'll leave that one up to your imagination. 

Gawain gets another Muse song called Unintended. It's one of their more relaxed songs, but that's not the reason why I picked it. See... Gawain, the cynical puppet master and person reader is going to run into his worst nightmare - someone he just can't understand. 

James's story is all about being pushed to leave a legacy, which is why Linkin Park's Leave Out All the Rest is his song. 

Another one of their songs, With You is another Bad-ass song. It sounds like a soundtrack to the relationship between the three first mentioned characters. They might not get along very well, but they're sticking together no matter what someone is throwing their way. 

And last but far from least, Ward. He's going through the same training as his best friend, James, but he's the one that changes the most from it - with as yet unknown effects on their friendship. A song that perfectly captures this is Right Before Your Eyes by Hoobastank. 

Those are far from the only songs that I listen to when writing. In fact, every character has a sound track at least three hours long that tracks their progress through the major plot points. Listening to music and thinking who it reminds me of and why is one of the ways that I get to know them. I also just pick songs that give me certain feelings, like joy or sadness - even fear and anger, so that I can easily summon up the emotions when I have to write difficult scenes. 

How do you get to know your characters? Do you also use music? If you do, what songs do you love and why?