20% Off Cautionary Fables (and all other Lulu titles!)

If you head on over to Lulu, where I've published Cautionary Fables: Warts & All, you can get a code on their home page that is good for 20% off one order, or 25% off $400 or more. (Hint: 22 copies of my book will get you there if it's $400 before the discount; you'll need to buy 30 copies if they apply the discount prior to totaling the order. =)

After you see what the code is, you can head on over to my Author Spotlight to grab a copy of my book in paperback or eBook (PDF) format at a discounted price! Use the code when you check out to get the offer applied.

The offer's good until Friday, July 27, 2012... so make sure you get your order in before the promotion ends!

Music to Write By

When I write ~ especially prose, but sometimes even poetry ~ I like to listen to music.

Now, for poetry, which I often hear with a melody line, this can be tough. Generally, I'll go for something instrumental, or maybe with wordless vocals, or something in another language. I don't want the words I am listening to and the words I hear to cross their lines and end up on the same page. Unless, of course, that's exactly the effect I'm after...

Prose, though, is easier. And I've found I really like to choose music that supports the theme or environment I am writing about.

For instance, for the noir fantasy piece, the track list included some things from the 20's and 30's, some swing and jazz, as well as some modern swing bands. Even though the story wasn't steampunk, a lot of the retro sounds in steampunk lent themselves well to the list. I avoided the overtly steamy, mechanical stuff ~ airship pirates and clockwork mechanisms didn't quite fit in, but the jazz trumpet and noir movie snippets in other pieces worked beautifully. Because we're talking fantasy, and, in my case, this involved some Celtic mythology, I also tossed in some Celtic stuff, from bagpipes to harp, as well as some Black Sabbath tunes done in Latin.

The steampunk story went pretty much along genre lines, and the playlist is almost entirely bands that label themselves steampunk; the Aussie steampunk story mixes that, some stuff by Brother (a great band from Australia that plays Celtic rock), and, because the story has more of an adventure movie vibe, some stuff from, well, adventure movie soundtracks.

I was at a bit of a loss with what to do for a world that has a pivotal moment back in ancient Greece, essentially a steampunk world, where the story itself takes place in the Renaissance. The steam and gears aspect of steampunk music worked great, but, opposite of the noir fantasy, the 20s-30s noir stuff didn't. The music wasn't quite retro enough. Took me longer than it should to realize that the renaissance component could be met easily enough, so I started tossing some lutes at the list. Sure it's a bit more Baroque, but it works. Throw in some Dead Can Dance, Kitaro, and Andreas Vollenweider and we're good.