Ilyria Moon's Trashy Blogs

Wolf explored his surroundings. Jacks could eat a dick. He couldn’t believe he’d been pushed into this. Not only pushed, but wedged between Spacey and Kev in the back of a BMW 4×4 like a prisoner being driven to Holloway. He was surprised Jacks let him out at the motorway services for a burger and a slash.

However, once they crossed the Welsh border, even Wolf enjoyed the drive. He announced to the others that when he was filthy rich he’d buy a big pile in the country, bigger than his parents’ gaff in Sussex. As much as he loved the rock’n’roll lifestyle, the beauty of all the greenery around was alluring and he daydreamed about his countryside mansion, butler and all. He wondered how long it would take to get used to the smell of manure, the only thing ruining his lord of the manor fantasy.

By the time they arrived in the village, the boys were drowsy, and dying of starvation. When they tipped Wolf out of the vehicle at Hope, he was adamant he wanted feeding, or was calling a cab. After snooping around, he reckoned it wouldn’t be bad, as long as they weren’t all freaks and weirdos. And by the time he’d left Luna’s room, he was open to the idea of freaks and weirdos, as long as they were as pretty as her.

He stopped in front of a notice board in the downstairs hall and stood for a moment, thinking about business. This could turn out to be an adventure, and if it got the band extra publicity, translating into sales, he was a happy martyr.

Wolf wondered, were martyrs allowed to be happy? Truth be told, he knew getting plonked in rehab was a shrewd move but he liked complaining. Wait until he got out. The lads would be sick of hearing about it.

“I was looking for you.” One of the admin staff touched his elbow. “We need to check your bags. Where have you been?”

Wolf gave her a disarming smile. “Ah, I was nowhere special.”

He picked up his bag and guitar case and followed her to the office, thinking how tight her arse was. He wondered if she was single. It wasn’t professional, losing him like that, naughty girl. Fortunately for her, due to the manner in which he’d been manhandled into the car, he hadn’t had a chance to bring anything with him. Not even a bag of grass.

He sighed, contemplating a month’s sobriety.

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‘It’s genius level. People with such an IQ are capable of great discoveries, but are also prone to underachieving, because society cannot cope with them. Schooling systems do little for the extremes of IQ. Higher IQs often learn things so quickly, they get bored and become discipline problems. They also have a tendency to learn things quickly and by half, rarely getting the full skill.’

I’ve decided I’m going to write my memoirs – some of them, anyway. Partly because I don’t remember much of the past decade and what I do remember, I have to be careful about revealing. Haha, let’s just say life’s been interesting.

I’m a rolling stone and my vocation takes me here and there, up and under, meeting and losing people along the way. There isn’t anyone to remember everything, just bits ‘n’ bobs. I occasionally see a few people who accompanied me partway along the journey, and they’ve been instrumental in filling in some of the blanks and we’ve had a ball reminiscing. Unfortunately, most places have gone, swallowed up by ‘progress’, and people have moved away or slipped off the mortal coil. Everything changes…

I laugh when I think of this – better to die laughing than die, period – every decision I’ve made has been the wrong one – isn’t that something? I deserve a medal for that accolade alone! If I had my time over, with the benefit of hindsight, would I choose differently? My head says Yes. But if I step back for a moment and think about all the experiences I’ve had that would never have been possible had I taken the right paths in life, I might be richer and more successful now, but I’d be bored as hell. With no hint of exaggeration, some of the situations I’ve found myself in, you couldn’t even make up.

I have no clue how to structure a ‘memoir’, so what I’m going to do is start blogging more. Eventually, I can pull my posts together into some semblance of a long piece.

Vive la fille dans l’espoir d’un nouvelle vie!

-

I’m reading this article at the moment. Check it out x

Writing A Memoir

I’ve nothing to add. Dave says it all for me

ennui [ˈɒnwiː (French) ɑ̃nɥi]
n
a feeling of listlessness and general dissatisfaction resulting from lack of activity or excitement
[from French: apathy, from Old French enui annoyance, vexation; see annoy]

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003

—

I woke up today feeling so bored – more than bored. In the short-term, can’t go out anywhere today, because I have students coming later and need to prepare lesson plans, and I’m blocked creatively, so I can’t write anything constructive for my novel. On a grander scale, I have no ambition whatsover – ambition is what drove me through life until a few years ago. Now I just fill up time with hobbies, but I’m even bored of them today! The dreary drizzle outside, and thick cloud cover isn’t helping either.

I was born a musician, but I feel I wasted my life on music. As soon as I could hold an instrument, every waking hour was dedicated to the pursuit of music, for thirty years. As an adult, I’ve always worked as a musician, working the club scene (’til the government destroyed musicians’ earning potential with the smoking ban), and – quite lucratively – for record labels and studios, providing vocals to cover up for so-called talented celebrities’ lack of skills, all the while hearing the bleating “Why don’t you go on X Factor?” blah blah blah from the idiots. The masses harp on about how talented pop stars are, when the truth is their lack of talent is hidden by excellent production and real musicians and vocalists, both in the studio and onstage, hidden behind stage sets.

I can’t even be bothered seeking new opportunities in that field right now, because it’s soulless; like knowing I have to be a prostitute for the foreseeable future, bleh. Sure, the money’s nice – and much needed – but I see music as an art, not a commodity, and don’t respect myself when my creativity is a commodity. I need to live passionately. I was never one to think ‘get good qualifications, well paid job, rich husband, two children, buy house, two cars, etc. But because I DIDN’T do that, I’m starving for a holiday and financial means to change my circumstances. I think it would be more pleasant to see someone else struggle beside me, hehe, a problem shared and all that jazz.

I have no other skills to speak of, having dedicated my life to music for the past 30yrs, so I can’t get hired for a ‘real’ job – not that there are any jobs atm for anyone – and so I fill my time with my hobbies. It’s fun, living in the moment and doing what I love, but sometimes I get bored, like I am today. Okay, saying I have no skills isn’t true. I have numerous skills, just no paperwork to back them up.

I guess the main thing is knowing everything is an illusion. We’re playing a game I didn’t ask to join, and the other side are manipulative cheats. This knowing takes my ambition away. Success in the ‘matrix’ is irrelevant, really. But necessary in order to put food on the table. If I had ambition, I could strive for success, but it’s of paramount importance to me to seek Truth, to explore Consciousness. My dream is to magically earn a large amount of money and buy a farm/chateau to renovate, with some livable space (or a caravan in the field!) and start a community there…somewhere warmer than England, with a stream or lake, and a well, and plenty of land to grow food on.

What to do, what to do…maybe I should seek solace in food. A full English sounds appealing.

I usually approach a novel as a series of vignettes that have important information about participating characters and devices to push the plot forward. However, when it comes to linking said scenes, I occasionally run into a wall. My characters are on different, equally important paths; paths which occasionally cross over or run parallel for a period. Their back stories have nothing in common, and they don’t always arrive at the same destination.

I sometimes find it tricky when I need to introduce two or more for the first time. Maybe I’m pressuring myself in trying to force the issue and that’s why my well of inspiration is dry. I know what the scene needs to accomplish, who needs to be there, how they need to interact, but somehow, it’s not coming together. I have the parameters, but I’m all out of content.

I need Brett (the new kid on the block) and Wolf (the established musician) to meet at Brett’s gig, in order to spark off the rest of their interweaving journey of hate, sabotage, and one-upmanship. Wolf’s only there because his friend/roadie Alex invited him, and their other friend Jimmy is the promoter for the event. Wolf and Brett also meet a third, lesser character, Roxanne, at the venue, which sets her up for future scenes with both of them.

I’ve sat in front of my computer for months, trying to tackle this scene, and every time, I give up and move past it, and work on something else from a later chapter (I don’t write in order). I’m a working musician; it’s not like I don’t have plenty of gigs to draw from! I wonder if this sinking sand rut is my subconscious’ way of telling me the scene is not going to work, or if it’s because I’m allowing recent negative exchanges with musicians cloud my creativity…

I find sharing a problem always helps one to look at it through fresh eyes, even if no one has a solution. A blog I read suggested I haven’t thought the story/exchange through sufficiently, which could be true, or that I don’t know my characters well enough. Wolf is a close friend, surviving into Headliner from my first novel, Swallow, but Brett is another animal. I’m still getting to know him.

While thinking about this latter possibility, it occurred to me. I really don’t like him.

My book needs him as the antagonist in several characters’ journeys, and he has a great story arc, but I don’t like him. When Wolf was the antihero in Swallow, he had something likeable about him, so even when he was doing the most despicable things to other characters, the reader could still empathise with why he acted like that, even if they didn’t agree with his behaviour. Swallow, being my first novel, cooked on a low heat setting for years. I don’t want to take years to write each book, to get my ideas on paper! But I knew my characters inside and out by the time I developed the skills required to write a great novel. I have to find ways of getting to know my new characters intimately in a shorter space of time, if I am to overcome this obstacle.

Perhaps I shall write out a biography for him, like I did with my Swallow characters. And if I can think of someone I’ve encountered along the way in the ‘real’ world, that might help, too. The importance of getting this scene right is counterproductive; I’ve written all I can in separate scenes and now I need to start tying it all together in a linear fashion, so I can fill in the blanks, and direct the important choices.

Let’s finish with a song. This pretty much epitomises a LOT of gigs and musician social circles I’ve endured – oops, I mean, enjoyed…

Songwriting: Part 1

What is a Song?

· A song is a story set to music.

· A strong song has a simple, catchy melody, great lyrics, and well-plotted chord progressions

· Two or three main themes are all that is needed in a song

· The trick to writing great lyrics is to write what you know AND what the listener can relate to. It is also wise to carefully choose the words used
Song Structure

While there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to creativity, in order to write professionally for a commercial market, certain rules are commonly followed. The structures can be amended to accommodate writer preference and song duration, e.g. a 12” mix of a song will have a longer audio space to fill, and therefore sections may be repeated more often than in the Radio Edit.

*The Radio Edit is usually between 3 minutes and 3min30secs long.

Typical song structures include:

1. VERSE – CHORUS – VERSE – CHORUS – MIDDLE 8 – VERSE – CHORUS

2. VERSE – PRE-CHORUS – CHORUS – VERSE – PRE-CHORUS – CHORUS – BRIDGE – CHORUS

*Some people choose to call the Pre-Chorus a Bridge, and the Bridge a Middle 8. When collaborating with a co-writer, make sure you clarify terminology used!

What is the Chorus? What does it do?

· It is the catchiest part of the song

· It often includes the song title

· It may repeat one or two simple lyrics

· It is the part the listener remembers.

· It rarely changes, if at all.*

· It is usually around 8 bars long

We should aim to keep the chorus simple. This is the part of the song listeners easily recognise and like to sing along to. ‘Bad’ songwriting includes making a chorus too complicated in melody, pitch, or lyrical content for the listener to participate.

Think about some songs you know with catchy, simple choruses. What is similar about them? How many melodies do they use in the chorus? How many lines of lyrics do they have? Do they repeat the melody and/or lyrical content at all?

*On the last repeat of a song, the chord progression in the chorus may be altered slightly to take the song to the outro, or a single lyric may be modified. Backing vocal lyrics may also be altered, and in terms of production, different instruments omitted or added as the song progresses etc.

What is the Verse? What does it do?

· It pushes the story along

· The lyrics change in each verse, and the verses give details about the overall topic

· The verse has the second most memorable melody in the song

· While the lyrics change, they have to fit the same melody as in the previous verse

*Exceptions
Certain types of music don’t always follow these rules, .e.g dance/house music tracks, ambient music etc. A good house track may have a catchy hook that serves as a chorus, and little else by way of lyrical content. Some songs may have verse lyrics, and nothing other than syllabic sounds as a chorus hook.

For example, the most memorable sections of Kylie Minogue’s ‘Can’t Get You Outta My Head’, and Crystal Waters’ ‘Gypsy Woman (She’s Homeless)’ are the hooks ‘la la la’ and ‘la da dee, la doo dow’.

In one of my own songs, ‘Waiting’, I chose to insert the title motif in each verse instead of using it in the Chorus:

“I feel like a mannequin
All dressed up in my underwear
WAITING for you, aching for you
Breaking for you, and you’re never there.”
’Waiting’ – Queen Tantrum

Chorus Examples

The chorus in ‘Poker Face’ by Lady Gaga repeats the same lines twice, with no change to the melody. The song title is mentioned twice.

“Can’t read my, can’t read my
No, he can’t read my POKER FACE
She’s got to love nobody
“Can’t read my, can’t read my
No, he can’t read my POKER FACE
She’s got to love nobody…”
’Poker Face’ – Lady Gaga

The chorus in ‘Help’ by the Beatles repeats the song title at the beginning of the first and third line, and again at the end of Line 4. Lines 1, 2 & 3 rhyme and the motif in Line 4 ties the lyrical content of the Chorus up.

“HELP me if you can, I’m feeling down
And I do appreciate you being round
HELP me get my feet back on the ground
Won’t you please, please HELP me?”
’Help’ – The Beatles

The chorus in ‘American Pie’ by Don McLean repeats the song title once, but each line rhymes.

“Bye, bye, Miss AMERICAN PIE
Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry
And them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey and rye
Singing: This’ll be the day that I die. This’ll be the day that I die…”
’American Pie’ – Don McLean

Writing Lyrics

· The trick to writing great lyrics is to write what you know AND what the listener can relate to. It is also wise to carefully choose the words used.

· Lyrics (the words) can take a linear direction through the composition from beginning to end, or they can focus on a central thought

· Lyrics can be written poetically or in a conversational style. Grammatical rules of language need not apply when writing to music, especially when the importance of rhyme takes priority over grammatical correctness

So far, we have focused on the lyrical side of writing popular music. In the next article, we will pay attention to choosing chords and melodies for our songs.