Songs that speak to you ...

 

Every now and then I hear a song that speaks to me, and I have to rush out and buy it.  Right then.  It might be something I hear on the radio, or in a club, or at a friend's house.  Something in the music or the lyrics touches me, grabs me, tugs my heart strings, twists my gut.  It's usually by someone I've never heard of before, but by the end of the day I will have played it a hundred times and embedded all its emotional impact into my psyche.

This song has done that to me this week.  My son posted a link on my Facebook page, thinking I would love it, and he was right.  It's a story we are all familiar with.  We've probably all been there.  But I love the fact that it includes a riposte.  Watch it to the end.  And cry a little.

Other songs I bought on first hearing:

Love is Just the Great Pretender - Animal Nightlife
Losing My Religion - REM
Bring Me To Life - Evanescence
Butterfly - Crazytown
Heatbeat - Nneka
Go - Delilah

TWITTER AUTHORS' SECRET SANTA

I set this up because most authors working from home don't get the fun of an office Christmas party or Secret Santa, and why should we miss out on the fun?

So how it works is:

Authors DM or notify me on Twitter to say they want to take part - deadline 15th December - and I compile the Secret Santa list.

I allocate each author a Secret Santa from the list.

So then - 

!  Each author gets the name of another author to send a copy of their latest book, beautifully wrapped of course!  

2 Each author will also be contacted by their own Secret Santa so they can be sent a book.

It is all organised by DM on twitter.  The only slight glitch may be if you aren't following your Secret Santa in which case they can't DM you, but people usually send a discreet open message to alert you so you can follow them.

The only rules are you must be a published author with a UK address - this last rule is to keep the postage fair.

Follow me on Twitter - @veronica_henry - if you want to take part.

Confidence trick

At the weekend, I went to the Gerhard Richter exhibition at Tate Modern. I was blown away, not only by the richness and variation of his work, but also his methodology: sometimes planned and ordered, sometimes random - sometimes both. It made me think long and hard about the way I write, and it occurred to me that the one quality all his work had, however it was generated, was confidence.  Here is a man who knows what he is capable of and who is not afraid to experiment and take risks, but at the same time is very definite about what he has to say.  Whatever image he ends up with, his voice is always loud and clear.

It made me realise that confidence is the most important item in the writer's toolbox.  With confidence, you can write what you like and how you like, instead of slavishly following a formula.  Confidence, of course, comes with experience, but the danger there is that one becomes complacent instead of pushing the boundaries.  Something that Richter was clearly never afraid to do. And that is when genius emerges: when talent and confidence and craft combine with risk.

I'm going to throw away the rule book for the next month.  Forget about inciting incidents, character arcs, reveals, back stories and just see what happens.  After all, any good storyteller will instinctively shape a strong narrative, but it's all too easy to get bogged down in following the check list peddled by the myriad creative writing gurus out there.  Is it any wonder that the fiction charts have been accused of becoming cynically formulaic, when everyone is singing from the same song sheet?

It will be like going on a journey without the sat nav. I can't wait to see where I end up.