Posts for category ‘music’

My last couple of posts have been long and somewhat serious. I’m ready to loosen up, y’all! And shorten’ up! And so, loosely and succinctly:

- Thank you for your many and wonderful comments on the interview with Sara Bennett Wealer, and congrats to our winner, Lara D. If you did not win, please remember that this book is available for sale. Want awesome books to continue to be published? Buy awesome books. Realism, especially, can always use your vote. And by your vote I mean your money.

- My latest post at Good Letters is about re-reading Madeleine L’Engle’s House Like a Lotus, a hugely important read to me in my adolescence. Polly/Poly O’Keefe + older man! Was it a coincidence that not long after reading it I started dating a 25-year-old? Perhaps, perhaps not.

- I’ve started watching this neat little TV show called Lost. You probably haven’t heard of it. I’m kinda indie that way. Anyway, there was one day last week that sucked prettttty bad, and friend Mike said watching this show might help. Mike=genius.

- Have you seen Fish Tank? I’m not recommending watching it on a sucky day, unless you like to go all the way down the hatch while you’re at it, but for me it was one of the most compelling movies about a teen character I’ve seen in a long, long time. Hard to watch. You’ve been warned. (It reminded me a tiny tiny bit of Girls Town, this odd movie from long-ish ago that is not yet on DVD…)

- Some music I’ve been loving: Ivan & Alyosha, Say Hi, Girl Talk, and still Junip. Fun iTunes game! Broken Bells’ “The High Road” is listed as number one in my Top 25 Most Played at 116 plays. I don’t know if that’s for all time, or what, and that it probably doesn’t include iPod plays. I do know I listened to that song and album incessantly while writing How to Save a Life. It’s a great song, and part of what I loved was the lyric at the end (accompanied by gorgeous harmonies), “It’s too late to change your mind / you let loss be your guide.” But guess what? THOSE MIGHT NOT BE THE ACTUAL LYRICS. Many web sites insist they are saying “laws” not “loss.” I do not care. “Loss” goes with my book. “Laws” does not. It’s not the most exciting video in the world but there you go.

What’s your #1 most played song right now?

1. You may remember me posting before about Fictionist, a local band that defies all assumptions about local bands. (At least the ones I have, but maybe I’m an unhip snob? And also old? Very possible. After all, my last post was partly about Elton John and Simon and Garfunkel.) Well, they now have the chance to get on the cover of Rolling Stone, and onto Jimmy Kimmel Live. Whoah. And I think you should help. I’m not just saying this out of Utah pride – I’m not one to pimp things I don’t genuinely think are Good and Worthy. Having seen Fictionist live a couple of times, I can tell you that these guys are the real deal, in terms of musicianship, passion, devotion to craft. If you’re for this, just go to their home page and give ‘em a rating in that Rolling Stone box thing. (Five stars. Come on. You can trust your old pal Sara that they’re worthy of it. If you don’t have time to listen, do it for the band name alone!)

2. Do you like literary fiction about adults? Or do you want to like it, but tire of the 800-page tomes about male midlife crises? Do you wish the people in adult litfic at least vaguely resembled actual human beings that you’ve encountered so that you can, you know, care about them? I’ve got a book for you – Lan Samantha Chang’s All Is Forgotten, Nothing Is Lost. It’s around 200 precise, wise pages that totally escape self-indulgence and grandiosity (which is hard to do, I think, when writing about writing/writers, as Chang does here). Yes, there is a little bit of midlife crisis, but sort of being in the midst of one myself, I’m down. Chang’s prose is so incredibly exacting, the rhythms perfectly varied. The story is partly about art, and the making of art, and includes a lot of philosophical goodies for creative people. It never occurred to me to put this book down until I was done. Sadly, that is all too rare an experience for me. (And can I confess I picked this up on the title alone?)

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3. Speaking of reading, I am finally going to read The Hunger Games! Slightly behind the times, I know, but my book club is doing it and I’m in. DO NOT LET ME DOWN, COLLINS.

4. In another round of cultural catchup, I watched 3:10 to Yuma at long last. I thought it was a truly impressive work of filmmaking and storytelling, and it compelled me to read the Elmore Leonard short story on which it’s based. The short story is so…short! The movie is a great example of what a mighty oak can grow from a tiny seed. James Mangold is a fine director I’ve always admired, but this is an epic feat. (And I now have the 1957 version in my queue.)

5. I hate tax season.

Have a great weekend, and enjoy the holiday if you’ve got it!

The Year of Writing is off to a great start. I love my new writing space. Part of what’s kind of magic about it is that I’ve decided not to do any author business, social networking, or non-creative work in it. I have other space at home for that. It feels very protected, like a monk’s cell, which is how I always imagined the ideal space would be. And I’m not going to post a picture of it because, I don’t know, maybe that will let in a certain kind of energy I don’t want it to have? Really, I’m not usually doo-doo-doo-doo about that stuff (that should be read with a Twilight Zone inflection, not a Manhattan Transfer inflection, and if you don’t know who or what the Manhattan Transfer is, well, you are probably young and vigorous). In this case, I think I’ll keep it secret.

Meanwhile, instead, I shall post the following links:

- My latest Good Letters post – thoughts stirred up while recently kicking back with Season 1 of Hoarders.

- TeenReads.com is giving away up to 25 copies of Once Was Lost for your book club! The contest is open through February 17. Check it out.

- Did you happen to watch City Slickers the other night while everyone else watched football? Did it occur to you, “That kid playing Billy Crystal’s son looks an awful lot like Jake Gyllenhaal?” Well, you were right. Maybe I am the last person in the world to have realized this.

- I shall now remind you about the workshop I’m teaching in June at the Glen Workshop East. More about what it is and my experiences of it here.

- Current song obsession: Miranda Lambert’s “Only Prettier”

- Speaking of music, one of my faves, Elton John, is the cover story of the current Rolling Stone. It’s a really good interview, if you’re an Elton fan. It’s interesting to hear him talk about his old work, and he also has some tough love for Billy Joel re: sobriety. Random: The interviewer said he could barely stand to listen to EJ’s debut, Empty Sky, but I like it. Certainly, the songs make absolutely no sense, but it still has a certain something.

- Edited to add link to this great, great interview with Linford Detweiler of Over the Rhine. Though he’s talking specifically about songwriting, there’s lots here for writers.

- Latest single-song download (though I’m pretty sure we have it on vinyl): Simon and Garfunkel’s “America.” Come on. Great song.

Wow, this post is making me feel old and unhip. Okay. I’m going with it.

I’m in a bit of a crunch—HOW TO SAVE A LIFE page proofs are here! And also, I’m busy making my SCBWI speech as awesome as possible. So I’m cheating on this blog post, which is really just a follow-up to last week’s mention of Jose Gonzalez and Junip.

I found the video below on YouTube last weekend. Totally bizarre and beautiful. (The song, by the way, is a cover of Massive Attack’s “Teardrop,” which you may recognize as the theme song for House.)

So, hey, giveaways still happening all through January. Get a copy of one of my books, if you need one, plus a surprise book hand-picked by me from my Pile’O'ARCs’n'books! Just leave a comment to put your name in the hat. If you want to go the extra mile, post the link to a video of one of your current favorite songs. This will not increase your chances, but it will entertain me and other readers of this blog.

Oh, yes, last week’s winner comes to us from LiveJournal! Congrats, Cindy. (After this post, there will be one more chance to win, next week.)

For further reading, my latest Good Letters post–on desire in the creative life–is up today.

Have a great weekend. I’ll be working on this (sideways, apparently):

Congratulations to Alysa, aka author of comment #44329 and winner of Monday’s giveaway. Contact me, Alysa! (Okay, I know that when you comment here, you are asked to enter your email address. But I don’t see on my dashboard how to actually access your email address. So I hope people are coming back to see if they won. Mariska! I’m talkin’ to you!)

My brain is working very slowly here at the end of a busy week, so what I have for you is randomness. And also another giveaway. You all have been so great at participating. Don’t lose hope! Leave a comment to enter for your choice of one of my books or audiobooks, plus a surprise book.

- True Grit. Though I saw a lot of good movies in 2010, this is probably my favorite. Yes, other movies have led me to deeper thought, or more visceral reaction, or stronger emotion, but no other movie left me so completely with the feeling: Now that was a movie!

- Junip. It’s a newish project of singer/songwriter Jose Gonzalez (sorry, terrible with the accent thingies), and I am obsessed. I have listened to Fields at least twenty times in the last forty-eight hours. Great writing music. For me it will most likely be the Broken Bells of 2011 – BB’s self-titled album was my default writing music last year.

- How to Save a Life. It is the title of my next book! Which is coming out in about a year. I don’t like to talk things to death this far in advance of release, but now that the title is finalized (think of the quote “the life you save may be your own”), I can officially announce it. People, I had such fun writing this one. For now all I’ll say is: two narrators, worlds collide. Right now we are working on cover concepts. Exciting!

- Good Letters. I am a regular contributor of spiritual writing and creative nonfiction over there now, a couple of times a month. (Here’s a link directly to all my archived posts.) I also always post a link from Twitter, so if you’re there and not following me, well, now is your chance.

- Did you notice? I’ve added some features to my web site to make it easier to stay in touch whatever way works best for you. On the right sidebar, “never again miss a post” gives you a chance to sign up via email. And each post has a little bar of options for sharing and following.

Thanks again for all your comments – I’m sorry I’m not responding to all of them. This year I’m kind of on a heavy-internet-use-only-twice-a-week schedule, which doesn’t leave as much time for everything as I might like. But I read and appreciate them all!

See you back here next week…