Authors Electric

Photographs of John AA Logan don't exactly litter the internet I'm surprised to find myself having a go at this 'blog hop' challenge – but I was even more surprised (and rather delighted) when John AA Logan invited me to try. John's a fellow Authors Electric member but I've never met him and I don't feel that I really 'know' him in the social media world. There are some AE members (and Facebook friends) who I forget that I haven't physically met. They're so much part of my on-line life that I assume that we would instantly get chatting about 1001 things if we should discover ourselves sharing a cup of coffee or a glass of wine. But not John.  That's merely a recording of my impression: it's not a criticism or a judgement. Agatha Christie once said about Margery Allingham "If I say I don't at all know what she was like that is the truth and that makes her interesting to me." My impression is that (in the hackne...

So we sit down, wake the laptop, place coffee beside keyboard, flex knuckles, stare meaningfully at the ceiling, put on headphones... and begin.  What's going into our ears? Something pure like birdsong? Something contemplative and thoughtful for the earnest business of noveling? Not necessarily. It might just as easily be grinding guitars and ripping vocals. My blog series The Undercover Soundtrack has been going for a year now, and more than 50 writers have so far shared the music that helped them invent and hone their novels. Soundtracks Undercover Soundtracks are not the songs their characters like, or the music played at their weddings. They are writers' secret ingredients, meditative antechambers where they can study their characters’ true natures, conjure an atmosphere or examine the nature of an elusive moment. Catherine Czerkawska Among the first contributors were members of this group. Dan Holloway searched for nostalgia and directionless...