Music That Inspired The "Dream"

Indulgence time:

"The Hambledown Dream" is a story that has has a rich musical influence flowing through it. Music is particularly important in a number of key scenes within "The Dream" where the central character plays his guitar to a crowd - not necessarily used to his style of playing. But music is also important in laying down a "feel" to the story. Like a painter who gradually builds a piece of art up through layering, I used music during the writing process to help me tap into a particular emotional texture. It allowed me to imbue certain scenes with a soul that I think carries really nicely. In the initial drafts of the manuscript I even included the lyrics to certain songs that I thought would complement scenes but I quickly learned that the copyright considerations surrounding the use of certain lyrics was a mine field that I just didn't end up wanting to traverse so I gave up on their inclusion. Which, in the final analysis is probably a good thing because it keeps the story my own - the borrowing of lyrics can actually work against you because it takes away a little of your writings authenticity.

However, tapping into the emotional heart of certain songs in order to translate what a character might be thinking and feeling at a particular moment is a different proposition entirely. By interpreting a song and marrying that with the character's state of mind and what you get is something that remains true to your own writing style but it allows you to add a little texturing and layering to a scene. You have allowed a piece of music to add to that tableaux in a subtle way.

Can you see what I am getting at?

I wrote "The Hambledown Dream" across a period of about 8 months during 2009. I wrote it during rainy afternoons when it was cold out and I was sitting at the dining room table watching the rain fall against the window panes - the sound of quiet jazz playing in the background, a glass of wine nearby. I wrote it on a warm day on the patio of my house with classical guitar music on the radio, a cold beer sitting beside me and my dog laying beside my chair. I wrote it in the early hours of the morning - I mean like at 3 or 4 AM when I had a quiet moment at work and could steal a moment to pen some lines on my smartphone. Often I would have some quiet music as an accompaniment, maybe Zero 7 or Dido, or even Vince Jones - one of my favorite artists. A cup of good old caterer's blend sugared to the nines completes this particular occasion. Music helped me create, it helped me to see things clearer, it helped me to tap into an emotional heart in my story.

So here is what can be loosely regarded as the unofficial soundtrack to "The Hambledown Dream" - Music that inspired the story. I'll refer to it as unofficial so as not to piss off anyone in the recording industry who may deem it worthy to slap me with some sort of infringement notice.

1. Walking On A Dream - Empire of the Sun.
2. Cursed Diamond - The Black Crowes.
3. Deciso - Astor Piazolla (as performed by Slava & Leonard Grigoryan).
4. The Sounds Of Rain Part 3 - Slava Grigoryan.
5. Throw Your Arms Around Me (Acoustic Version) - Hunter's and Collector's.
6. Landslide - The Dixie Chicks.
7. Come Alive - Foo Fighters.
8. Here With Me - Dido.
9. But Beautiful - Vince Jones.
10. Sonata Prima - Fernando Sor (as performed by Slava Grigoryan).
11. Concierto de Aranjuez 2 - Joaquin Rodrigo (as performed by Slava & Leonard Grigoryan).
12. Home - Zero 7.

They are a fairly eclectic and personal collection of songs that reflect the overall 'feel' of "The Hambledown Dream". Most of the pieces - particularly the classical ones - are depicted in the story and described in detail, because both Andy and Denny play them, while others serve as the background to particular scenes and are mentioned in such a way as to paint a picture. Most of these songs can be found readily across the breadth of the internet. I encourage you to seek them out - by legitimate means - and have a listen to them. They will give you an impression of the mood and the texture that I was trying to achieve whilst writing "The Hambledown Dream".

DFA.

Who Am I?

So now I come to address the question that forms the title of this post.

I need to come up with a profile of myself to submit to iReadiWrite publishing along with my manuscript and I have been wracking my brain asking myself that very question. I never thought how hard it would be to write a short profile of myself but I have sat at my computer many times in the past couple of weeks trying to focus on this one task. And I end up deleting whatever dribble I end up coming up with.

I am mid 30's, a Registered Nurse by profession, working mainly in Pediatric ICU and ER. I love sailing, reading, writing (duh!!), bad music, the internet, good music and collecting Star Wars figurines (geek alert!!!!). I am also a father, a husband (almost) and at times my life resembles Ray Romano's. So shouldn't that be easy enough to put into a short bio about myself.

Nup.

I end up writing something pithy (read: pissy!) and I end up hitting the backspace button...and then I swear...a lot!! I just sent the past eight months writing 81000 words about several other people, so how come I can't come up with just a few words about myself??

What do I do? How do I crack this particular nut?

Who Am I?

DFA.

Final Preparations

I have been wrestling with one last significant thing with respect to the novel.

For the past eight months I have been writing the novel with the working title "Dreams Of A Love Indestructible". However I have grown increasingly concerned that this title is too "Mills and Boon" and not nearly as classy as say a "Notebook" or a "PS I Love You" (okay so maybe the latter of these two can be cast as gushy/lovey-dovey romance chic). Dreams Of A Love Indestructible does not readily roll off the tongue and, to me - as well as a few others I have run it by - it does sound a little questionable. I named it so because it is the dreams of two people that form a central motif in the story. They are more or less sharing something but they don't know it.

So in the past few days I have reconsidered the title whilst finalizing the remaining edits of the manuscript. I have written down a few ideas on the page, moved things around a bit to see how they fit. And in the process of doing so I kept hearing or seeing the word "Hambledown" in my mind. I don't know how it came to be there but I wrote it down regardless - and then an idea fomented.

During the early part of the writing process , in the copious amounts of notes I had written, I had brainstormed an idea where I would name a particular location in the novel Hambledown Road. I had no idea where this location was, only that it was going to be there somewhere. Then, further along in the writing process Hambledown Road become the location of the beach house where my two star crossed lovers first live together. For a time I worked to include it somewhere in the piece but for some reason it kept getting moved back or put to the side. But I really liked the name Hambledown.

While I was away on holiday on Kangaroo Island, I revisited the whole title issue and decided that "Dreams Of A Love Indestructible" was definitely too much and I could no longer move forward with it. So I gave Hambledown one last look in. I named the town where Denny and Sonya lived Stafford - and this was another aspect of the story that I was never fully happy with. I named it so because of a street I found in the seaside township of Tathra on NSW's south coast and from that I created the fictional village of Stafford on the south coast. I thought at the time "That'll do" but I was kinda "meh" at the same time.

So last week I asked myself the question "What if I renamed Stafford, Hambledown instead?"

Bingo.

Sometimes, in life things just fit in my mind. And this is just one of those. To me the title is a lot more succinct. It is wistful without being overly gushy and to me it sparks interest rather than hits you in the face with a potentially misleading gush fest. With the dream still very much a favored word for the title I have decided and by extension announce here for the first time that my novel will be hence forth known as

"The Hambledown Dream"

Now let me just hope that the same superstition convention that applies to the re-naming of boats doesn't apply here and this decision doesn't damn me to bad, bad luck...

DFA.