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Favorite Topic

Scone	Date: October 3, 2007 @ 2:03 AM Everyon'e favorite topic to write about? My favorite topic is to simply write stories about fictional characters. Sort of like ballads but completely random sometimes. I love that! I've written about people stranded in a desert, a guy who loses his job, and a dad singing to his son. I just find it really fun and creative. Let me know what you guys think.
zedsalt	Date: October 3, 2007 @ 11:18 AM I make an effort to avoid thinking about things like this too awfully much, as there's the danger of stuff getting in the way of what flows out of me (and we all know how uncomfortable THAT can be). But, yeah, one of the most fun methods of writing is to create a character and use his/her/its "voice". I find it especially satisfying to exaggerate my own least favorite qualities, make the narrator a caricature of my less desirable leanings.
DeadraveN	Date: October 3, 2007 @ 11:34 AM this might sound crazy, but I like to humanize incorporeal things and sing to them. I think of an emotion, or a moment in time, or an addiction, then write about my feelings towards it, as if they were feelings for a person.. So a song about love might really be about a memory, or a song about betrayal might be about letting go of a bad habit. It's all a bit twisted, but it makes sense up in my brain. Basically, all my songs are lies, in one way or another.
vladb	Date: October 3, 2007 @ 11:34 AM Murder Ballads. Even if what I'm doing has no words I'm always striving for that kind of tone.
zedsalt	Date: October 3, 2007 @ 11:55 AM Y'know DeadraveN, I heard Leo Kottke say once that ALL creativity is based in lying. And vladb, even though the phrase "Murder Ballads" does suggest a certain tone, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' album by that name shows they can have a variety of tones.
vladb	Date: October 3, 2007 @ 12:26 PM There may be differing approaches to the way a murder ballad is constructed but I think the one thing that’s draws them together is (to sound like a hippie dipshit) their spirit. Be it one of the many versions of a single song such as Pretty Polly or even Hey Joe, to traditional takes on the form from the first half of last century right through to the Violent Femmes and, yes, even some of the Nick Cave record, while all may vary in their structure and pacing they all have a stark honesty missing form so much music that not only highlights the issue of death but also the works of life at it extremes.
vladb	Date: October 3, 2007 @ 12:26 PM That's what i mean by "tone".
zedsalt	Date: October 5, 2007 @ 2:30 PM Yeah, that's what I love so much about the album I mentioned- the fact that the lyrics have something to do with murder is about the ONLY thing the songs have in common. You get some beautiful, lilting, folksy thing sung in absolutely angelic femme vocals- a slow, wistful number in which the narrator tries to reason out why she's been killed...then there's crashing, thrashing, Punk Burlesque with great lines like: "Well, my name is 'Loretta' but I prefer 'Lottie' I've struck terror in the hearts of this town It's like my eyes ain't green and my hair ain't yella It's more like the other way arooouuunnd" ...and the fourteen year old girl's part is voiced by Nick freakin' Cave. Vladb is obviously familiar with this album, but for those of you who aren't, I highly, highly recommend it. Great stuff.

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