I'm Writing a Music Album Based on My Novel-In-Progress. It's Making My Book Better

New creative pursuits can creep up on you sometimes. Case in point: I started learning to play the guitar in December and wrote my first song in July. Here’s the thing, though — it was a song about the novel I’m writing.

As I mentioned in my last newsletter, I’m very excited about how my fantasy novel, These Fallen Stars, is turning out. And given that stories tend to take over my brain when I’m writing them, what better way to procrastinate than write something else about the same story?

But it wasn’t procrastination after all. Writing songs has completely changed the way I write novels, for the better.

This is the story of an album-in-progress and a novel-in-progress and how they intertwine. If you’re curious to hear a bit of the album, I posted the title track to my Instagram a while back (with subtitles). But if you want to listen to the Official iPhone App Voice Memo Version(tm), here’s an audio embed:

You’ll also find another of my songs (one I’ve never fully shared before) at the end of this newsletter section. So if you’re feeling nosy, read on …

The Scope of the Project

So yeah. I’m gonna write an album about my novel. My current idea is that the track list would be roughly in order of each moment in the book that inspired the song, with a note in parentheses indicating which chapter the song goes with best. An incomplete track list:

1. These Fallen Stars (Main Theme)

2. Uprooted (Chapter 10)

3. Dancing Around (Chapter 27)

4. The Waltz of Kore and Vale (Chapter 45)

5. Stars Went Out (Chapter 60)

6. Twisted Reign (Chapter 70)

… But with more songs (these are just the ones I’ve written so far), and obviously the chapter numbers and titles and such might change as I revise.

I’m quite goal-oriented, so I like the fun of working toward something. That said, creating these songs is proving to be its own reward because of the way it’s enhanced my writing process.

Same Story, Different Angle

Obviously, a novel is quite a different artistic medium than a song. This means I’m forced to shift focus to make the story work as a song.

Songs are often focused more on how someone is feeling at a moment in time, rather than telling a narrative. That makes them great for character studies. As such, I’ve picked up on completely new bits of characterization in the songs I write.

When I first started writing songs about my novel, I assumed the novel would be feeding the content of the songs. It’s actually become more symbiotic than that — I routinely write a new character aspect into a song that I then weave into the novel itself.

Maybe the Real Lyrical Prose Was the Songs We Wrote Along the Way

I wrote in my last newsletter about how I feel like I’ve leveled up my prose a lot with These Fallen Stars. That exercise in improving my prose 100% gave me the confidence to write song lyrics. After all, you have to think a lot more carefully about the words when there aren’t that many of them and you’re constrained by a song’s rhythm and rhyme scheme.

Just like with character, I started off slipping phrases from the novel into my songs as little Easter eggs. But then I also started slipping lyrics from my songs into the novel. The two works are feeding off each other like little parasites or something.

My Perfect Writing Playlist

People write songs when they feel strongly about something. As a writer, what do we feel more strongly about than our characters? Sometimes when I’m really resonating with a moment in my character’s arc, I have to write a song about it to explore it more.

The best part is, listening to the song brings up the feelings that inspired it. And that makes it a great pre-writing warmup. I feel so lucky to be on the way to having the perfect writing playlist for me — even if it was one I had to make myself.

So What’s The End Goal?

Honestly, the primary end goal is just to write the thing. Even if nobody except my roommate ever hears the entire album, the effort of songwriting pays off because I get inspired from it. It’s making my story better.

That said, it would be ridiculously super cool to make a “proper” cut of These Fallen Stars: The Album. A cut with more instruments than just my hand-me-down acoustic guitar and better sound quality than whatever I can record with my iPhone voice memo app while sitting in my closet. I’m not promising anything, but I won’t lie and say I haven’t thought about it.

I don’t know if this novel will get published, or even if anyone except me will like it when it’s finished, but I do know I’ve found a super fun, super exciting extra addition to my writing process. I can’t imagine not writing songs about my future works too. So when I do get published, I hope I’ll be able to create a musical accompaniment to the story for my readers to enjoy!

Here’s Another Song

This is called Uprooted. It’s about my character Vale being sad in the woods. The lyric transcription can be found at the bottom of this newsletter.

Review Corner

As you can maybe tell from this month’s picks, I’ve been on a sci-fi kick lately.

The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson

I picked this one up because my favorite book is This Is How You Lose the Time War and I thought it seemed similar. While both books are indeed cool, short, timeline-hopping sci-fi featuring sapphic angst, The Space Between Worlds has a more confined setting that leads to a super interesting exploration of its themes and characters.

For more thoughts, see my full review of The Space Between Worlds here!

The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey

Speaking of connections between books and songs, this book is like if the songs Labour by Paris Paloma and No Body, No Crime by Taylor Swift had a baby. The Echo Wife is part sci-fi, part domestic thriller, and 100% twisted, and I’ll be thinking about it for a long time! (But if you’re a biologist, you’ll probably hate the science parts.)

See my full review of The Echo Wife here!

What's Going on in the Secret Writing Cave?

Okay, so it’s not that much of a Secret Writing Cave anymore, given that this newsletter quite heavily concerned a part of my writing process. But point is: here’s where I’m at with the BOOK version of These Fallen Stars.

I’m pretty far along in revisions by this point — I’m currently in the middle of a pass for voice, and then I plan to do a pass for continuity. Which could be a bit of a nightmare, because *whispers* I write my chapters out of order, so my drafts are prone to enormous continuity errors.

BUT! It’s coming along, and hopefully will be fit for beta reader consumption soon. Watch this space …

Uprooted Lyrics

[Verse One]

I’m like a limb without a body

Try to reach out, but I can’t

I’ll never see my kin again

Nobody out here truly knows me

I’m a whisper of the wind

Like a thief, but innocent

[Prechorus]

Feel the shaking leaves fall down

[Chorus]

You’re climbing up the roots of my sorrow

Knocking on my head, tell me that tomorrow

Isn’t all that bad, resting in the hollow

Of your kiss-stained throat, makes me want to go

To cities where I have never been before

To see the sky, tell me there is something more

Than my despair, watch me climb the spires till

I’m uprooted

[Verse 2]

There is a beast inside my body

I don’t need your pity, friend

That’s for those who have dreams left

How long until I finally lose me?

It’s approaching day by day

You know I’m not the kind to pray but

[Prechorus]

[Chorus]

[Instrumental break with some vocalizing that’s kind of too high for me, but oh well]

[Prechorus]

[Chorus x2]

Thank you so much for reading! Until next time, bookish friends.

Love,

Ellie