Tag Archives: Songs

Special Guest: Colleen Isolde on Characters and Music

My darlings! Please bear with me, as we welcome Colleen to ALBTALBS! In fact, we should be seeing more of her, because she’s going to be sharing reviews here as well! Whee! (I just need to, you know, get on that.) Also let’s pretend this puts me on schedule. As you know, the third Saturday of each month I feature a reader from the community. In June, because June is awesome, we have a special reader guest each month! So everyone say hi to Colleen! <3

Characters and Music by Colleen Isolde

For many writers as well as readers, music plays a role either providing background to work or inspiring characters. Recently on twitter, author Pamela Clare requested love songs to help with her writing of a love scene for her next book in her I-Team Series. Author Tina Reber lists her musical playlists on her website for the books in her Love Series. Following authors on twitter and facebook often provide readers with an idea of what music is inspiring particular stories or parts of stories. That being said, not all authors list songs or playlists or even listen to music while the write, however as readers, we can still find music that reminds us of particular characters.

I am a huge Jessica Scott fan. I love her characters and found that two in particular seem to keep popping into my head months after reading Because of You. When I first started listening to Pink’s new album “The Truth About Love” and I first heard her song “Blow Me (One Last Kiss),” I immediately thought of Laura. I even tweeted to Jessica Scott at the time that I could totally see Laura singing this song while driving in her car or while doing housework.

I also ran across a video dub created by some soldiers in Afghanistan mimicking the actions of the Miami Dolphins’ cheerleaders video dub to Carly Rae Jepsen’s song “Call Me Maybe.” In this video, I see Vic Carponti as the ginger soldier with the beard and ringleader behind making this video. Of course now, every time I hear this song, I think of Carponti.

The song “About Today” by The National makes me think of a soundtrack for Ryan’s life in Ranae Rose’s Battered Not Broken. Some of this may have to do with the fact that this song appears on the “Warrior” soundtrack starring the sexy Tom Hardy, but I think it mostly has to do with the struggle that I see Ryan having in terms of adjusting to civilian life.

How about you? Do you find certain music to remind you of particular characters in books you read or do you find yourself thinking of music that certain characters may listen to?

#SongStalker Game and Giveaway!

Yes, that’s right – what you see there is a hashtag! And a giveaway! What I want you to do is share the most creepy/stalkertastic song lyrics you can think of! You can tweet them (making sure you use the hashtag – and tag me too if you want to ensure I see it…) or leave them in the comments here. I’ll use randomizer.org to draw a winner.

Anyone and everyone is welcome to enter! Readers – I’ll give away a book, or a swag pack – whichever you want. (The swag pack might also have books… we’ll see.)

Authors – you can win your choice of the above, or if you want to use or see this as a promo opportunity, I can give away a copy of your book… or we can schedule a guest spot for you here! (Cuz um, that’s such a prize? :P)

Ready? Set? Go!

To start us off… I’ll share what I’ve already gotten.

Courtesy of author Jeannie Lin,

Come to my window. Crawl inside, wait by the light of the moon.” #songstalker or rather stalker-invite

Now I’ve got you in my sights. I’ve got hungry eyes. One look at you and I can’t disguise” #songstalker”

And from poor SonomaLass who is such a good sport, playing around (with excellent contributions) even while recovering from surgery

I love you/You love me/We’re as happy as can be…Won’t you say you love me too?” #songstalker #scarypurpledinosaur

And from Raonaid Luckwell

Working late in diner Citylight, I see that you get home alright Make sure that you can’t see me, #songstalker

And from myself?

“It is useless to resist it…He’s handling the money/He’s serving the food/He knows about your party/He is calling you” #songstalker

I also love “you can run, you can hide, but you can’t escape my love” #songstalker

“So come to me my love/I’ll tap into your strength and drain it dry/Can never have enough/ For youu I’d burn the length and breadth of sky” #songstalker

“Inside the labyrinth walls/There lies a tiny child who sleeps alone…this child I would destroy/If you tried to set her free” #songstalker

“I wanna be there when you’re feeling high/ I wanna be there when you wanna die…I wanna be there when you go insane” #stalkersong

And the tweet that started it all…

Up for a silly game? Tweet most stalkertastic song lyrics. #songstalker ? e.g. “If I was invisible then I could just watch you in your room”

Got questions? Leave them in the comments. I’ll keep this open for a few days. (Possibly until next Tuesday? If so then if you tweet me, please @reply me because Twitter clears out hashtag results pretty quickly. Thanks!)

Oh – and … this one is explained by one of the artists herself…

ETA: Oh right- and of course, I’m also doing this giveaway because it’s one of my most favoritest people’s birthday every… JenB! So everyone ALSO please wish JenB a very happy birthday! <3

ETA2: I changed it to leaving a comment to enter because I can’t keep track of twitter. The hashtag results vary too much, and the @reply goes haywire too easily. :X