Two Steps to the Future

Hey everyone! Welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m glad you’re back, here to check out the next in my ways of getting myself in the writing zone.

It’s NaNoWriMo this month, which means a ton of writers are sitting down and forcing themselves to knock out a 50,000 word book in a month that also happens to contain a pretty big holiday (if you're in the States, that is). It’s hard. It’s not something I’ve participated it. But that doesn’t mean I can’t give you some pointers for getting yourself in the zone—whether you’re writing a book this month or just writing like you usually do.

#2: Epic Music

To be more specific, Two Steps from Hell and Future World Music, because they’re my favorites and I love them.

While Tuesday was all about finding a background that helps you focus and get yourself into the zone, today is all about finding the soundtrack to what you’re writing—which is why I’ve chosen two different artists for you to check out.

For me, writing is really easy, especially if I can find music that perfectly matches the scenes I’m working on at the moment. Which is nowhere near as easy as it sounds, let me tell you.

I need epic music, music with no English lyrics or no lyrics at all, and music that flows like the score to my favorite films. Which is why I always recommend epic music, because it is, essentially, soundtrack music. It’s really trailer music, or rather, it’s a lot of the music you’ll hear in the previews for movies and television shows.

And a lot of it is absolutely amazing, and available online. Two Steps even has a lot of their albums available for listening on YouTube, if you don’t feel like purchasing that much music. Me, I love them so much that I don’t even bother to sample the music before I but their albums anymore. Whatever Two Steps releases, you better know I own it.

I’ve digressed.

See, for me, epic music is the soundtrack to what I’m writing right now. Because of that, I’m better able to visualize what I’m writing, which helps immensely in writing it down and making sure my readers see things the same way I do. I don’t want anyone to be in the dark about what I’m writing, what I’m seeing when I write. Epic music helps with that.

The two artists I’ve given you, Two Steps from Hell and Future World Music, are the two that I listen to the most.

If you’re wanting to write something epic, something fantasy, something very deep within this genre, I’d highly recommend Two Steps from Hell's repertoire.

If, however, you’re writing a space opera, something very sci-fi, very techy, or very introspective, you need to check out Future World Music's latest albums.

Different artists work better for different moods, different stories, and different genres. Obviously, I can’t tell you what to listen to while you’re writing an Amish romance, because I don't write Amish romance, but I can tell you what I know.

These two artists don’t disappoint. Ever.

[love]

{Rani Divine}

Autonomous

Hey everyone! Welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m glad you stopped by, especially as we’re starting our November series today.

This month, being NaNoWriMo, I thought you might enjoy if I spent some time talking about the ways I get myself into the zone for my writing. As you all know, I write a lot. And I do mean a lot. My novels tend to be right around 200,000 words, and I can knock a novel out in around six months. That’s a lot of writing. Especially while I’m editing two or three other books at the same time. I’m a busy girl.

But, because NaNoWriMo is all about making sure we find time to write and stick to it, I thought it’d be a good time to share some of the ways I do that (in no particular order).

#1: ASMR Videos

I think I’ve talked to you guys about ASMR before, but I’m also pretty sure that it’s been a while. I don’t talk about it a whole lot, because there’s this weird stigma against it, and a lot of people who think ASMR is extremely sexual.

Let me tell you right now: it’s not as weird as you think it is, and it doesn’t have to be sexual at all. I greatly prefer if it isn’t sexual. I don’t like sexual. It makes me blush, and then I can’t write.

Anyway.

It stands for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (which pretty much tells you absolutely nothing about it), and it’s linked to that tingly feeling you get in the back of your head in certain comforting circumstances. Which is why it can be really nice when you sit down to write.

It can also be highly distracting, especially for people like me, so you have to find the right balance.

Anyway, it’s that feeling of comfort and relaxation that a lot of people got when they watched Bob Ross, back in the day. And he’s actually still pretty nice to listen to while you’re doing stuff.

It’s all about finding a background noise that helps you focus, that keeps you in the zone. And there are a lot of great ASMR videos on YouTube that really help me when I sit down to write (or even edit). Usually, they’re soft spoken videos, sometimes tutorials, but they’re always very chill, very soothing, and very helpful for getting me in the zone for anything that isn’t a super dramatic scene. Yeah, don’t listen to ASMR while trying to be dramatic. It doesn’t really work. At all.

I do highly recommend it, whether you use it to get in the zone for your writing, or to get out of the zone once you’re done and have to be a normal human being again. It’s great for both!

And if you’re interested and want to check it out, here’re a few artists I think you should look up:

GentleWhispering ASMR
GibiASMR

LauraLemureX ASMR

Articulate Design ASMR

And, the very best out there if you’re wanting some highly immersive fantasy-genre roleplays:

Goodnight Moon

Happy listening, and happy writing, my friends!

[love]

{Rani Divine}

A+D

Happy November, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! It’s finale day, and it also just so happens to be the inaugural day of NaNoWriMo, which means I expect you’ll all be hard at work filling your word quotas this month.

If you’re in the Albuquerque area though, and you need to do some reading (to get your mind off the writing), come check out the Albuquerque Museum Author Fair, this Saturday from 10AM-4PM! I’ll have copies of all my books, plus Mavguard and Letters from Hell, and I’d love to see each and every one of you!

For now, let’s get onto that finale.

All month, we’ve been talking about themes, myths, and legends that are done (and maybe nearly overdone) in fiction around the world—and, for some reason, that readers just can’t seem to get enough of. We’re talking about these topics and discussing what we can do to put our own spin on them, to make a story that’ll rattle the world.

And I’ve saved what I think is the best, for last.

#10: Angels and Demons

For once! This is something I’ve actually written! Yes, indeed, I wrote a story about the birth of demons. It’s still in my editing queue, behind a series I need to finish asap, but I’m hoping to have it released after the Druid Novels are all out. It’s one of my favorites, and my beta readers have all said it was one of their favorites as well.

And that’s why I wanted to talk about it!

Angels and demons are two things readers cannot get enough of, if only because of the sheer mass of religions which involve both angels and demons. True, Asian religions don’t always, but Christianity, Mormonism, Catholicism, Islam, and others all have both angels and demons in their belief system—which makes it something that people within those religions readily enjoy reading.

Why? Because there’s always that possibility that the story might be real, and that’s just fascinating.

It’s also why we should never stop writing stories in this theme. Because there will always be readers who love to read things in this vein, and probably a great many readers who only read things in this vein.

But it’s also something where we can have a lot of creativity, because, obviously, we can’t really say very much about angels or demons. As someone with beliefs firmly rooted in Christianity, I can tell you there’s not a whole lot written to tell us what angels look like. We know what they do, what they’re for, but we don’t know, really, who they are.

So it’s up to writers, to decide (for your story, anyway)! Which, let me tell you, is a great deal of fun. I highly recommend it.

That’s it for our series, and I sincerely hope that you enjoyed it! Now that NaNoWriMo has started, I hope I’ve given you some good ideas for stories to work on throughout this month, or maybe just helped to point you in the right direction when it came to choosing a theme for your novel.

Thank you all for reading! Check back in on Tuesday to see what we’ll be talking about through NaNoWriMonth!

[love]

{Rani Divine}