Christy Wulff - Page 22 of 61 - WelcomeChristy Wulff | Welcome

Music is engrained in my writing…who am I kidding…in my freaking soul. My first books, The Maldito Series, take you through the story in 1st person POV with Emmy and with the song that is always in her head, which changes depending on the situation she finds herself in. And I didn’t pussyfoot around it either. I came right out and said the song name. The song’s writer/singer is given credit at the end of the books and I don’t quote the lyrics, just say the name of the song. Playing With Fire is a little less obvious, though I do reference a few songs that influenced the plot – cuz that happens. I’ve made a soundtrack, since I didn’t come right out and say the names of the songs. I’ll take you through it and the pages of the book you can associate with each song. Ready? Here we go.

Playing With Fire from christyltrujillo on 8tracks Radio.

Track 1: Levels, Avicii; Page 19

“I grabbed my MP3 player and plugged it into the speakers set up on the far wall. Tig had found some remixes on the web for me to practice bending, some off the wall crazy stuff with mad beats that messed with your head until your heart and the song were in the same rhythm. I scrolled through the music until I found just the right song, turned it up as loud as it would go and snaked a trail of fire down to the ground.”

Track 2: Reckless Serenade, Arctic Monkey; Page 24-28

Pretty much the background music for the entire scene.

Track 3: Savannah, Reliant K; Page 42

“Do you really think…” Tig began.

“Drive!” I snapped, cutting him off before he could finish. I looked down at my hands, clasping and unclasping them in my lap. I refused to meet his questioning gaze, or anyone else’s for that matter. He sighed and turned the car around. When I dared a glance in my rear view, Dominic still stood in the middle of the road. I watched until he was a speck in the glass then put my head back and shut my eyes. The front pocket of my jeans lay awkwardly over the picture stuffed inside it. I hope you’re worth all of this, I thought as I patted it with the palm of my hand.”

Track 4: Everything, Lifehouse; Page 163

“I’m not going to beg, Lea,” he warned. “I’ll ask you again. Open your eyes.”

His eyelashes grazed my cheek as he ran his nose down the length of my neck and back again. We swayed ever so slightly to the melody of the music. For a moment he whispered the words of the song in my ear, questioning how standing with me like this couldn’t change him, how it couldn’t move him.

Track 5: Crave You (Adventure Club Remix), Flight Facilities; Page 179

A haunting melody filled the air as the next song came through the speakers. Tig added it to the end of the playlist to be used for a cool down after a hard workout, slow and deliberate but still with those electronic vibes that I loved.

I stood with my back to him and didn’t turn when I heard him approaching. I could feel him behind me. His warm breath sent shivers across the sensitive flesh on my neck as one finger traced from just below my hairline to in-between my shoulder blades.

“You’re sweaty,” he murmured. His hand slid down my back and stopped at my waist, grabbing me and pulling me into him. “I like it.”

Track Six, Give Me Love, Ed Sheeran; Page 204-205

“I stood next to her for what seemed like forever, watching her as she toiled away, moving up and down the rows of vegetables. The same song played over and over from her porch, a haunting melody accompanied by a smooth voice that was begging for me to give him love. I don’t have any to give, I thought sadly.”

Track Seven, Poison & Wine, The Civil Wars; Page 214-215

This is the background music while Philip and Lea are talking.

Track Eight, I Shall Believe, Sheryl Crow, Page 215-216

This is the music that would’ve played while Philip held Lea the night before she left.

Track Nine, The Last Time, Oliver Tank; Page 244-245

Background music while she’s talking to Tig and fade out music for her final thoughts.

If you’ve read the book and thought of a song for a scene, I would love to hear that!! Let me know in the comments.

Love,

Christy

Spread the love

Being a writer

I’ve said before that I think people are born writers. Not authors, not professional writers, but writers just the same. I’ve never said this before, but I also think being born a writer is a punishment for some atrocity you’ve committed in a former life. I suppose if you know right away you want to be a writer when you grow up and only surround yourself with other writers (and someone to help you with money and whatnot) then you might end up pretty happy. The rest of us, however, sort of meander about and wonder if what everyone says about us is true. Are we really crazy? Well, we probably are. Just a little.

Being a writer means when you look at the world you see layers. Most people just see one little happy reality and that suits them just fine. Writers see layer upon layer of possibility and are already writing everyone’s backstory in their heard. Perfect example: You know that video that went viral a few years ago with the couple and their wedding party dancing down the aisle to Chris Brown’s Forever? Here it is in case you forget.

Most people look at that and see a cool couple and their awesome and good-natured friends. I cry like a baby every time I watch it because her dad’s not there. In my mind, she was so sad about her dad not being around to walk her down the aisle that her loving fiancé and friends decided to make it fun and not something she needed to dread. “Forget tradition,” he told her as his thumb ran along her skin erasing all trace of her tears. “We’ll do it our own way.” SEE? LAYERS. It’s like that for us with everything. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, is just what it is (even though we may say that a million times a day as we try to convince ourselves of it.) We feel more, see more, love more, hate more, need more…everything is just more.

So let’s say you’ve made the leap and are now published in some form. Your typical writer is very introverted. Very, leave-me-be-with-my coffee-my cat-and-my laptop kind of people. Now our words that meant so very much to us are out there in the world for people to read. Novice writers think their family will support them. And while this may be true, it will NOT be to the degree you expect. Everyone in your family isn’t going to buy your book just because you wrote it. They aren’t going to be as excited as you think they should be and they won’t tell their friends. Sorry. That’s just the way of it. (Unless they’re writers too, in which case: Jackpot!) Once you’re past the need for their approval, you then focus on the rest of the world. What if they hate it? Worse, what if they ignore it? HOW COULD THEY? How could they ignore this perfectly prepared masterpiece you’ve given them?? Some will, some won’t. It’s a crapshoot, like everything else in life. If you have a publisher you better get on the social media bandwagon and promote, promote, promote (even if it kills you) because if you don’t, another author will and publishers/agents would rather work with the author who will make them the most money because they have to feed their families.

Despite all of this, we trudge along. Why? BECAUSE IF WE DON’T WE WON’T BE ABLE TO FUNCTION. I wish I could stop writing. I wish I could just delete my unfinished WIPs and ideas and turn my back on the whole damn thing! But I can’t. And when I do, when I give it the old college try, I fall apart. I can’t concentrate because the stories rumbling around in my head cause the rest of my brain to hemorrhage and become paralyzed and I am nothing but a blob of sadness and despair and loss. So I write.

Spread the love