As you may have read in a previous post, or gathered from the general gist of this blog, I kind of like to write. More than that, I like to use NaNoWriMo as a tool to create books that I then give to my friends as gifts. I learnt this from a John Green quote (he of Vlogbrothers fame). So that’s what I do. And it’s the fact that these books are gifts which makes them easy to do, because there’s a motivation other than myself.
But that’s only a small part of what I wanted to talk about. I added a mixtape with the last book that I gave out. Mainly because I thought it was a good idea and secondly, because being the writer I was able to shoehorn a cassette tape into the book to give the gift some context. It was easy enough, the main character gets a tape as a birthday present.
The tape has two sides to it, two complete and separate mixes. One, SIDE A exists for when the character wishes to feel hope and joy. And SIDE B, for when they want to sit in the sadness of a break up (I find sitting in a sadness helps). The stark contrast of the two mixes is explained by saying that the main character’s friend started to put it together when the recipient was still in a relationship.
I try to start my mixes with a strong opening, something to immediately capture the attention. The first track of SIDE A is Arabella by The Arctic Monkeys. Strong start, get people in, and that’s when I take it down a notch. For SIDE B, the intro isn’t too strong, because when you’re in the middle of it, maybe a strong drum beat and loud guitar wouldn’t really fit the mood. If you want to hear the mixes I’ll put links to the YouTube Playlists I created to put them together, just below.
One of the good things about making a mix for cassette as opposed to CD is the lack of space. Oh yes, you best believe that before the cassette, the members of the Richard Anthony Morris Book Club got CD’s. Anyhow, what was I talking about, that’s right, time constraints. So, when you go from CD to cassette, you go from 80 minutes to 45. Essentially 20+ tracks to a succinct 12 or 13.
An important part of a mixtape is to convey a journey through song, one that I tried to mirror in the book, with certain songs kind of playing out in the book (one example is that the main character’s ex-girlfriend is called Bella). But, I think that a mixtape should do a bit more than that, with a mixtape, mix CD, playlist, whatever. With a body of music that you are sharing with your friends, you should use it as an opportunity to show your friends songs that they may never have heard of before. And seeing that that’s a near-impossible bit of knowledge to obtain you hedge your bets by throwing in a mixture. Look at the links that I placed above for SIDE A & SIDE B, sure, there are some quite popular songs. There are even songs that you know but haven’t heard in a long time. But I would be surprised if someone had heard of every single song on the list. And if you click on it, and you find that you have heard them all. Well, well done you, you’ve got pretty cool taste.
If you know me, you know that putting together the sad side wasn’t that hard. But, I didn’t want it to be too sad. Finding songs, where, even in the background there can be found a glimmer of hope. There’s still love there. You just have to want to be able to see it.
richardanthonymorris 