JPF Home Page Forums General Messages Songwriter Message Forum Songwriters: Do You Write Novels?

I committed a lot of prose before starting to write song lyrics consistently.
Including two and a half novels, all unpublished, unfortunately.
The last one I worked on just quit one day.

An occasional novel idea still arrives but none have insisted on being written recently.

Do some of you also have novels sitting around?

Yes, I have at least two unfinished novels lying around. I've done NaNoWriMo (November is Novel Writing Month) a couple of times too. Last time (Nov 2007) I just kept working on the novel I'd started in Nov 2005.

H'Bird

I wrote a play that got produced a couple times...but no novel. I always wanted to write one, never have.

Yes, i am through the second draft of my debut novel, and i have already ideas lined up for the next ones. I have also written and published a few short stories. Songwriting and writing complement each other very well for me

No, but I created an 1100 clue crossword puzzle on aeronautical knowledge and aviation trivia. The clues are in book form and the puzzle grid is the size of a wall poster. It took as much time and research as a novel. It's never been published. Ben

If I can manage it, I like to have long term and short term projects, like songs, in the works at the same time.
If a short story, or chapter three of a novel, won't cooperate a song lyric sometimes will.

On days when nothing wants to cooperate I go fishing.

I have a few started novels, somewhere that never went very far, and I go through long periods of journal writing, although lately it has be about zero output. I have always found my best inspirations for songwriting from literature, so whenever I feel unproductive, I try reading more and working on daily writing something in a journal to keep the ideas flowing.

I have to get back to it.

I don't have the patience to write a book, besides songwriting takes up most of my time. I did have an idea to write a book about FOOD POWER. Fiction but with a true meaning, about how all small farms are being squeezed out and bought up by large corporate farms. In other words our food supply resting in too few hands. Dangerous.

My first real writing effort was a novel. It was science fiction. I was writing it on my Laptop and did not have any backups or printed pages. The laptop fried. I had about 150 pages written. I lost it all so I never finished it but my wife said it was a pretty good story.

No novel but I'm working on a musical (inbetween working, housework and training a new puppy, and let's not forget songwriting) It might be awhile....

Bill:
I made paper copies at various stages of my first two novels.
Had some computer problems on the first one while trying to print the final version out.
A friend was able to help me out and I didn't lose anything.
If I write another one I'll probably save it on paper and on flash drives.

Hi Guys:

I have three in the "works" but they will probably never be finished. Songwriting is just too important to me.

Dave

Lee, if I had all my experiences down on paper, my autobiography novel would have to be delivered by box car. You would then have to bring a front end loader to haul it home to have it dumped on your front yard. Then you would need a helicopter to hover above going up and down to flip the giant pages when signaling "next"!

No, I haven't written a novel. Should I?

John

I seem to be writing more and more lately. My song writing has stopped while I concentrate on school work. I forgot what homework was all about. I've got an Am. Lit. class that requires a 2 page paper every class. When I'm not writing for grades I do find it rewarding though. I've got a couple story's on Helium.com which is the sister site to Ourstage. Just for fun.

To be perfectly honest, I get a lot of inspiration from this kind of writing too. I still make a lot of mistakes with grammer and punctuation, will that ever cease? I'm taking a lot of writing classes but they are all formal kinds of stuff. Bus.Comm., PR.,Media writing that includes newpaper, broadcast, webcast to name a few. I like my song writing best. If I wrote a book it would have to be in the vernacular of my life. I'd have to write it like Mark Twain, only modern of course.

I have one fully formatted screenplay which I pitched around Hollywood 1 year and wrote a couple of plays in college. I have contributed and performed in many plays that were created by myself and others through improvisation and put into script form by others and have written many original songs, both lyrics and music for plays. I have a few pet ideas for stories and plays, but instead I keep writing little mini stories called songs. Last year I read Cormac McCarthy's Trilogy - the one that includes "All The Pretty Horses" and also his "No Country for Old Men" but haven't seen the movie yet - can't imagine it will be better. I think it's cool that J.D.Salinger has never given his books to the movies.

Oh, neat story my wife got acquainted with a woman through her work at Kaiser Permanente who is a mystery writer and has 2 or 3 published. She just quit her job because she got a 4 book deal and is co-writing with some woman who works with Bill O'Riley on Fox news - but they are to write crime detective stories. So maybe you should dust of those old manuscripts. {:-)

Pete

Nope, my whole life is one tawdry trashy novel ! Wait, there's a song in there somewhere.

cheers, niteshift

I have about a third of one written, with an outline for the rest. It's about the music business. I write a lot of short stories, some of them are posted at the creative writing forum, different from each other. One there is based on characters from my novel, it's called "Another One."

Isn't Country songs just CHEAP romantic novels set to music. LOL

No.
Some of it is Shakespeare set to music.

See "Battle Of New Orleans" by Johnny Horton.

Yeah More ham than Hamlet.

Naw...These little "3-Minute-Movies" are about All The Attention-Span I have left. Did try a Comic Strip Pilot a while back (After a 30-yr absence from Cartooning)...did a Month's Worth, titled "It's Payback Time"... Got shot down from Both Major Syndicates...did learn they get over 6K Submissions Annually...& sign maybe 2-3 on a Good Year.

So..it was Easy to "Re-Dedicate" to Lyric Writing. (15-minutes-to-1/2 hr...vs 2 hours to lay out, ink-in & letter an Average Panel.)

DO have an Idea/Some Research-Done on a winning Movie..Bio-Pic....but would certainly need an Experienced Co-Writer. (The "Villain" is someone "Highly-Revered" in American History/the True Story is Quite Different than "Legendarily-So".)

Best Wishes,
Stan

I finished two novels. The first one was just to try to learn the process (though I wrote two drafts.) I shopped the second one around and although it was rejected everywhere, I did get some encouraging letters back from publishers. I started a third novel and I guess I am still working on it...on and off for about 15 years.

I started a play several years ago but when I finished the first draft I realized it was actually a musical. I wrote 12 (out of 17) songs for it - music and lyrics - and set it aside.

I still plan on finishing the novel and the musical...someday.

No other novelists here?

They're more just really long posts. I wouldn't consider them novels...

Isn't Linda Adams a novelist???

"Uncle" Chuck

Oh wow, someone mentioned me! Thanks, Chuck!
I was looking for another old post and stumbled across this one. Missed it before.

Yes, I have two published novels and am working on the third part of the trilogy. It's almost a joke how long I've been working on it now - I'm just stuck and trying to get un-stuck.

You can preview the 1st five chapters of each book by visiting my website. (Link below) If you order from me, I'll sign the book for you too.
Enjoy!

And keep on trying - it never hurts to polish up the MS and send it out the door. You never know. The slushpiles for novels are smaller than for country songs. LOL The business is slightly less complicated than music, as well.

Linda

Linda:
Thanks for checking in.
I knew you wrote novels and was wondering how many other songwriters did.

Hi Lee.... I admire you folks who write novels.... I'm just too scattered to be able to commit to anything like that....
Congrats!!......to all of you...who do that.

In 2006...I started writing some short stories about the Animal Families Who Lived In My Old Fence Row...(at my former home)
in hopes someday...they'd accompany in some way....Wy Griffith's and my new CD...which is almost!!!.ready to go to Christine for Graphic Design..... One of those stories caught the eye of The Pennsylvania Reader, It was a very short story called..The Empty Nest...but another one from that series ended up getting published..Called...,"Looking Back, Miss Willow's Fence Row,"told from the perspective..of Dr. Earl Squirrel...One of the residents in the Fence Row.

I'll post them as we get closer to releasing the CD.....

best to you this morning Lee..and keep WRITING...
Kaley

Piano Melodies and Demos
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=8404&content=music
Children Songs:
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=6469&content=music
Wyman and Kaley's Andy & Friends CD
http://cdbaby.com/cd/kwwg

I have one I've been working on for many years now, I'm in the rewriting process but songwriting took up so much time that I hardly ever make time to finish that thing!

Linda, I went to your website and read some of your sample chapters. Very intriguing, I'll have to buy them now!! I try to read one or two novels a week, I just finished The Interuption Of Everything by Terry McMillan, that one is funny.

Hey! There is an idea, you should write it!

Hi Lee,

I have written two books (not novel length) about 20 to 30 thousand words.

One on theoretical physics and religion
"Quantum Mysteries-Biblical Solutions"

And one Historical fiction
"Ulithi-Row 12 Grave 3"
Based on the life of the uncle I was named after. He was KIA by a kamikaze and I wanted to research the night of that attack. That one was a lot of work because I set two goals for myself.

1: Find at least one sailor who remembered him, which I did. Turned out to be his best friend aboard ship.

2: Identify the pilot who hit the ship. That took a few years but I now know he was Navy Lt. Koetsu Fukuda and last I heard his sister is still living in Japan.

I don't plan on anything but songwriting from now on. I know the music biz and have developed tons of contacts over the years. Writing and getting published in the literary market is a whole different animal and I have learned I don't have the desire to tame it.

Wayne

i write non fiction how to type stuff
no novels yet

ande

I write a lot, but not fiction related. However, it is something that I want to do eventually and I have several ideas for short stories and/or novels, which continue to percolate and grow in my mind as months go by. It looks like a lot of songwriters are also fiction writers. Interesting!