What's The Score Blogfest

Rosie at the East for Green Eyes Blog is celebrating her one year blogoversary by throwing the What’s The Score Blogfest inviting writers to share the songs they think would be great on a soundtrack for their current WIP or for a favorite novel by another writer.

I’m going to share a song that works for both the short story I just released, “Dis”, and its follow-up sequel, tentatively titled “City of Dis”. The song is Ten Cent Pistol by The Black Keys. A sample of the lyrics:

Well, he ran around
Late at night
Holding hands
And making light
Of everything
That came before
But there she was
Behind the door

She hit them with her ten cent pistol
Because they ruined her name
Well, she hit them with her ten cent pistol
And they've never been the same




I also thought I would share the three songs that I would choose for the novel I am working on, set in the same Norse-themed urban fantasy world as the stories. The book will tell the story of Colbie’s transformation into a lesser norn. I’ve shared this pitch before on my writing blog, but I will include it here again.

Colbie Moss is a frustrated artist, working as an assistant curator for a boss she can’t stand, living in an upright middleclass neighborhood with a husband she likes but doesn’t love. She’d never admit it’s all been her choice. But when her husband leaves her, the museum fires her, a masked figure snatches her off the street for a bizarre sacrifice that includes hanging her upside down from an ash tree, and she wakes up without a pulse, all within twenty-four hours, Colbie faces a life-in-death that’s anything but rigid.

Now inflexible, stubborn Colbie has to figure out why strangers keep calling her a norn and how to dodge government assassins tasked with the extermination of supernaturals she never knew existed before becoming one herself. That’s besides tracking down the serial killer who sacrificed her so she can prevent the creation of more norns. Because if the killer succeeds in bringing just three of these spirits of fate into existence, it will set off a convergence of worlds that will start the clock on Norse mythology’s world-ending battle, Ragnarok.

But it’s choosing her allies among the people thrust suddenly into her life that could decide everyone’s fate. Can she trust the pushy GQ yuppie cum mentor who insists he’s a god? Or the handsome dark elf who offers her protection from the supernatural forces trying to use her as a pawn? Or the tormented young man on the run with her, haunted by violent impulses he doesn’t understand, hunted by the same assassins? If she fails to unravel how they all fit together she could find herself dead – for good this time.

Two of the three songs are from Florence and The Machine, Dog Days are Over and Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up).

My favorite lyrics from Dog Days Are Over:

And I never wanted anything from you
Except everything you had and what was left after that too, oh
Happiness hit her like a bullet in the head
Struck from a great height by someone who should know better than that



The video for Rabbit Heart doesn’t allow embedding, so here’s the link to watch it on YouTube.

The lyrics that particularly speak to me and to the book are these:

The looking glass so shiny and new
How quickly the glamor fades
I start spinning slipping out of time
Was that the wrong pill to take (Raise it up)
You made a deal and now it seems you have to offer up
But will it ever be enough
(Raise it up raise it up)
It´s not enough
(Raise it up raise it up)

Here I am a rabbit hearted girl
Frozen in the headlights
It seems I´ve made the final sacrifice

We raise it up this offering
We raise it up

This is a gift it comes with a price
Who is the lamb and who is the knife
When Midas is king and he holds me so tight
And turns me to gold in the sunlight

And finally, for the third song, Rihanna’s Russian Roulette. (What can I say? It’s not light urban fantasy.)

Say a prayer to yourself
He says close your eyes
Sometimes it helps
And then I get a scary thought
That he’s here means he’s never lost