Does it count as a playlist?

We’re a scant two weeks from the arrival of Heading North! Thanks to the lovely folks at Littsburgh, you can read the opening pages here.

If I could figure out how to make a Karl Projektorinski costume for Halloween, I would do that.

Who—what? you say.

Why, Karl Projektorinski, Human of the Year Awardee from the song “Human of the Year” on Regina Spektor’s 2009 album Far. The problem is that Karl, aside from his absolutely perfect name, is not otherwise described beyond shaking (with nervousness, one assumes). You see my dilemma in considering how I might manifest a Halloween costume from that, nevermind the difficulties of dressing up as a name in a song that was not released as a single from an album now nearly fifteen years old.

No one likes a Halloween costume that needs a lengthy explanation.

But this is all because “Human of the Year” is the only song I’ve listened to in three weeks that has managed to replace “Everyday” by Buddy Holly on the inescapable inner loop, and it did so with such fantastic thoroughness that I actually had to look up “Everyday” just now because I couldn’t remember the name of it nor how it went. [A blessed relief, to be honest.] “Everyday” features prominently in Good Omens season 2, which I loved, but I didn’t need a Buddy Holly song lodged in my brain for a fortnight. More to the point, Regina Spektor’s music is a workshop in character development and small details used with great effect (see also “Wallet”).

Regina Spekor’s work has been a touchstone for me through the process of writing Heading North, particularly the albums Begin to Hope, Far, and What We Saw from the Cheap Seats (the album immediately preceeding my work on Heading North, the album most in rotation at the start of the draft, and the album that landed in my lap as the first draft was completed, respectively). And though I don’t/can’t listen to music while I write, I’m frequently listening to music while I mull over my writing problems because I usually end up doing that while driving or working out. Both of those activities are spaces of relative isolation—alone in the car, alone in the sweet/sweaty bubble that surrounds a body in the gym, reinforced by the presence of headphones—which is also something I need for writing/thinking.

(All you folks who are able to listen to music—who have playlists for whole moods and particular scenes that keep you company, set the stage, bring the energy while you write—I am so envious. Or those of you who are creatively productive in the hum of a bar or cafe where someone else will bring you drinks and snacks—just pure envy. Right now, I can hear the heat pump humming and even that is a distraction, and my teacup’s empty and if I get up to refill it, I will be mobbed by cats and then there will be such a performance of the Saddest Kitty Serenade1 at my office door that I will bribe them with early breakfast just to get the quiet back.)

As a result, though I do have a soundtrack of sorts, a playlist for Heading North, these are not songs I listened to while writing. Also the same artists keep cropping up, so it doesn’t really fit the common playlist model of providing one song per artist. I have tried, but I can’t choose just one Regina Spektor song. I can’t even choose just one per album. So what I’m left with are more pools of artists: Regina Spektor, t.A.T.u. (yes, yes, I know, but listen, it’s important in context), Soul Coughing, Tegan and Sara, Ida Marie, a little bit of Hozier, and various other bits and bobs. It’s not necessarily that I listened to any of this music because of the novel; the act of working on this novel fundamentally changed the way I hear these songs and these artists and now all of this is inextricably linked to the narrative, to the characters in Heading North and how they exist in my head. These are the songs that play in the background of the novel itself, when I imagine the world unfolding, though none of them are named and probably only one is specifically identifiable based on context. (Read the book and then write to me! Where are you attaching these songs, to which scenes and characters?)

When you’re working on a long writing project, what’s your relationship to music?

American readers of Loomings: if you have five minutes, I hope you will join me in contacting your representatives to urge for a ceasefire: 5Calls.org.

Actually making something: For the first time in ages, I have something I made that I can show you:

This is one half of a pair of Knucks, knit to replace the pair I appear to have lost. This version is made from a commercial sock yarn; I unraveled about half of a sock2 before casting on for these. I make the fingers longer than the pattern calls for, so more of my hand is covered (for warmth), and these are knit in a smaller gauge than called for because this is the yarn I wanted to use. But this is an incredibly easy pattern to adapt because once you get the circumference of the fingers correct for your own hands (quick little test-knits, since you only have to knit about an inch of the tube before deciding if it’s going to be comfortable), the size of the palms is simply based on the size of the joined fingers. No matter how many stitches you actually have on the needles, the shaping is very direct: try it on until you like where the thumb would start, then add the little thumb tube. When it’s time to decrease for the thumb gusset, just follow the established pattern of decreases until you run out of stitches to decrease.

My first set of Knucks was also the first thing I knit from handspun yarn (some beautiful Blue-Faced Leicester dyed in fabulous blue and green jewel tones by Hello Yarn), which makes losing them all the more sad. I am living in hopes that once I finish this new pair, the old ones will somehow magically turn up. It is a time for magical thinking.

Below are my November Heading North events; I hope I’ll see you on the road! If you’d like to have me chat with your students or your book club or to visit your campus or bookstore, please be in touch.

November 8, 7 p.m., Harrisburg, PA: Heading North launch event & conversation with Curtis Smith at Midtown Scholar

November 16, 7 p.m., Windsor, Ontario: Biblioasis Bookstore

November 18, 6:30 p.m., Becket, MA: The Dream Away Reading Series, hosted by Kate Senecal and Rachel Lyon

November 19, 4 p.m., Ithaca, NY: in conversation with Jennifer Savran Kelly at Buffalo Street Books

November 28, 6:30 p.m., Annville, PA: Take-A-Break Tuesday at the Annville Free Library

November 29, 7 p.m., Philadelphia, PA: The Bricks Reading Series, sponsored by Blue Stoop, at H&H Books