![]() She lives in Gilbert, AZ, with her family Miracle marks her writing debut. Chow is an engineer by day and middle-grade novelist by night. I hope it created enough of a harmony that readers will enjoy it. The musical terms became a frame for the chapters, and the words emote Amie’s experience through her grief. With the inspiration and the musical terms and the lyrical writing, the story weaved together. It was a new way to play with words, and most importantly, it sounded like Amie’s voice. The line “…everything said afterward was sforzando to my heart,” means Amie was daggered by her mom’s news. I incorporated the musical language into the book. The language feels like the word: sforzando is a sudden strong accent, sostenuto means sustained, staccato is detached. (Of course, this is also because a lot of musical terms are Italian.) Sforzando, sostenuto, staccato. I’d forgotten that music is a language in and of itself. ![]() I unearthed my very old copy of Alfred’s Pocket Dictionary of Music, which I’d kept from my piano competition years, and browsed the definitions. And then, I had the idea to replace adjectives and emotions with musical terms. I read my sentences aloud, checking for flow and emotion. So, in Miracle, I restructured my sentences to make them sound like phrases of music. If the feeling was cold and brisk, the descriptions became short and jittery. The authors played with the vocabulary to match a feeling. What I discovered was that those authors phrased their words like their settings. I admire those authors for writing so beautifully. I took a nod from books with lyrical writing: The Book Thief (by Markus Zuzak), Princess Academy (by Shannon Hale), Echo North (by Joanna Ruth Miller), and several others. Amie has the ability to play the worry off her mom’s forehead and lift her dad’s spirits.īecause Amie was a musician, I knew her voice had to be lyrical. I think that’s where the idea of music as comfort came from. My dad loved hymns, and he took comfort in the melodies and harmonies of older songs. That’s where Amie’s dad mirrors mine: his buoyant spirit and outlook on life.Īnd then, there was the music. He had his ups and downs, but he had a great sense of humor. He told me his diagnosis was a wake-up call: to spend less time on work and more time with our family. He studied the Bible extensively and meditated while he was alone. I drove my dad to radiation appointments, stayed with him in the hospital, talked with him while he sat in his recliner. I helped when I could, around classes and marching band. When he was sick, I was in my senior year at a university and lived twenty-five minutes away. I’ve always wanted to write about my dad because he was an amazing person. ![]() In the book, Amie’s dad passes away from cancer, and so did mine. I began thinking, what if that happened to a young girl? What if she fulfilled her purpose early in life, then what? That’s when Amie’s voice came to me with the line “Ba-ba always told me I was a miracle.” Amie became a girl who did everything her father asked, and most especially, she became a violinist, with music infusing her life. Simeon was probably an older man, and after meeting Jesus, Simeon declared that his life’s purpose was fulfilled and he could die peacefully. When I was brainstorming for Miracle, I heard a Bible story about Simeon, who waited on the steps of the temple to meet Jesus. Once she’s able to realize that, her music ability comes back-and that’s the miracle. It takes patience, help from her friends, and reconciling with her mom to make her realize that life without her father is different, but can still be joyful. When he passes away, Amie is very lost and loses her ability to play the violin. Miracle is about a young Asian-American girl, Amie Cheung, who loves her father so much she does everything he likes: reads his favorite books, listens to his favorite music, and most importantly, plays his favorite instrument. That was the challenge in my middle grade debut, Miracle. The emotion of what the character was feeling needed the accompanying lyrical words. When it came to writing about music, I knew the lyricism had to follow. To capture them, enthrall them, transform them. The goal is to gently bring a reader into a certain emotion through the words on a page. I’ve performed in shopping malls, recital halls, nursing homes, churches, football and baseball fields, gyms, and in a lot of competitions-long enough to have a good grasp of performance and can emote with the necessary lyricism. I started learning the piano at five, flute at ten, piccolo at eighteen–and then, cello, handbells, and harp, each for a couple of years as an adult. I grew up learning, listening to, and loving music. The best musicians make you feel a certain way through their music, expressing emotion through the notes on a page.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |