Please allow me to introduce myself . . .
I am D. Gabrielle Jensen, rebel creator of urban fantasy and spoken word/slam poetry. I am new to the world of publishing but not to writing; I’ve been putting words on the page since the tender age of six! I am currently promoting a work of rock and roll urban fantasy, titled Whiskey and Ink, the second of the Fia Drake Soul Hunter series.
It is no secret that most, if not all, creators weave something special into all their work, something that makes their work unique and explicitly their own. For me that something is music. I struggle to write without music in the background. I make playlists for every story, even sometimes individual characters get their own music, especially if I’m having trouble connecting to them.
And—the thing I wanted to share with you today—I weave music into my stories.
It’s not as simple as just talking about music, though, in my current series, one of my main characters is a professional rock drummer (inspired by a few I have met in my real-life adventures). My titular MC Fia Drake uses live music to decompress from her “job” as a soul hunter. And that could be enough to call it rock and roll urban fantasy.
But I take it a step farther, weaving band references and song lyrics into the imagery of the story. Off-hand, I think (nearly?) every instance of the phoenix that appears a few times in the series is accompanied by a song lyric. He “rises up from the ground,” a reference to “The Dolphin’s Cry” by Live; in another scene, he hovers “above the flame,” paying homage to Kill Hannah’s “The Chase.” Almost every character, save for a few who were early cannon, are named for music in some way. The drummer, for example, takes his name from the Beatle’s “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer,” and Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins (giving us Max Hawkins).
Some of the musical references come easy. Sometimes I don’t even realize I’ve done it until later. Others I’ve had to manipulate to make them work and not sound too jarring. It’s a tongue-in-cheek bit of frivolity I share with my readers and I hope something they will look forward to in this series and future works.
Whiskey and Ink is Available Now!
https://books2read.com/WhiskeyAndInk
Functionally Fictional 
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