Sing the Song: No Longer is a bit of a sad song, composed by the lovely Roz Fog Bob of Vowella Valley. In Book 2, Innocents and Curiosities, her son, Mok, hears her singing it during a quiet, late-night moment. It pains Mok to know she sings about his dad and all that he is missing with his family because he is blind to his mistakes.
Special thanks to illustrator, Julia Semionova for the beautiful backdrop. if you are able to zoom in on Roz, you’ll be amazed at the fine detail in her blouse and woven bench.
Enjoy the music and Sing-the-Song: No Longer as you follow the words in the video. And remember to read the song moment in the book, Innocents and Curiosities, to put the song into perfect context. B
There’s a place to which I escape…where creativity flourishes and I renew…my garden. To dig in the earth is to renew my roots to the planet. To share my little outdoor space with the birds, bugs, squirrels, and various other outdoor creatures in the neighborhood is to confirm my humble place in the world. I am just another creature in their midst, doing my best to make the most of my existence, just like them.
I love the solitude of my garden space. For the most part, it is my quiet retreat. But it can also be a grand orchestra of natural sounds, as the squirrels rustling through the leaves make me turn; as the swooping sound of the hawks’ gliding wings make me pause; as the birds, chattering in a wild chorus while they perch on the great assortment of garden gifts, catch my attention.
When I’m the only human there, I can allow my thoughts to take me to creative places. At the same time, I can watch a worm wander through the soil, aerating it for the sake of my plantings. I marvel at our collaboration.
There alone, my mind has permission to run freely. For a few moments, I let schedules and responsibilities take a nap while I allow my mind to tap into my creative tendencies, where writing ideas, music inspiration, family appreciation, new culinary concoctions, and thoughts on the greater world have room to breathe. Thanks, dear garden, for being there for me.
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This week, we introduced Heaven’s Wait’s 5 main teen Vowellan characters to social media for the first time. Mok, Kip, Lek, San, and Dun took center stage in their own video shorts. The shorts gave viewers a chance to see who these characters are while their clan theme songs played in the background. We thought the shorts deserved a place on the HW website as well. So here they are, all in one place.
You may also find these video shorts, as well as other videos from our growing collection, on Heaven’s Wait’s You Tube Channel: https://youtube.com/@heavenswait.
A special shoutout to my music arranger, Aki Ross, and my illustrator, Julia Semionova for their invaluable contributions to these fun little shorts.
These teen Vowellan characters make their first appearance in Book 2 of the Heaven’s Wait! Tales from Vowella Series, Innocents and Curiosities. Find this book on Amazon.com by following the Innocents and Curiosities book link in the footer.
The character of RJ PLOM is based on my father, so I approached this song with special care. In writing the melody for this piece, I thought long and hard about what RJ’s journey from this mortal world to a new one beyond might sound like. It needed to be reflect various emotions as he traveled.
RJ was now a man alone and sad, surrounded by his little plane and his thoughts about everyone and everything he had left behind. He first ascended through the fog and clouds. He became aware that all he could do now was move forward. RJ embraced the feeling of freedom that accompanied that reality. Once above the clouds, there was time for RJ to cruise along at a peaceful pace. He was able to enjoy the wondrous view of the cloud blanket beneath him as he tried to figure out where the ride would take him.
RJ’s peace was eventually interrupted by a swaying sensation that progressed into a less comfortable, more tension-filled space. He soon found himself tangled in a wild storm that forced him down onto unstable ground. When the tension of the storm finally subsided, the clearing sky revealed to RJ a sight that was brilliant, colorful, and surprising…a wondrous new world.
The melody components for the various stages of RJ’s flight actually came rather easily. Trying to add my own accompaniment was another story. I wrote what I could to add a little texture and harmony to the piece. I realized after a little experimentation that there was an opportunity to blanket a verse of the Heaven’s Wait theme over the main “A Journey Above” melody, so I wrote it into the final verse of the song as best I could. It didn’t sound too bad, considering that my orchestration skills left a lot to be desired. This was all years before Aki entered the picture.
I put the files from my music creator app for this song into Aki’s hands, where he was able to see how I had delineated the different sections of RJ’s flight. He took it from there, finding instrumentation and chords to make each section sound appropriate to its mood. We went back and forth with ideas and corrections until we felt we had done it justice. Aki turned this special piece into something I will always hold close to my heart. I sincerely thank him for that. We are especially proud of the way the two songs melded during the final verse. It still makes my heart swell whenever I hear it. Enjoy “A Journey Above,” otherwise known as “RJ’s Theme.” B
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It’s Belle McLaughlin here, with my behind-the-scenes cat’s-eyes-view report of the day!
Did you know it’s the observations, the little habits and quirks that my mom finds in others, that help her create characters for her stories? I know because she’s told me about many of her past observations and inspirations. And I’ve witnessed a few myself.
Today, it’s mostly about my dad, Mike McLaughlin, and his influence on the stories of Heaven’s Wait. I call it the Mike Factor.
It’s about the time many years before I was born when Mom was trying to think of a name for the tiny flying creatures of Heaven’s Wait. They are small, colorful creatures the size of bees, with long, curlicue tails. They use their tails to hang from tree branches and often as chairs. One night, Mom described these creatures to Dad. She explained to him that the local townsfolks, the Vowellans, have contests using the creatures. The Vowellans take turns swinging the creatures by their tails in circles above their heads. They then fling the creatures through the air toward a mark on a target branch of a nearby tree. The creatures loop their tails around the branch, which makes them swing back and forth and giggle. They love the ride. Whichever Vowellan’s creature lands nearest the target mark wins.
“What should I call these oddball creatures,” asked Mom?
“Well, Flingbees, of course!” said Dad. Of course! No further discussion was needed. The Mike Factor was born.
It’s about the fact that each of the Vowellan clans has a crazy quirk or two. For the Ham Bats, it’s their unusual speech pattern. They speak in “ood’lies.” What influenced such speech? Once again, the Mike Factor. It turns out that Dad and his friends spoke in silly ood’lies way back when he was in high school. Who knows what ever prompted them to come up with such a thing. Take a look!
Finally, it’s about the fact that San Ham Bat’s father, Mat, has frequent run-ins with door handles. He moves quickly, and he doesn’t pay attention to his surroundings. Door handles and table corners seem to just jump out at him in their attempt to slow him down. Thus, hands full of bruises. That is totally a Mike Factor. Mom couldn’t resist giving Mat Ham Bat and other characters more color by sprinkling them with such quirks based on real-life observations.
Allow me to tell you about the origin of HW’s first piece of music, Heaven’s Wait Theme.
Once the fantasy world of Heaven’s Wait had an established name, an idea entered my mind that this world should have a theme song.
I started tinkering on my piano, and the initial melody for the song came to me in bits and pieces. The song, which would establish the initial mood for the fantasy world, needed to be something that portrayed grandeur, a sense of the faraway and mysterious, and a heaven-like essence. I wanted the song to sound somewhat classical yet a little otherworldly. I had no idea how to achieve the treatment I desired.
The melody progressed nicely, and I was able to jot down a simple accompaniment. But writing the notes was a grueling task, because I wasn’t skilled enough to do it efficiently and accurately. I trudged along writing one note at a time, losing parts of the song as the notes traveled from my head to the sheet music. I didn’t know much about the chord progressions, and I certainly didn’t know which instruments to use for the mood I was after. At that point, I was simply happy that the melody sounded lovely to me.
Enter Aki Ross! I found it somewhat hard to expose my elementary work to someone who obviously knew so much about the world of music. It had been just as hard for me to send the first draft of my Heaven’s Wait manuscript to my professional story consultant, Brad Schreiber, many years ago. Back then, the fear of failure had been overwhelming. And I did fail miserably time and again until I learned some valuable writing skills and wrote numerous revisions. By the time Aki entered the picture, I had overcome the fear of criticism, and I welcomed his suggestions with open arms. I was still a little shy about the exposure, but I knew that anything he had to offer would do nothing but make it better than it was. And “better” was something I was eager to embrace.
Aki was full of ideas and suggestions. He took the piece and dug into the orchestration. It was our first time working together, and it was during the 2021 winter of COVID distancing. We passed the files back and forth and had a few Zoom meetings along the way. We discussed the progress and made sure the process was working for us. This was new territory for both of us. I was amazed by his ability to transform my simple work into something I think is now beautiful and something we’re both proud of. Please enjoy the completed Heaven’s Wait Theme. B
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