Authors' Creative Pursuits: Thomas Enger

Authors are a very creative bunch - and for many of them, this isn’t only with words on the page. From drawing to painting, pottery to needlework, composing to singing, here’s a look at some authors’ creative pursuits.

I am delighted to welcome 

THOMAS ENGER

AUTHOR OF KILLED
(PUBLISHED BY ORENDA BOOKS)

TO TALK ABOUT HIS LOVE OF MUSIC

Have you always played the piano?
I started playing at the age of seven, and I did take lessons for about seven years. However, I'm almost illiterate when it comes to reading notes, and for a long period of time I hid that from my piano teacher by making her play the songs for me, and then I would memorise them and learn how to play them by ear. Needless to say, progress was slow, and for a good long while I only played the piano when I was having 'lessons'. I didn't really get anywhere with it, (I must have struggled with Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata for YEARS), so I stopped altogether when I was about 13. For a few years even the thought of playing the piano repulsed me; I was so fed up with it. Until something quite magical happened when I was about 18... (notice the cliffhanger here? Occupational hazard...)

And have you always composed music?

This is a funny story. Well, not ha-ha funny, but ... bear with me here for a second. When I was about 18 I was watching this movie, and there was a song on it towards the end which struck a chord in me (pardon the pun). It was a sad song, a piano song, and this was way before the age of Spotify and internet, so I couldn't just look it up and listen to it after the film was over. So I learned it by ear and ran up to the piano, just to see if I was able to play it. Because I loved it. And would you believe it, after just a few minutes of me tinkering around with these unfamiliar keys - there it was. The whole song. I could actually play it. That just completely blew my mind, and it sparked my interest for the instrument again, let me tell you. I tried to play some other songs I knew. Could play them, too, quite quickly. And after a while I wanted to see if I could compose some songs for myself, and ... you know the answer to that as well. After a while I played a few of them for my Dad, and he loved them. So I've been making music ever since.

Which movie was it, you may wonder? 9 1/2 weeks starring Kim Basinger and Mickey Rourke. Yes, the one (the closest thing you got to porn back in those days). I was 18, remember?

How often do you play the piano and compose?

It depends on my schedule, and it comes and goes a lot. I can easily go for a few weeks without playing it at all, while in other periods of time I'm on it on a daily basis. For hours. Especially if there's something I need to process somehow. I find it very rewarding to be able to put feelings or emotions into a piece of music.

Do you think your composing/music helps your writing?

Not really. They are two completely different processes. The writing has a lot to do with learning the craft and applying the tools that are available to you (through many years of experience and trying), while the music thing has a lot more to do with instinct. I just feel my way through the piano keys. But I would say that the music, whether it's mine or the work of others, is helpful in the way that I listen to music all the time when I'm writing. Depending on what kind of scene I'm writing, I can choose music accordingly. Metallica, for instance, is perfect when I want to write a fight scene. Guess I don't have to explain that.

And do you think your writing helps your composing/music?

Not in a specific way, no. But what I've found over the years I've been doing this, is that writing is a good way to process or examine my own views or feelings towards certain topics or challenges. I've said this a number of times on panels, but it's true: I don't think I could have written Henning Juul, a man who has lost his son in a domestic fire, without the experience of being a father myself. To write about a man like that, who has experienced something so horrible, I needed to imagine what that would be like, and it made me appreciate being a father a whole lot more. And, I think, because of that, I became a better one. You can imagine the amount of music I have composed over the years when I tried to process the emotions of having lost a child.

Can you provide a link to an example of your music?

I most certainly can. I have just started a musical collaboration with a magnificent violin player in Norway called Ingrid Berg Mehus. We have named our project Moods From Norway, and we have just released our first single, Torn.

Here's the YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amnuunQ2Sjw

Is your music available to buy/download/listen to?

You can find us on Spotify or iTunes as well, or any other digital platform there is.

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/7JLiZW4iS18uhVdjeBfDm7?si=SAKJpTD0SbeOm3-MM0CcRA

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/no/album/torn/1348396791?i=1348396802&l=nb

Or you can check out my Soundcloud account: https://soundcloud.com/thomasenger/tracks

THANKS FOR TAKING PART, THOMAS!

About THOMAS ENGER

Thomas Enger (b. 1973) is a former journalist. He made his debut with the crime novel Burned (Skinndød) in 2010, which became an international sensation before publication. Burned is the first in a series of 5 books about the journalist Henning Juul, which delves into the depths of Oslo’s underbelly, skewering the corridors of dirty politics and nailing the fast-moving world of 24-hour news. Rights to the series have been sold to 26 countries to date. In 2013 Enger published his first book for young adults, a dark fantasy thriller called The Evil Legacy, for which he won the U-prize (best book Young Adult). Enger also composes music, and he lives in Oslo. 

Find Thomas Enger on his website, on his Facebook page and on Twitter - @EngerThomas

I'm hoping to feature more Authors' Creative Pursuits
on Off-the-Shelf Books in the future. 

So if you're a published author and have a talent for arts and crafts, music, photography, baking or other creative activities, and would like to feature on my blog, please do get in touch!