Music and Writing

Some authors listen to music while they write, or to inspire their writing, while others don’t. Which camp are you in?

Music has always been very integral to my life and my writing. While I only dabbled in piano as a child, I’ve always sung. My tastes are very broad. I listen to all sorts of music ranging from jazz and blues to country to pop, rock, eclectic, new age, international, R&B, classical, acoustic, and so on.

So yes, the short answer is that I have a ridiculous number of playlists for characters and books… and just a crazy number of playlists in general.

When I write, scenes unfold in my mind like I’m watching a movie or streaming episodes/tv shows. What’s wild to me is that not all authors come to their stories like that. A colleague and I talked about this. She was astounded that I was able to have my own private movie theater in my head. For creative purposes it’s fantastic, but in life, it can become something of a hazard.

Are your playlists chronological to the plot?

While I was sick, when I was first creating Nemo and her universe, listening to music was something that I did to distract myself. When I began writing in earnest, I created playlists. This allowed me to set up music to underscore scenes so I didn’t have to worry about what came next in the queue. That means that the songs usually follow in a book’s chronological order in a playlist.

Now with the Wars for Gwenaria, my music followed the characters more than the chronological plot of the story. Certain scenes between characters were scored based on who was dominant, or POV voice, for the scene.

Using different music, some lyrical, some symphonic (shout out to Two Steps from Hell, a tremendous symphonic group), has helped me ratchet up the tension of an action scene, like when one has to run for her life. On the flip side, soft, poignant music playing as I watch an emotionally gut-wrenching scene in my head just dials up the feels to eleven.

Can we listen to your playlists as we read?

One of the things that I loved about Charles de Lint, aside from his absolutely fantastic writing, is that he would share artists and song titles in the front of his books, and I’d always thought that was so cool in my younger years. He is definitely an incredible forefather of Urban Fantasy (UF). Not only had he introduced me to very vivid, descriptive writing, but I found new music to add to my collection.

The world has changed in the intervening years though; however, I’m going to look into seeing if I can share some of my playlists with you, my friends. Watch for updates on the website and my social media pages!