Music and my Muse

I’m one of those folks who can’t listen to music while writing, especially if it has lyrics. They get into my brain and come out my fingerips, no matter what I do. So I don’t tend to make playlists for novels.

But music does affect my writing. I listen to music on my way to and from work and whenever I’m on a long drive. It’s been hard recently, as all of my music is stored in my phone, but I didn’t have a good connection from my phone to my car’s stereo, other than one of those radio transmitter things that don’t actually work well. But I bought a new (to me) car recently and I can now hook up my phone to the stereo directly. You have no idea how happy this makes me! Music! I have missed thee! And it’s gotten my muse chugging again.

This morning, I put on Marc Almond’s album The Stars We Are and happily drove to work. I love the whole album, but one of my favorite songs is Your Kisses Burn:

It’s a dark song about possessive love that harms the soul. And I’m finding that it’s helping me dig deeper into Vasil’s background as I work on the sequel to Close Quarter. He’s had…an interesting past.

The other song from this album that I find myself listening to is She Took my Soul in Istanbul:

Mostly because the sequel book takes place in Istanbul. But I also have no problem with shifting the pronouns in the song, either!

I’d love to hear what other folks listen to when they write or plot. I need some new music!