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!