One of Blogs from last year was on the subject of my writing process and how I write my stories. Today's Writing Wednesday Blog is an extension of that process in that my writing also involves music.
Music? How can music be a part of the writing process? The answer to which is that listening to music while one writes inspires. The words from a song, the flow of the music from a movie score, the type of music, all work together to help spur those creative juices within me. I listen to music each and every time I sit down and write. Most the time I listen to some sort of a movie score as I love the movies. But I also listen to a my own customized playlists of songs from Pat Benatar, Garth Brooks, Abba, and even Gordon Lightfoot. And if all else fails, Christmas Music is always on the list!
As a matter of fact, music has inspired many of my books that I have written.
In my first novel, "The Seventh Year", the entire story was inspired by and written around the song, "The Legend" by Steve Cook. Little did I know when I heard this song for the first time that it would propel me to write my first screenplay, followed by a second which were then turned into my first and second novels.
Speaking of my second novel, "The Snowball Effect", since it was written as a screenplay I got to thinking of music to put into it. Call it the Tarantino effect, as he meshes music with certain parts of his story. That's what I did with this story. When I went to write it as a book, I would start the day listening to the song I had chosen for the particular chapter. I would then continue to listen to the "soundtrack" I created for it as I wrote. For those interested here is the soundtrack for this novel. Each song fits each chapter in order.
"Pages" by 3 Doors Down
"Fallen" by Sarah McLachlan
"Time Of Your Life" by Green Day
"Ironic" by Alanis Morrisette
"Mad World"
"Leave The Memories Alone" by Fuel
"Save Me" by Nickelback
"Wake Me Up (When September Ends) by Green Day
"Red Rain" by Peter Gabriel
"Pan's Lullaby" from the motion picture "Pan's Labryinth" by Javier Navarrete
"It Won't Be Like This For Long" by Darius Rucker
"Fun House" by Pink
"I'm Not Ready To Play Nice" by The Dixie Chick (sorry The Chicks now as we have to be PC)
"I'm Not Afraid" by Eminem
"I'm Alive" by Kenny Chessney with Dave Mathews
"Saint Nick" is an easy one when it came to music. I listened to Christmas Music the majority of the time while I was working on it. Pick your favorites when reading this one.
Inspiration in writing my fourth novel, "The Game Jynx'd" being science fiction and Star Trek related, came from listening to the movie scores from the "Star Trek" films from composers Jerry Goldsmith, James Horner, and Micheal Giachinno. Of course you can't write science fiction without being inspired by the scores from the "Star Wars" movies by John Williams, who is the Maestro as well as listening to one of my all time favorites "The Black Hole" by composer John Berry.
My fifth novel, "Murder in the Storm", I went back to the playlist idea of meshing songs with the story. The story itself inspired by Carrie Underwood's song, "Blown Away". Other songs about storms, being free, and the like also made their way into the playlist and make for a good soundtrack for the book. Here is the playlist for this one to listen to if you are reading this one. No particular order on this but how I listened to it when writing...
"Blown Away" by Carrie Underwood
"Stuck" by The Aces
"Bartender" by Lady Antebellum (opps again now Lady A for those who need to be PC)
"Voices" Theme for WWE Wrestler Randy Orton by
"Smoking Gun" by Robert Cray
"Tornado" by Little Big Town
"Eden" by Sara Bareilles
"Good Times" by Cassedee Pope
"Back On The Street Again" by The Sunshine Company
"Bittersweet Symphony" by The Verve
My last novel, "The Demon Of Sweet Briar" is first and foremost a horror novel. You would think with this one I would submerse myself into scores for horror movies, "A Nightmare On Elm Street", "IT", "Bram Stoker's Dracula" and the like. That is what you would think. However, what I listened to while writing it is completely polar opposite. I listened to Christmas Music during the entire process on my Sirius XM Internet Radio on a channel called "Holiday Traditions". Since this was written during the pandemic and I was locked in, Christmas Music and my writing got me through it. It is a weird combination of Horror and Christmas, but it worked really well and the desired result was obtained.
So there you have it. Aside from my writing process, the music I listen to while I write is part of the process as well. It can really shape the story along with being in a certain place to draw inspiration. But that my friends is a blog for another Wednesday.
Till Next Time...
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