Creating a Playlist for Your Novel

 

This time of year, most people's playlists probably are All Christmas All the Time.

But let's take a break from Christmas for a few minutes and talk about music that inspires us to write.

I'm sure we'll hear from some of you that you need silence to write. Or maybe you prefer instrumental background music or one of those videos of Music for Creating.

I have writer friends who love to listen to movie soundtracks while they write. 

This was a really popular one:

I've used the soundtracks from both The Patriot and

I'd love to hear about your preferences.

I prefer a curated playlist that connects me to my characters and story.

Sometimes, there's a specific song that resonates with the story. For example, when I first started writing Christmas in Hiding, I needed a song for my Callie to sing whenever she needed to remember trust in God and praise him even when things weren't going as she'd planned. When I found this video, I knew it was perfect.

 

In fact, because it serves as such a wonderful reminder to me, it's the first song that now goes into every playlist, and it's the first one I play to begin each writing session.

Christmas in Hiding had a few other songs as well, particularly this one from the TV show Nashville (which had some great music!). The lyrics kept me going when I would have given up during the writing process.

In January Texas Witness Threat releases. I had a fabulous playlist for that. What I love about it is that all I have to do is put the playlist on and immediately I'm in the story.

Of course I started with "How Great Thou Art." 

Some of the other songs in this playlist were:

Rachel Platten's "Fight Song"

"Timing is Everything" from Trace Adkins - This one matched up so perfectly with the opening scene of my book.

There's a part that goes like this - 

I remember that day

When our eyes first met

You ran into the building to get out of the rain

Cause you were soaking wet.

Of course in my book, Christine then witnesses a murder before she runs into Blake, but these lines also resonated:

And I could've been another minute late
And you'd never would've crossed my path that day

In her case, that made the difference between life and death!

I had a novella out in a wonderful anthology called Faithful Women. I found an absolutely perfect song that I also just added to my newest playlist because I love it so much.

I recently had to switch the order of the books I'm working on because of some changes in release schedules. I had an absolutely perfect playlist for the book I was working on - one that revolved around this song.

and this one

But I'm working on a different book now, so I need a whole new playlist. So far I've got only three songs - 

"How Great Thou Art"

"Broken Vessels"

and this

That's enough to get me started, but I'll add other songs as I come across them. It's not something that can be forced. If the song isn't right, it doesn't work as motivation.

So let's talk. If you're a writer, do you do playlists? Do you need silence instead or maybe some other type of music? 

If you're a reader, would you be curious to know the playlist an author created to go along with the book?