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? 

Where Do You Get Your Ideas???

 Supposedly this is the question authors are most frequently asked.

Where Do You Get Your Ideas???

My answer to that is --- EVERYWHERE.

I am blessed.

I have no shortage of ideas. I have notebooks with ideas, computer files with ideas. I've learned to write them down when they hit, so I don't forget. That image of the writer scribbling on a scrap of napkin is all too true!

It's sort of magical, because when I go back and look through those ideas, the excitement for that story builds all over again.

When Harlequin announced the Killer Voices contest, I needed a suspense story. I remembered an idea that had come to me one night. I'd been standing at my kitchen sink washing dishes, and I could hear a block party on the next street over. That suspense writer brain kicked in and I thought WHAT IF...  Ultimately the story changed so that original idea wasn't even recognizable, but it got me started. Christmas in Hiding was the result.

A few years ago, I was sitting having coffee with my editor at RWA, and we were talking about the popularity of Amish fiction. RWA's conference that year was in Times Square. I live in NYC, but normally I avoid Times Square like the plague. I remember at the end of the conference thinking that I got the appeal of Amish life - simple, calm, as far removed from Times Square as your imagination could take you.

That got me curious to learn more about the Amish. A few weeks later, I was chatting with an author friend about her editor wanting both books set in Texas and Amish books. I joked that she should do Amish in Texas.

I was joking, but the idea stuck, so I Googled. What I found intrigued me SO much that I knew I had to use it in a story. (More about that in a minute.)

When I started writing Texas Witness Threat, I had one idea in mind. It was a question I'd thought of a few years ago. What would it feel like if you were someone who suffered anxiety and then you witnessed a murder, but no one believed you because there was no body? I have no idea where the idea came from. I was walking along the street when it popped into my mind. But I wrote it down.

When I actually started to write the story, I had no idea where the story was going - and then I remembered the result of my Google search. 

When I searched Amish in Texas, I discovered there had actually been a number of settlements, but none of them lasted very long. Oh well. 

But then I found this article, and I was so intrigued. You can go read it, but the gist is that after Ike devastated parts of south Texas, a group of Amish from Indiana came down to help rescue the animals and rebuild the fences and homes.

Amish Volunteers Help Gulf Coast Ranches Rebuild After Ike.

In that moment, a story was born because my brain started playing What if? What if they came to help, liked it, and stayed?

The result was the book with the snake cover. 

My box of books arrived last week, and I have to say, snake not withstanding, I like the cover. The art department did a fabulous job with the colors. The book glows.

I had to laugh though.  When Christmas in Hiding arrived, I took a photo of Fenway with the book. 

When I tried to replicate that for his book, he shied away from the book as if the snake was real! Oh, Fenway.

I could go on and on with where I got various story ideas, but enough about me. Where do you get your ideas? 

When we teach children to keep a writer's notebook, we tell them to fill it with seed ideas, so they'll never have to say they have nothing to write about. 

Do you have a notebook full of writing seeds or a folder full of napkin scribbles? Tell me what inspires your stories.