Soundtracks and Writing.

I don't actually remember what I was listening to the very first time I started working on The Firechild books.

At 14 years old, I had a music obsession - CD and record stores were still fairly prolific and I spent most of my allowance (remember, I was in high school) on new music just about EVERY WEEK. I bought and listened to a new album over and over for a week or so and then started listening to something else. You can imagine just how immense my music collection is, I just wish I had the patience to upload all of it to my computer (sooo many CDs, ack!) I think, as with most of my fantasy stories, I probably listened to a great deal of Celtic music, classical music (nothing with words to distract me) and things like Enigma and Dead Can Dance. I am also incredibly fond of Loreena McKennitt.

The second major re-envisioning and writing of the Firechild novel (not editing, but actual full re-write - it turned into a whole different story, which I will probably make into the second book in the series,) I was in college and worked at a local bookstore. All I listened to for two months was the band Stabbing Westward as I churned out 350+ pages in inspired fury. That version probably would have stayed the version I would use for Book 1 except that it had too many point of view shifts and skipped the two main characters' entire childhoods, using constant flashbacks instead. It got very very complicated (I was trying to alter the tone of the novel by writing it from their "adult" perspectives - I did not want it to turn into a YA novel.) Regardless, it didn't work for my purposes but provided a whole lot of really good ideas to be used on the second book.

The point was, I now completely associate the series with that particular band. I can still listen to classical and Celtic music while I work, but I feel most in tune with the story while blasting out some slightly dark Stabbing Westward.

So, to share my current tone while trying to get back into this world I have created, I share some music:

What do you listen to when you create? Does music influence your mood / the tone of your work / does it give you ideas?