The Marriage of Two Creative Endeavors ....

.... Music and Writing!

I don't know too many authors who don't write to some sort of background noise. We all say we want peace and quiet, but yet we go to Starbucks (where it's anything but quiet), or we have the television on in the background. We never totally shut out family noise by leaving the office door open just a crack. Most of us write to music, even going so far as to create playlists of songs that fit our current work in progress.

Because my writing jumps from genre to genre, so does my choice of music. Here are some of my favorites and their corresponding project/finished book.

My current work in progress is a vintage (1975) re-telling of The Wizard of Oz titled Waking Up in Oz. My heroine, an attorney, finds herself stranded in the small town of Oswald, KS following a tornado. Fortunately, she has a handful of hunky men to keep her company. She also has to deal with the colorful townspeople who count on the Oz lore to supplement their income, sometimes to the point of frustration for the heroine. In order to get in the Oz mood, I quite naturally gravitated toward the wonderful Judy Garland's Somewhere Over the Rainbow.

My most recently published work, The Vessel, is a sci-fi erotic romance set in the twenty-third century. The story revolves around a career soldier who's tasked with transporting an alien princess from the government's safehouse to their laboratories. Alora of Delawon is believed to be mankind's last hope in a world that's been left sterile by chemical warfare. The problem is, Major Liam McGregor finds himself more of a threat to their mission than the marauders they're running from. Throughout the creation of the book, I constantly listened to Sir Elton John's Rocket Man and the late David Bowie's Space Oddity






While most of the music I listen to while I write is upbeat (to keep me motivated), when I read I also like background music. However, it's a must that the music be just that ... background. And, for that reason, I choose classical. Most often, Ravel's Bolero or Strauss' Blue Danube.

I'd love to hear from both the authors and readers who visit this blog. Do you write to music? If so, what type? When you read, do you insist on total silence? Or, do you like background noise/music?

Until next month, happy reading!

Nancy