He's Behind The Shower Curtain

Ohhhh songs! Yay, can I talk about songs! I firmly believe that the iPod is one of the greatest inventions of all time - totally changed my life. I love nothing more than making a playlist for whatever I'm writing, and then just going to town on that sucker. Music helps me write like nothing else, and playlists double this effect easy.

At the moment, I'm writing a number of things. But my fave WIP/soundtrack combo is definitely my Commander of a mining base falling in love with a robot story. That one's got:

We Are Young - Fun
Oblivion - Grimes
Who You Are - Jessie J
Adagio from Alien 3
A Real Hero - College
Wrong Floor/I Drive/He Had A Good Time - Drive soundtrack
Solar Sailer/The Grid - Tron soundtrack

Amongst others. It's this electric-y, swirly thing, and it puts me immediatly into space. I'm already halfway into the arms of androids and aliens, by the time I've brought the word doc up - which is why I love making those playlists. It gives me instant atmosphere. It gives me this instant mood.

And the same goes no matter what I'm writing. At the moment I'm toying with some suspense sorts of stories, and have been watching a lot of early 90s thrillers. The end of Single White Female came up and BOOM, State of Independance is on my suspense playlist.

It immediatly brings the right tone. As do all of the songs in In The Cut. They're light, summery songs, but there's a sharp undercurrent to them. Like lazing around in a sweltering apartment half-dressed, as a serial killer waits for you in your bathroom.

Or maybe that's just me. Really these songs mean nothing of the sort, but my brain makes the connections and the connections turn into mood and the mood helps me write. It's really that simple. And I need simple, for all the times when it's really, really hard.