As I get older, I find I now have a hard time writing in silence. Sometimes I write to the sound of my husband’s video games in the background, but more often, I put something on to listen to while I work. What that might be varies, depending on what I’m writing at the time, but each project tends to develop its own soundtrack. Once I find the songs and artists that work best for what I’m doing, I tend to stick with those. Here’s a peek at a couple of my favorites, with links to the media on YouTube so you can listen to them, yourself.
E.S. Posthumus
I first discovered E.S. by stumbling across a website belonging to a girl who really believed she was a vampire. There was an MP3 playing on the page, and I fell in love with it immediately! The problem was, the song was embedded in the page with no visible media player, so I had no idea what it was called.
Naturally, I did what any sane person would do, and spent the next two hours digging in her website’s source code to find the MP3, then scoured the internet for matches to it in filesize and length.
The song, by the way, was Antissa.
I shared the song with some guy in Japan that I had a really huge crush on at the time, and he agreed that it was excellent. Later on, he sent me the first CD, Unearthed, as a gift. Since then, throughout the course of our marriage, he’s given me both of their other albums, Cartographer and Makara.
I don’t know if I could pick a single favorite song, but the song Selisona Pi has become sort of the unofficial theme song of the book I’m currently writing.
Karsh Kale
My husband introduced me to Karsh Kale (Pronounced Kursh Kah-lay) when he was stationed in Okinawa. I don’t like all of his work, the two albums my husband has being my favorites. Regardless, Karsh Kale introduced me to a broader spectrum of music with a Hindu influence, which I find to be excellent for writing.
My favorite piece is Break of Dawn.
Supreme Beings of Leisure
We found this group through Pandora, one of my favorite internet things of all time. SBL is one of few things that has lyrics that I can stand to listen to while writing – Usually, I find the words to be distracting. SBL’s work is considered to be electronic “trip-hop” music, which was something I’d never heard of until running across them.
I listened to their album 11i almost exclusively while writing Death of the Sun, particularly the song Angelhead, which I will always associate with that book.
What’s your favorite mood music for writing?