Music for Writing

Usually when I'm working on a book, I have a soundtrack of sorts running through my mind while I write. For example, when I was working on Clean Hands, I listened to a lot of Erykah Badu and Maria Rita. During Daddy Issues, I listened to a lot of Tori Amos. Just today, while I was at the Y, I heard Tori's song "Leather" and it instantly reminded me of Jason, the main character in Daddy Issues because I had that song in heavy rotation during the writing process. As I'm struggling with my current unnamed novel, I've been listening to a lot of Maxwell and Mariah Carey. Sometimes the music will work its way into the writing. In Collusion, I have the three main characters all listening to a samba song that I listened to constantly as I wrote the book. But, normally, the music just stays in my head and doesn't carry over onto the page.


For me, music is an integral part of the writing process. I usually have music playing as I write because I find it helps me get into the mental space I need to get into in order to put words on the page.