What do Johnny Mercer, Phillip Wesley, and Phil Collins Have in Common?

Today, I noticed something new about my writing habits: I have to have music to write.

Not just any music will do; however. No, I tend to have a specific muse for every longer work that I write. Interesting, right?

I thought it began with my first novel, Muted. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, I was completely engrossed in Phillip Wesley’s music as I wrote. Keep in mind, I’d never even heard of Phillip Wesley before I began writing my novel. Most of the time, I’d just sit down to write and turn on Pandora–usually my classical music station just because it was so calming.

And that’s when I heart it!

Solo piano music with a depth of passion I’d never before felt being shared through a simple recording. But it was there, still the same. I was hooked. I had to have more. So I actually ordered Phillip Wesley’s album Dark Night of the Soul (which I highly recommend) and used it to propel my writing. Before listening to Phillip Wesley, I dragged my feet as I wrote. Don’t get me wrong, I was still overly excited about telling Kennan’s story, but the task of writing a novel just seemed overwhelming, daunting, completely terrifying. Wesley’s music calmed that fear and resuscitated my passion for the story. It allowed me to slow my thoughts and take the story scene by scene. In fact, when writing Muted, I did see the story unfolding before me, much like a movie, with Wesley’s solo piano as the sound track.

So naturally, when I began writing my latest novel, Ferocity, I turned back to Phillip Wesley for inspiration…but it wasn’t there.

I wrote anyway, but it felt more like work than like fun. Until something changed.

We had nearly two weeks off work last month because of snow days, and I enjoyed every minute at home–reading The Maze Runner by a crackling fire, playing games with my husband and friends who dared to venture out in the cold, and watching Tarzan with my son. Not only did I really enjoy the time spent with my son as we dove into another one of his movie crazes (he zeros in on one movie that he must watch every day, time-and-time-again, for weeks at a time), I also really enjoyed the film’s soundtrack, written and performed primarily by Phil Collins.

Then I had a thought: Tarzan is a jungle movie; Ferocity (the first book in its trilogy) takes place on a tropical island. Maybe I should try writing to the Tarzan soundtrack.

So I did…and miraculously, it worked! I pounded out nearly two chapters in a two hour sitting just last night as I broadened my Phil Collins experience to include his best hits album. As I was writing, I visualized the scenes unfolding like a movie with Phil Collins music as the background music, and it was inspirational, enjoyable, and absolutely wonderful! I’ve been listening to Phil Collins as I write for over a week now, and the momentum hasn’t slowed. That’s when the thought hit me: I don’t just need music to write–I need a muse. Unfortunately, I don’t get to pick them; they have to pick me. (Because, I mean, it’d be so much easier if I could just decide on what’s going to inspire me from the beginning, right fellow authors?)

Then I had a second thought: if this is true, then what inspired me when I wrote my book of poetry, Autumn Leaflets?

I looked through the book and the answer was right in front of my face: my epigraph is the lyrics of Johnny Mercer’s “The Autumn Leaves” which I listened to, sung by various choirs, as I wrote my collection.

FACE PALM!!! MIND BLOWN!!!

So now I’m curious: do you have any “must haves” when you write? What or who is your muse and does it change? Tell me about it in the comment section.

 

(Special thanks to Johnny Mercer, Phillip Wesley, and Phil Collins for doing what they do and powering me through my novels.)