All my stories have soundtracks. Music to write by. Music that disappears into the background as I write. But the minute the music stops, so do my fingers. Some muses like silence, some like the hustle of a coffee shop. My muse likes music.

So I make a Pandora channel or two according to what my characters like–which is NOT necessarily the music I like.

For instance, with Taking Flight, I made a Shania Twain channel and a Garth Brooks channel.  Shania even inspired a whole scene in that book. If I were picking for me, it’s not the music I would have picked.

Now I have nothing against Shania or Garth. I’m just not their biggest fan. My husband likes country music–a lot. Me, I choose the classic rock station, or the alternative rock station or the 80′s rock station or…you get the idea.

For my last book, set in contemporary New Orleans, I made a Harry Connick, Jr. channel. Great stuff! Harry, Michael Buble’, Ole’ Blue Eyes himself and an occasional Ella Fitzgerald kept my fingers in rhythm.

My current WIP, set in small town Louisiana, is being written to John Mayer, CCR and Lynyrd Skynyrd. It just so happens that for this book my story people like the same kind of music I do.

Write on!