That son-of-a-bitch Van Owen
Blew off Roland's head
There’s something about the headless revenge ghost trope, the Sleepy Hollows and whatnot. Before I wrote Jewel in the Head I had an opening scene in my noggin: someone—a man—searching a floor—for what?—a treasure—etc…
I needed it to go somewhere.
Music helps make my brain go brrrrrrr. As soon as I put my headphones on, over-ear being preferable for this purpose, but I’ll take a good pair of IEMs if necessary1, there’s a switch that goes off like “ok it is writing time yes let’s go.” It is also a signal to my children that if they see me with headphones on, to leave me alone. (YMMV, depending on the age of your children, but it has worked for mine. For the most part.) Even if no music is playing, there’s something I’ve done that has trained my brain to equate headphone use to writing time, and that’s pretty neat.
Some people say they need perfect silence to write. I am not one of those people. Interruptions suck, absolutely. “Mom can I—” and I’m internally fuming because my flow state is broken. But music? Music I must have.
Back to Jewel in the Head. I was listening Warren Zevon a bunch, at the time. I was sitting there, ruminating over where the scene of the guy searching the floor needed to go… and then came on Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner. There were other ideas I was playing around with—I think I had just read a bunch of Vancian stories with wizards etc—and then I was able to have the lightbulb moment. “OH! Someone’s gotta have no head! And he’s gotta be pissed about it!”
Thus, this short story was born:
Novels are a bit different, less inspired by a single song the way short stories can be, but more… whole “soundtracks.” Every one of my books has one. I will sometimes spend more time planning my listening than I do getting my wordcount down.2
I always start with a scene, or a character, and something will grow from there. Once the ideas start blooming, I seek out the right musical vibe to go with the ideas.
A very obvious “soundtrack” novel is Pull Me Under. Heck, it’s named after a Dream Theater song! All the parts are track titles! Here’s a Spotify3 playlist to follow along with each part in the book! If you want!
But of course, these aren’t the only songs I listened to as I wrote it. In fact, choosing what songs to use as the book/part titles was kinda hard. I have a whole separate file just for song brainstorming. Some were easy, like Fear of the Dark, because we need some Iron Maiden in there OBVIOUSLY. But I also had to think like my characters, especially Tanner: had to be music he (or Lauren, in the case of Wishbone Ash - Leaf and Stream) would listen to which means a) had to be (mostly) metal and b) (mostly) from the 80s or 90s. Luckily, that’s the sort of stuff I listen to a lot!
(It’s so fascinating to me how I can play a song YEARS later, and still the scene I was writing will pop in my head. For example, Unto Others - Jackie during the space flight scene in GTK, heh, anyway more on that book later.)
But, I get “bored” easy and need to switch things up. So, I cycled through many, many albums with the correct vibe for PMU. Maiden, check, Thin Lizzy, check, Big 4 Thrash, quadruple check, Rainbow, Dio, Sabbath, lesser-known 80s acts like Tygers of Pan Tang, new(er) stuff like Conan or Warbringer or Hällas or Eternal Champion, many checks. I honestly can’t list them all, not just because I wrote the book 6 years ago and don’t remember everything, but because I have other things to write about.
For my other books, going by publication order for simplicity’s sake:
Pallas, in the first draft and all through the edits, was mainly synthwave4, atmospheric black metal5, Daft Punk, but also stuff like Elephant Tree and Turtle Skull. One album that got HEAVY play as I was editing was City of Souls - Synaesthesia. (Which also happens to have a banger cover of Joy Division - Love Will Tear Us Apart!) Here’s a track from it I would suggest as a choice for the inevitable movie adaptation’s closing credits, perhaps:
Plus, I always am a fan of the classics, so songs like Deep Purple - Space Truckin is a must to include here. Due to the fact Kylan is a space trucker LOL
The Highwayman Kennedy Thornwick, a lot of Steeleye Span and other folk acts, classics like Whiskey in the Jar or Rocky Road to Dublin, Thin Lizzy (again, yeah I guess they’re a good band or something, anyway their whole Jailbreak album is a core musical theme for the book, I mean, there’s a whole third of the book about breaking out of jail lol), the Pogues, 80s New Wave, especially the sad boy shit, but as I’ve alluded to before, when I say “writing” I also include the editing process.
As I was doing some of the later edits to HKT, Depeche Mode came out with a new single: Ghosts Again. WOW what a perfect song to play on repeat as I fussed over word choices. I already had Enjoy the Silence in my song list doc, so either song would fit as a “closing credits” song, but Memento Mori (the album that came out during my edits) got HEAVY rotation, I got it on vinyl, so, literally. Yeah, I’ll listen to the “correct vibe music” even as I’m not actively writing—thinking about writing counts as writing though btw ok, shut up don’t rain on my friggin parade here.
Going through my Tidal “most played” for whatever month I was working on something is like musical time travel, revisiting what I was working on at the time.
The Ghosts of Tieros Kol is another big time “soundtrack novel” for me. Holy cow, there’s so much I could list. Lots of 70s. Lots.
UFO (Phenomenon got so much play), Uriah Heep, Yes, Blue Öyster Cult, Scorpions, Deep Purple, Strawbs, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Moody Blues…
Every time I listen to Scorpions - We’ll Burn The Sky, the whole novel cascades through my brain. I must’ve listened to that song a lot!
But not just classic rock, a lot of new stuff too, praise Bandcamp. I do suppose I qualify as a “metal head” due to the fact I like blast beats and heavy riffs and shit like that. I’ve always been drawn to the broader metal genre umbrella. Anyway here’s an album I played a lot writing GTK and that I think you should check out:
Alright. Are there enough embeds in this thing? Probably. I don’t think I’ve put so many in a post before.
Now for the engagement bait: Do you need music when you write, or are you a total silence type? I’ve also heard people say they can only listen to instrumental, because the lyrics distract them. Not a problem for me, but we all are special, unique individuals, with our own needs and methods or whatever.
(…And some serious talk. If you’ve been subscribed for a while or you follow me on Notes you’ll have noticed I haven’t posted much fiction. Part of that is that my mental health this year has been in the sewer. I haven’t been listening to music because my OCD tried lying to me and telling me if I put my headphones on disaster would strike. Fuck you OCD! I have my headphones on right now!! What are you going to do about it, you bitch?!)6
OK! Book link time! If you enjoy what I do here, show your support by buying, reading, and reviewing!
Peace!
The Highwayman Kennedy Thornwick [Amazon] [Kobo]
The Ghosts of Tieros Kol [Amazon] [Kobo]
Pull Me Under — free to read here on substack!
PS: New short fiction coming soon!7
I wish I was rich enough for the audiophile preferences I have.
🤷♀️ That's just how she goes some days….
Because I’m probably the only person here who uses Tidal LOL. Oh well! This’ll do! Bunch of plebs around, I swear…
Was also playing some Hotline Miami I and II and it helped with the right vibe, BANGER soundtracks to those games.
One of my fave microgenres I discovered as I wrote Pallas was a type of dungeonsynth but like Soviet Space Explorer… I guess you could call it Cosmonaut… -synth… I’m sure it has a specific name. Fun stuff. I even bought an EP:
Seriously this disease will attack everything you care about, it sucks ass, real bad. But I’m trying my best to claw out of the depths of this. PS: I’m listening to Slough Feg - Hardworlder, great album.
I mean it this time LMAO
So many good recs here 😍😍 I listen to music when I write too, it gets the creative juice going so well!
I love writing and illustrating to music. But I usually cannot edit with music that I Ike too much. I need more atmospheric sounds or chill classical music for editing. Brains are weird