Music Muses by Susan Harris

Hello Musers! Happy Thursday!
As most of you know, I'm extremely passionate about music and I use that passion to fuse with my writing. Selecting the playlist becomes an integral part of my writing process. 

Most people find it had to concentrate when studying or writing, but I've always been the opposite. I've always been able to retain more information once music was involved. In secondary school (high school) I used to use Linkin Park to learn Shakespeare and poems, songs from Foo Fighters and Marilyn Manson for Maths and Science, and so on. 
I remember sitting in exams and hearing the melody of Linkin Park Crawling and using that to write about a WB Yeats poem...and it worked! I know, I know, you never expected to hear Linkin Park and WB Yeats mentioned in the same sentence!

When I first started writing, I would listen to random songs or have to go and select the ones I wanted to listen to and then I found out about Spotify. I could create playlists for books and stories and keep them all in one place. With Shattered Memories, my first published novel, I was delighted to be able to create the first playlist. Since then, I've created hours and hours of playlists for all of my books.

I don't know about some authors, but the characters are sometimes the one that dictates what songs end up on the playlist and some times, they are songs in there that I would NEVER listen to!
We have internal debates about the music but sometimes, like a Pussycat Dolls song on my most recent playlist, ends up sneaking it's way in. It helps me to step outside of me and tell the characters stories....even if my ears what to bleed....

Every single time I set out to plan a book, from characters to storyline, the playlist is also one of the most important processes. You find sometimes that when listening to songs, the spark of an idea becomes an entire world because of the music. Even quite recently, myself and Melanie spent MONTHS trying to find the perfect song for the last Ever Chace Novel...we had it down to a few, with No Time To Die on top of the list and this was before Arsonist's Lullaby was complete...and once Melanie had read it, she came to me with a song she loved from American Horror Story and we found our title with Of Gods and Monsters which is PERFECT for what's to come.

*** Melanie interrupting here because - well because I can lol.  Of Gods and Monsters was PERFECT! But Susan doesn't say she doesn't ALWAYS get epic suggestions from me. We have had Adam Rickett (because that is who Nicky looks like), of course the epic PJ & Duncan (our editor did NOT like that but we rebelled and kept it in anyway mwhahahahahahah), and more recently "A Little Bit Alexis", because it just has to be heard!  All options are on my "super random list" which should probably come with a listen at your own risk warning! ***

 When I'm writing a particular scene, sometimes, I imagine that scene being played out on TV and what sing I would have played during that scene. Like One Tree Hill and The Vampire Diaries, music can make or break a scene and having a specific song that matches the mood, it helps with the emotion you get to feel from the song, and it flows from my mind to the page...or the screen! 

 For example, when writing Chaos Theory, The Paramore song Tell Me How became Ryan and Nickolai's song. Hayley's voice and the lyrics were as they had been lifted from Ryan's mind.  ​

 Obviously, any books that have songs as titles, those stories and premise arise from the song, it's tone and it's lyrics. Other songs become the story arcs main theme song.  

I spend a lot of time daydreaming of my official TV soundtrack for certain series but until that happens
​ ( Hey Netflix, hit me up!) you guys will have to made do with listening to my writing playlists on Spotify!
Or if you don't have Spotify ( Free basic version is available for everyone) you can view all my book playlists on my website, susanharrisauthor.com

Have you read any of my books and felt a song would have been prefect for the playlist? Let me know in the comments below!