7. Do you listen to music while you write? What kind? Are there any songs you like to relate/apply to your characters?
I listen to music while I do everything. Drive, work, eat, write. Music was my first love, and I love just about all types of music (not so much heavy metal or rap though). Loreena McKennitt always makes me think of Fie Eoin, especially “The Mystic’s Dream” and “All Soul’s Night”. Dave Matthews Band is for Lane and Rebecca (“The Stone” is especially Rebecca’s song: “Yes I have done wrong, but what I did I thought needed to be done. I swear”). Somehow Mat Kearney’s new album, City of Black and White, became the soundtrack for Apollo, and A Fine Frenzy’s new album, Bomb in a Birdcage, is inspiring the Top Secret Project. Phooka Tales has a soundtrack pulled from all sorts of different places rather than one singer or album, although Sara Bareilles‘ “Between the Lines” is a pretty good summation of Holly’s relationship with Josh, and “Come Alive” by the Foo Fighters inspired her final meltdown (“Come Alive” is also shared by Karigan in Pike’s Revenge).
The only book without a soundtrack is After Ancient (there are one or two songs that make me think of it – one of them is Copland’s “Appalachian Spring”). This is probably another reason that AA never worked out – there aren’t any songs that I hear on the radio that make me think of it and inspire me to work on it again.