M is for Music

I love music. Growing up I was in both band and choir. I listened to music when I could and have always enjoyed a plethora of genres. Music has many uses and can be helpful for both of my blog endeavors: fiction and fitness.

For fitness I love to listen to music when walking. I would walk as a teen on our dirt road (just under half a mile one way) and listen to music with a portable cd player, then eventually got an ipod when I was older. Whether it's outside, on the treadmill, or for a dance exercise program, music always helped keep me motivated to keep moving.

Aside from fitness, I am a big fan of music while I write. In fact, now for almost every novel I have (except maybe Thomas/Kyle) I have created a music playlist with songs that are for that novel only. After listening to the play list a few times I can easily associate those songs and that playlist to the specific novel to the point where hearing them makes me want to work on that story. I pick songs that remind me of either the main character, a second very important character, the novel as a whole, or a certain part of the novel. There are some posts where I've talked about my playlists in the past, but here are a few novels that are in progress and one song from each of their playlists.

Ottohahn in E Minor:
This novel is different. I have songs by Chopin, Seether, Adam Lambert, Stone Sour and Lifehouse. Quite the weird variety. But they all work with the story.



Aeon Fading:
This is my novel from NaNoWriMo 2012. Still not quite finished, just have the ending to write. This song I listened to a lot as it was focused on the main character and helped me stay in his mind set. I used listenonrepeat web site during November for writing sprints to hear the song over and over again.



Cloud 9:
New novella that I'm trying to get the first draft written soon. Has a female main character, which I have far less practice writing. Nice cause I can have female vocalists a bit more (yeah the gender is a little important for voice when I"m listening to songs, along with a few other factors) but also tough because I don't want love songs as it's more of a middle grade story about a young cloud-walker.




Do you ever make playlists?
What do you use music for in your life?