Author's Insight: Letting Music Guide the Pen

Over the past few decades I've come to depend more and more on music to help me through the slow times in my writing. At first, I'd look for pieces of music that made me feel a particular way while I was creating a scene that called for that emotion. But as time went on, I noticed that certain songs became more than just background noise while I wrote.

It was somewhere around 1991 when a song by Loreena McKennit caught my attention. It was "The Old Ways," and as I listened, the beginnings of short story started to form while I was driving home from the daycare where I taught at the time. I never actually got around to writing it as a short story, but the idea fermented in the back of my brain for at least twenty years before it was eaten by what would eventually become the Nickelville novels. Without that song, the story of Luminita might never have been told.

By the time I reached Silver Mirror, music had become much more important to my writing. Some characters have their own theme songs. Some scenes have background music where I could tell you exactly what is happening in the scene at any point in the song.

If you'd like to hear the playlist, you can go to Spotify and search for Nickelville Music. Everything from the beginning down to "The Gaels," by Artesia is from The Nickelville Novels. Past that point, the music is all from the upcoming Nickelville novel, Beneath the Tree at World's End. I'm attaching a list of the songs and which scene or character they represent.

Nickelville Music.pdf

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