Tag Archive for: music

Live Theater

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   When I was a little girl, my mother made sure I was exposed to books, music, movies, and live theater. She explained these were important ways to learn about and experience culture. The lessons “took,” and my support for the arts cemented. My entire life I’ve been an avid consumer and patron of the arts. (In fact, one of my job titles for several years was Fine Arts Department Chair at Thornton Township High School.)
   Arguably, the least accessible of these forms of art is live theater, yet it is the most potent. I’m exhilarated every time the curtain rises, and I’m right there in the same room with the entertainers. Whether the show is a concert, a play, a comedy act, a dance troupe, acrobatics, or a visit with a celebrity, I’m enthralled by the talent and energy emanating from the stage.
   For me, the arts are what make civilization civilized. They spin the threads that connect people of all races, creeds, and nationalities, so much so that throughout history, tyrants have sought to subvert the arts. One need only look to a society’s artistic expressions to understand its heart.


   I’m proud to be a patron and supporter of The Grand 1894 Opera House in Galveston, Texas, my hometown. The Grand is one of America’s historic theaters. The building itself is a treasure. The art deco touches make the view from the stage, according to performer Michael Buble, “a veritable birthday cake.”
   The Grand’s new season opens on September 17 with Three Dog Night. The rest of the season is stellar, as well, with shows as diverse as Fiddler on the Roof, the music of Sam Cooke, Seong-Ji Cho pianist, and Jose Feliciano.
   I’ve served as program chair, executive board secretary, and president-elect of The Grand, and I’m excited to take the reins of the presidency next month. I’ll continue to work hard to keep our theater the vibrant hub of culture it is in our city, and to keep the arts alive in all communities across the globe. I hope you’ll do the same, and if you’re headed my way, let me know. I’ll send you information about The Grand!

 


Saralyn Richard is the author of five books, including Naughty Nana, Murder in the One Percent, A Palette for Love and Murder, A Murder of Principal, and Bad Blood Sisters. She loves connecting with readers and invites you to subscribe to her monthly newsletter via the website: http://saralynrichard.com.

The Gift of Music, with Barbara Kyle

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December marks six years since I took my very first violin lesson. 

An interesting session. It went something
like this:

 

Luckily,
my teacher was, and remains, the super-talented and incredibly patient pro violinist, Anna Hughes.

At
first, I merely dipped my toe in: I rented a violin. After all, I might hate it
or be impossible to teach; in either case, I could just give up.


Wondrously,
neither happened. Novice though I was, every time I picked up the violin to
practice, I felt a lovely, sweet shiver of connection to centuries of great composers
and musicians. 

 

I was dipping my toe into a mighty river of art. 

 

So I committed
to the learning and the practicing. The rental agreement was basically a lease;
after twelve monthly payments, I owned the instrument.

 

Result?
Instant humility. When I arrived for my lessons, the student before me was ten
years old; the one after me was seven. And they were really good. (Anna teaches
the Suzuki Method which starts students young – often as young as four – on small
violins.)

 

A happy bonus
has been my new, deep appreciation of professional violinists. I had always enjoyed their
playing – whether virtuosi of
classical works, spirited fiddlers of toe-tapping jigs, or cool individualists
of jazz – but only by learning each baby step of technique myself have I come to be in
awe of their artistry. 

 

That, in
turn, has made concert-going thrilling. I’ve watched enthralling live performances
by Itzhak Perlman, Natalie McMaster, Joshua Bell, Luri Lee, Sally Fields, and
Timothy Chooi.


And I have come to love the works of brilliant composers who
were new to me, like Florence Price. Listen to her String QuartetNo 2. (Note the ravishing second movement.)

So, that funny
picture I showed you at the top of this post? That was after my first lessons.
Now, six years later, I’m daring to dream like this:

 ___________________________________________________________________

 

Barbara Kyle is the author of the bestselling
Thornleigh Saga series of historical novels and of
acclaimed thrillers. Her latest novel of suspense is The Man from Spirit Creek. Over half a million
copies of her books have been sold. Barbara has taught
hundreds of writers in her online masterclasses and many have become
award-winning authors. Visit Barbara at https://www.barbarakyle.com/  

 

 

Reggae Saved Me During the Pandemic of 2020 by Juliana Aragón Fatula

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Dear Reader,
Twenty twenty-one, the pandemic year, I turned 64 and officially became a viejita. A little old woman. But not la abuelita, not a grandmother. No that didn’t happen. I’ve been waiting for decades, but my one and only son had decided that he hasn’t found the one to settle down and raise a family. Not yet. I have hope. I’ll take the blessing of having a son and remember the choice I made to only have one child. My man child is now late forties and it will take a miracle, but I believe in miracles and magic. 
Music has always been playing like a soundtrack to my life. Like a comedy/tragedy, my life spills out in a blur that has included alcoholism, drug addiction, jail, recovery, abuse, survival, mistakes, success, love, happiness, depression, fear, spirituality, anger, bravery, melancholy, absurdity, loathing, jubilation, wit, and wisdom. Mine has been an abundant and holy moly journey down the what a long strange trip it’s been. 
The music of the fifties filled my ears and I danced with my older siblings to Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Elvis, and Fats Domino. 
The sixties brought the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, the Motown Funk, and the blues of Roy Orbison. 
During the seventies, I smoke, rolled, burned, and puff puff passed the doobies to the Doobie Brothers, the Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, never could spell their name right. And of course, there was the Cosmic Blues Band and Janis, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Jackson Browne, Linda Rondstadt, Neil Young, The Eagles, and Joni Mitchell.
The eighties were for disco and punk music and the nineties were everything from rap to reggae to country to opera to tex-mex to Bollywood.
The twenties and the twenty-first century gave me a combination of blues and rockabilly. But in 2020, I dropped to my knees and asked the gods for deliverance and the answer came in Rastafarian Rap Reggaeton.
I danced away my Covid 19 blues and sang along with the Marley Boys. Collie Buddz gave me the inspiration to finish two manuscripts: One poetry book, Gathering Momentum and one murder mystery love story, The Colorado Sisters. I wore my Bluetooth headset religiously and danced under the clothesline, the grape arbor, the sunshine, the moonlight, and the rain. I sang and danced and grew giddy about life again. The music and the writing healed me like they always do. 
My friends worry I spend too much time isolated and not enough time Zooming and socializing on the websites, but I love being alone and listening to my music and writing my stories. It makes me incredibly devoid of anger towards covid idiots and non-believers in science and lets me trip around in unreality instead of the world we live in for real. The real world. 
So if you stop by and visit me, get my attention because my headset takes me to another world and I can’t hear a thing, not dogs barking, sirens blaring, kids crying, husbands yelling…
If you stop by, smell the roses and the tea simmering on the stove and sing along with me to the oldies as we grow old and tip toe through the tulips, or poppies.

A Musical Trend in Crime Fiction Anthologies

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by Paula Gail Benson

Recently, I’ve noticed a number of short story anthologies organized
around the songs of a particular artist, group, or time period. Here’s a list
of a few that are published or pending and two story calls:

Published
Anthologies:


Murder-a-Go-Go’s:
Crime Fiction Inspired by the Music of the Go-Go’s, edited by Holly West
(Down and Out Books, 2019) features stories by twenty-five authors, including
Lisa Alber, Susanne Calkins, Jen Conley, Lori Rader-Day, Hillary Davidson, Greg
Herren, Travis Richardson, and Holly West. The forward is written by Jane
Wiedlen, co-founder of the Go-Go’s. Net proceeds benefit Planned Parenthood.


The Beat of Black
Wings: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Joni Mitchell, edited by Josh
Pachter (Untreed Reads, 2020) has contributions from twenty-eight authors,
including “Both Sides Now,” the first literary collaboration by husband and
wife Art Taylor and Tara Laskowski, both multiple award winners, and Donna
Andrews, Michael Bracken, Brendan DuBois, Edith Maxwell, Alison McMahan, and Stacy
Woodson.

I’ve read that Josh Pachter also is working on an anthology
featuring Billy Joel’s songs.


Peace, Love, and
Crime: Crime Fiction Inspired by Songs of the ‘60s, edited by Sandra Murphy
(Untreed Reads, 2020) contains twenty-three stories by well-known short story
authors including Earl Staggs (to whom the book is dedicated), Terrie Farley
Moran, Merrillee Robson, Claire A. Murray, Michael Bracken, Maddi Davidson,
Josh Pachter, and John Floyd.

Calls for
Submissions

Fahrenheit Press is putting together Gabba Gabba Hey: A Ramones Anthology. The deadline for submissions
is February 28, 2021. For more information, click on this
link.

Triangle
Sisters in Crime (North Carolina Chapter) has a call for submissions for its
new anthology Carolina Crimes: 20 Tales of Rock, Roll, and Ruin. To enter, you
must be a Sisters in Crime member and resident of North Carolina or South
Carolina. The deadline is April 1, 2021. For information, click on this link. 

Clicking Our Heels: Our Perfect Writing Atmospheres

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Clicking Our Heels: Our Perfect Writing
Atmospheres

Some people must write in absolute silence
in a special place.  Some choose to write
outdoors, others prefer to look through a window at water. Some must listen to
music while others need food or beverages. The gang was surprised to discover
what a variety of perfect writing atmospheres we have. Here’s sharing them with
you.
Kay Kendall: Two things are essential.
Quiet and a window. I don’t like to feel too enclosed. I can have soft
classical music playing, but nothing with words. If I hear lyrics, then my mind
gets pulled out of the story I am writing.

Dru Ann Love: When I write my musings,
I prefer the TV on as background noise. If it’s too quiet, my mind wanders.

Linda Rodriguez: I write well in coffee
shops for some reason, so if I’m really under the gun or stuck, I head out to a
coffee shop and work away.

J.M. Phillippe: I prefer something on
in the background – music, or even a familiar movie or TV show. This is all so
I can distract the part of my brain that wants to edit as I go (and thus
completely shut down my writing process). At some point though I get really
into what I’m writing and I have to turn everything off and continue on in
silence. At this point, flow has taken over and my internal editor has already
been vanquished.

Debra H. Goldstein: Perfection is being
able to look up and see a body of water while playing show music. I write in
rhythm to show songs. Each book or story has certain ones I play throughout the
writing.

Juliana Aragon Fatula: I love to write
with music playing in the background. Music inspires me and makes me more
creative. My blue tooth allows me to pipe music in the backyard while I mow the
lawn or sit under the grape arbor and the sun/moon porch where I write has huge
windows where I can birdwatch and listen to the chimes in the wind. I write in
bed, in the kitchen, in the living roo and when I want to be alone I write in
the camper in the driveway or in the wilderness.

Bethany Maines: I used to have to be
alone and in “the zone”, but having a kid really forced me to fact that fact
that the perfect circumstances to write would never again be appearing. Or at
least not for another eighteen to twenty-five years and I couldn’t wait that
long. I’ve learned that spending five minutes picking away at a scene is better
than getting no writing done, so if I’ve got five minutes I’d better put some
damn words on the paper. It’s not always that easy, but I try.

Sparkle Abbey:

Anita Carter: I like to write in my
office with my any reference book at my fingertips. I have an adjustable
standing writing desk top, which has helped me to write for longer periods of
time. I wish I had it years ago. I can’t write in complete silence. Too many
years of having kids at home, banging around the house. I like music, a
podcast, or a streaming channel (like Acorn) in the background.

Mary Lee Woods: Hmmm. I do like music
on when I’m writing but because I’m easily influenced by the tone, I have to be
careful with my selections. I love using the streaming services such as
Spotify, Pandora, etc. because I can pick a channel that has a particular
genre. I generally have some sort of tea beside me when I write, iced or hot,
depending on the season. And though I have a window in my office, it’s not a
very interesting view and truthfully when I’m fully into the story, it doesn’t
really matter.

A.B. Plum: My office is my favorite
place to write. I don’t listen to music or wear special clothes or keep a totem
near my computer. Surrounded by books, I love my writing nook.

Shari Randall: I would love to be one
of those writers who hangs out in coffee shops, but I don’t drink coffee and
I’m easily distracted. To write effectively, I need three things: silence, a
boring atmosphere, and my focus candle. A friend gave me this large, pure white
candle, and meditating on its flame for a few minutes before writing puts me in
a great state of mind for writing. The quietest place with the least
distraction is my preferred carrel in the back of my public library’s quiet
study area. It faces a blank brick wall. Perfect. However, it would be even
more perfect if I could bring my focus candle, but they don’t allow open flames
in the library – a quandry, for sure.

T.K. Thorne: I need silence and prefer
to be outside if the weather is nice. I have a front and back porch location.
Having the ocean in view is a special treat. Booming surf does not count as
noise.

 Judy Penz Sheluk: I write in my home
office, which is painted Benjamin Moore’s Philipsburg Blue, and listen to talk
radio, even on the weekends, when a lot of the shows are advertorial, i.e.
employment law or how to buy a car or invest money. I get a lot of ideas from
talk radio.

Cranking (Toddler) Tunes

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By Bethany Maines

Many things change after having a baby.  And I have to say that one of the things that
I’m the most sad to see change is the amount of music I listen to.  Baby nap times seem to encompass the whole
dang day! I used to have iTunes running almost constantly.  Not that it wasn’t a battle with my husband
over what to listen to.  No, I don’t want
more Phish.  And there’s only so much
hip-hop and Grateful Dead I can listen to before going insane. (Yes, my husband
is a hippy with a secret love of 90’s R&B. 
He compensates for this deficiency by being ruggedly handsome and having
the miraculous ability to open jars and kill countless spiders.)  
The interesting thing is that, aside from the
specific bands, where my husband I deviate in our musical tastes is an actual
love of music.  He loves music.  Phish, Dave Matthews, the Allman Brothers,
and the Grateful Dead all have one thing common.  OK, take a toke and make that two things –
they’re jam bands.  I hate jam
bands.  It’s just giant swaths of useless
music that take away from the important thing – the lyrics.  I love the words. (Surprised?  Probably not.)  For me, music is like poetry with half the
pretentiousness and way more shake-your-bootiliciousness.  And I like to play it ALL the time
particularly when I’m working.  I find
that music helps put me in the zone for writing and for design.  
But with an in-home office and a baby, it’s
become a lot more difficult to crank the tunes through the work day.  I was excited when the baby hit two and it
became easier to send her to daycare/babysitting and there’s only one nap to
contend with, but it has also meant that she’s tons more verbal.  With a toddler in the house, I don’t feel quite so comfortable
cranking up a few of the songs I love, like Don’t Shoot Me Santa by The Killers.  I am
perfectly prepared to explain that boys have a penis and some people are in
wheelchairs and sometimes boys marry boys and girls marry girls.  But… I am not at all prepared to explain why
Santa is shooting that guy in the song.  I’m
pretty sure I see headphones in my future.
***
Bethany Maines is the author of the Carrie
Mae Mysteries, Wild Waters, Tales
from the City of Destiny and An
Unseen Current.  You can also view the Carrie Mae youtube video
or catch up with her on Twitter and Facebook.

The Perfect Soundtrack

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by J.M. Phillippe
Living in New York City, headphones are a necessity. They not only help you pass the time on long commutes, providing your own soundtrack protects you from the more…natural soundtrack of life in the city. I like an up beat while walking to work, something that quickens my pace to keep time to it. Mellow music makes a bus ride home nice and reflective. 

Progress notes, the bane of every social worker’s existence, are made tolerable by a lovely oldies playlist I can sing along to. Even housecleaning, a chore I have loathed since childhood, can be gotten through best with a good music mix.

And there is not a single novel, story, or even blog post I haven’t gotten through without a playlist. In fact, my first novel, Perfect Likeness, pulled heavily from the music I was listening to as I wrote it. Sometimes, finding the perfect song can make or break the chapter I am working on. If I want to write something fast-paced and action filled, heavy bass and little words helps me find the right flow to move the scene along. Songs that make me sad help me get in the right head space for those moments in a story where I need to go deep.

Music is the only actual cure I know for writer’s block (besides not leaving the blank page until there is something, however bad you may think it is, on it). I have been known to put down a song lyric as a starting point, a way to get the creative juices flowing. In fact, some stories owe their existence to a lyric I couldn’t get out of my head.

I used to collect soundtracks, back when people would still buy CDs. I loved them because they were carefully curated playlists that helped move a greater story along. Some of my favorite movies are also my favorite soundtracks: Dirty Dancing, O Brother Where Art Thou, Singles, Forest Gump — just to name a few. Without their soundtracks, those movies wouldn’t even exist, and certainly not stand out in our minds the way they do.

Books don’t come with their own soundtracks, though I often think they should (if the copyright issues could be worked out). If you had to pick songs to go with the book you are currently writing or reading, what would they be?

***

J.M. Phillippe is the author of Perfect Likeness and the newly released short story The Sight. She has lived in the deserts of California, the suburbs of Seattle, and the mad rush of New York City. She worked as a freelance journalist before earning a masters’ in social work. She works as a family therapist in Brooklyn, New York and spends her free-time decorating her tiny apartment to her cat Oscar Wilde’s liking, drinking cider at her favorite British-style pub, and training to be the next Karate Kid, one wax-on at a time.

The Red String of My Mind

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by Bethany Maines

In the cop shows, whenever the intrepid detective (Watchingthe Detectives, Elvis Costello)
is working on the massive conspiracy that killed her mother/lover/those six
girls we never met, but who really give our character a reason to act, the case
is always shown as pictures (Pictures of You, The Cure) tacked up and connected
by red string.  I don’t know what set
designer came up with the red string, but they ought to get royalties.  It’s so common that if I worked at a craft
store and someone bought red string I’d think they were a serial killer, a cop
thrown off the force for refusing to quit the case, or a grandmother of
toddlers stocking up for Christmas.  I
bring this up for the reason that it is a fitting visual for the song lyric
littered wasteland (Teenage Wasteland, The Who) that is my brain. 
Whenever I have a story noodling around in my head, but
haven’t moved it to the level of having an outline, my natural writing style is
to pick out scenes that I want to write, type them up, and save each scene to it’s
own word document.  As you can imagine,
this creates a number of random word documents that might be hard to keep track
of.  But I have a system, most often I’ll
name the document the song lyric associated with it.  As a book grows, frequently these scenes
become chapters, and those document names become chapter titles.  Which is why the original table of contents for
Bulletproof Mascara, the first of my Carrie Mae Mystery novels, read more like
a playlist than serious literary subtitles. 
Sadly, editor made me change most of them – now they simply hint at the
songs they reference.  Apparently, the
only people more uptight that literary rights lawyers or music rights
lawyers.  But you can still rock out to
the Bulletproof Mascara playlist simply by visiting my youtube page  (youtube.com/CarrieMaeMysteries) – please enjoy
the musical stylings of David Bowie, James Brown, Simon & Garfunkel, Tech9,
Morcheeba, and (of course) more.

***
Bethany Maines is the author of the Carrie
Mae Mysteries, Wild Waters, Tales
from the City of Destiny and An
Unseen Current.  You can also view the Carrie Mae youtube video
or catch up with her on Twitter and Facebook.

Are You Ready to Rock? I Mean, Write!

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I am fiercely right-brained and numbers-challenged enough not to have balanced my checkbook in twenty years, if ever.  There’s something about math that makes my mind go blank.  How I was ever a card-carrying member of Mu Alpha Theta—the honors math club—is a freakin’ mystery, right up there with Black Holes and Donald Trump’s hair.
Not surprisingly, I’ve always gravitated toward the arts, though my attempts at expressing myself with anything other than words were less than spectacular.  As an artist-wannabe, I drew hands well but never faces, dabbled in acrylics, and produced a metal sculpture that my sister incredibly assumed was made by our very talented architect uncle.  She dug it out of a box in Mom’s basement and admired it so much that she put it on display in her apartment only to have me exclaim, “Oh, God, that’s ‘diving boy’!  I did that in seventh grade!”  I was far more excited than she.
Despite my artistic failures, I’m still a huge fan of visual arts and often attend art fairs and festivals in St. Louis. When I’m not crazed on deadlines, I love to visit the Art Museum to see the latest exhibits and pine over their permanent collection (I heart Impressionists!). 
My right brain also adores the Symphony, as there’s nothing as glorious to the ears as a Mozart piano concerto or Yo-Yo Ma on the cello.  But my biggest love is ‘80s rock.  Despite my preference for clothes that actually cover my boobs and my butt, I am a closet rock ‘n’ roll chick. 
Before I met Ed, I would have dropped everything to be Def Leppard’s roadie.  Their music feeds something inside me like nothing else does.  A few notes of “Photograph” or “Promises” pushes all the right buttons and conjures up so many moments from my past, good and bad, falling in love, breaking-up, sad times, glory days.  I will never again hear “Pour Some Sugar On Me” without thinking of a trip to Nashville with the Deadly Divas where I cracked up Letha Albright by singing aloud in an elevator filled with musicians clutching guitar cases (and staring at me, agape, presumably horrified).
My iPod is full of my favorite ‘80s tunes, and I wear it religiously on the treadmill so I can hear Van Halen belt out “Dance the Night Away” or Night Ranger harmoniously “Sing Me Away.” Whenever Kansas’s “Point of No Return” or Rush’s “Fly By Night” comes up in the shuffle, I’m in heaven, if only for three and a half minutes at a time.
The first concert I ever attended was Billy Joel and a succession of my favorites followed (no, you’re not allowed to laugh):  The Cars, Journey, Styx, Rick Springfield, Tom Petty, Night Ranger, Kansas, Prince, Clapton, Bon Jovi, Jefferson Starship, and, of course, the Leps.  I have newer stuff on my iPod, too, (I love The Script, The Fray, Gavin DeGraw, and even some Katie Perry and Lady Gaga); but I always go back to my true love.  
It might surprise you to know that I don’t listen to music as I write.  It’s too distracting, and I’m too easily distracted already.  I have a rhythm in my head when I’m putting words on the page, so I keep the music off; though if you read my books you’ll always find music in them. When I’m not writing, there’s nothing I like more than turning on iTunes and singing at the top of my lungs. Okay, yes, and I dance, too, which freaks out the cats.
So what music do you listen to?  Do you play tunes while you write?  Has any piece of music ever influenced a storyline?  Inquiring minds want to know!

P.S.  Just for fun, my Little Black Dress video, which has very cool music (reminds me of the theme from Harry Potter!).  Take a peek!

 

And the Beat Goes On (aka, Our Favorite Music!)

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Do you have a favorite tune that you can’t get out of your head?  Or a song that reminds you of something from the past?  A beat that, the moment you hear it, makes you get up and dance?  We do!  So we figured we’d share our best “pick-me-up” music with y’all, and see what you recommend.

Maggie:  Every one of my books has a soundtrack but they all have a common thread:  they are danceable.  So, if I’m stuck, I crank up a great dance song (usually Beyonce’s “Green Light”—it starts out “give it to mama,” which makes the kids laugh hysterically) and let my freak flag fly until I get inspiration.

Rhonda (Southern half of Evelyn David):  One of my favorite songs is, “The Water is Wide” by James Taylor. I just think it’s a beautiful song and can listen to it over and over.

Marian (Northern half of Evelyn David):  We’re great writing partners, but unlike Rhonda, I can’t listen to music when I’m working. I find it distracting—and goodness knows, I’m easily distracted and quite prone to procrastination. When I’m not writing, it’s show tunes and classical music that I enjoy and often inspire some great plotting for future mysteries.
Bethany:  Picking out THE ONE most inspiring song is too difficult for my brain – it tries to sort through the entire library of beloved songs all at once and then comes up with the default answer, which is “Maybe I should have some toast.” But one song that I distinctly remember inspiring me is “Love Song” by Sara Bareilles:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qi7Yh16dA0w.  It’s a clever little video and when it was brand new it got a lot of airplay on VH1. Along with the video, they frequently showed interview clips and in one Sara said that the song was actually about her record company who had demanded that she add a love song to album after it was complete. Since I was I was going through a rather difficult list of demands from my editor at the time, I really appreciated her way of giving the record company what they asked for without compromising her own vision. Interestingly, I only saw that interview clip once. Did someone at the record company have it pulled because it was unflattering to them? I’m going with yes.

Additional Bethany Playlist, should anyone be interested:

1.  Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps by Doris Day
2.  Mack the Knife by Bobby Darin
3.  Paint It Black by the Rolling Stones
4.  Paperback Writer by The Beatles
5.  The Rainbow Connection by The Muppets
6.  Mexico by Cake
7.  Rock DJ by Robbie Williams
8.  Paradise by Ana Serrano van der Laan
9.  Volcano by Damian Rice
10. Sour Times by Portishead

Susan:  I always, always turn to Def Leppard when I need a pick-me-up!  One of my favorite tunes of all-time (and I can picture the video with Joe Elliott in his fuzzy bear claw slippers at the end!) is “Armageddon It.” If you have never listened to the song before, you might say, “Whoa, sounds depressing!”  Not.  Think “Are you getting it,” which is really what the song’s about.  Yeah, and “it” can be whatever you want it to be (so far as I’m concerned!).  Just a really fun, fun song that gets me going.

Laura:  “Colour My World” has always brought tears to my eyes and made me… Okay, I just wanted to see if I could make anybody squirm.  Gosh, music. There’s a ton of it, but it’s all definitely mood oriented.  Every book ends up with its own playlist, songs I pick up along the way, some old, some new.  The Avett Brothers’ “Head Full of Doubt” was my anthem going into BEAUTIFUL DISASTER’s publication. Foreigner’s classic, “Jukebox Hero/One Guitar,” is the opening act for my latest effort.  That’s a no-brainer; the main character is a rock star. If a love scene needs more sizzle, I might take a walk, listening to Nickelback’s “Figured You Out.”  It just depends.

Maria:  I don’t write listening to music because I find it too much of a distraction, but I do pretty much everything else to the beat of a tune: brainstorming, showering, walking, housework, driving, you name it. My favorite artists are Rob Thomas, Colbie Caillat, Sara Bareilles, and Adele, to name a few. Right now I can’t get enough of Adele’s latest CD, 12. I think my favorite song from that track is “Turning Tables.” It’s so hauntingly beautiful!

Rachel:  I like “Unwritten” by Natasha Bedingfield. The lyrics appeal to me both as a writer and as a human work in progress. They suggest that a blank page or a new day can become whatever we choose. Everything we try may not work, but either way we can enjoy the freedom and creativity of sculpting what comes next for us.

So we want to know what music gets you up and moving???