{WATTYS 2021/2022 SHORTLIST}{Editor's Pick} {Featured Story}
One girl. Two boys. An impossible choice.
Stella LaFever, a theatre student from California, can't wait to spend a summer in Newport, Rhode Island, with her best friend. She is in despera...
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Thanks for joining me for a very special writer reveal about 🎶 Musical Inspiration 🎶
How music inspires my books
If you ask five different writers this question, you'll likely get five different answers. Some create a writing playlist, some pick all the songs before they ever write a word, others get inspiration for scenes in a chapter from a song they hear.
For me, I use music to inspire a mood. I will gravitate to a certain album or artist (*cough* Taylor Swift *cough*) to get into the right headspace before I write.
While I was drafting this book, I spent MANY hours with my AirPods jammed in my ears, walking through my neighborhood and imagining scenes. As someone who identifies as an auditory processor (I know, it's weird because I'm a writer) music helps tap into deeper emotions.
Note: I find a lot of music inspiration while on my Peloton! I'll be riding along and hear a song and save it so I can add it to a vibes playlist.
With that being said, my characters pick up specific album vibes. For instance, Stella is very Reputation by Taylor Swift. I listened to that album like a million times while writing this book.
Spencer is Justin Bieber's Changes album all day. You can fight me on that, and I'm open to debate it. But I listened to a lot of Justin when I wrote Spencer-heavy scenes.
Spencer and Stella are specifically Delicate by Taylor Swift. That song was in my top 5 of 2021.
Then there's West. *sigh* He's a mash up of a lot of songs that I personally listened to a lot during my wayward youth. Much of it about the pain of unrequited love or lopsided love, and the longing to have the freedom to be someone you couldn't. Or live someone else's life.
West is very John Mayer's Where the Light Is and Battle Studies, mixed with Dierks Bentley's Black album, Khalid's American Teenager, and Dave Matthews Band Under the Tree and Dreaming.
You might be asking...AJ, could I get a list of all your chapter songs in one place, please?
✨Of course you can! I'm so glad you asked✨
FYI, these are in order, and the songs could spoil the mood/vibe of the story if you haven't finished reading yet. So, if you're a spoiler-phobe, come back and check it out after you finish the book.
