Music and Writing

Once again, this is cross-posted from the Den of Shadows message board's writing section.

During my 2006 NaNo, I listened to Evanescence, Linkin Park, and the Grosse Point Blank soundtrack. Then I made the mistake of changing my music and put on "Dead Bodies Everywhere" by Korn. This song seemed fitting at the time, since I was writing about a girl who happened to stumble across a bunch of dead bodies left over by little mutant vampires who killed them, only to turn them into vampires, and for my heroine to find them rising from the dead. But instead of inspiring me to work on that story, I came up with a completely new one about a teen named Nisus who's made fun of for her "wolf eyes", is a dreamwalker (with the ability to control the dreamscape), is probably a closet werewolf (so far, she's the only actual werewolf that exists in my world, I knows there're others, but there just there), has to deal with the authorities questioning her about the dead bodies everywhere that all seemed to be lined to her, all while trying to gain her parents' approval of who and what she has become.

When I'm working on a pirate story, I like to listen to the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack, and watch the animated Sinbad movie for background noise.

The title for Pai's story is from Metallica. Originally it was going to be Nothing Else Matters. I thought it would be really fun to write a magical girl story (think Sailor Moon or Devil Hunter Yoko) based around that song, but it never seemed to work. So the last time I worked on Pai's story, which was around December 2007/January 2008, I changed the title of the first book to No Leaf Clover for the line "Then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel is just the freight train coming your way" because I thought this summed up the Pai's situation in the first book quite well. Though I think book 4 in her series will be titled Nothing Else Matters. Also, I was originally going to have her favorite band be Metallica, but that was before I started listening to Linkin Park. Plus, all my friends (who are also "sort of" in the story) like Linkin Park, so I think it's a much better fit to be her favorite band.

As to Kitsu's story. Well, I've been working on it so long, that I listen to whatever kind of music I feel like listening to at the time. Like recently, I was in this sort of anti-Linkin Park and anti-Evanescence mood, so I listened to Alanis Morissette, Black Eyed Peas, and Blink 182.

One thing that I find interesting is that listening to Evanescence, I am almost certain to find a song that fits at least one character in each of the different series I have. For example, I think "Haunted" fits Kitsu's and Kaitou's relationship from Kaitou's perspective, whereas "Taking Over Me" fits their relationship from Kitsu's perspective. "Tourniquet" fits Ayako's relationship with the Angel of Death (from my 2006 NaNo). I think "Everybody's Fool" may actually be a good character song for Kitsu (though I think she would disagree with me). And "Whisper" is a good character song for Rose, Pai's older sister who's one of the main characters in my Hunter series.