Music is key to setting the tone for my writing. The music I listen to when writing a book puts me in a certain mood and then the words go down on the page in a certain key. I try to find the songs that I would use for the movie if I made it.
For my novel Two Wolves, I listened to a lot of Gotye, Band of Horses, Foals and Keane. (You can read more about that book soundtrack and listen to it here). Something felt authentic and true about those artists. They were 100% themselves and that inspired me to want to be more honest on the page.
For the companion novel, Raised By Wolves, there were a few different threads of music I listened to. Royel Otis’s ‘Oysters in My Pocket’ and ‘Kool Aid’ dropped me into the writing day with lots of energy and represented the kind of indie, guitar-driven stuff I imagine the main character, Olive, liking.
Then there was mood music from the John Wick soundtrack that set a sinister tone for the chase in the book. ‘Cry Little Sister’ from the Lost Boys soundtrack also feels a bit ominous and Kate Bush’s ‘Running Up That Hill’ had a sense of a strong female character and real tension, yearning and reaching for something.
You can listen to the Raised By Wolves book soundtrack above or on Spotify and see if you can hear how these songs influenced the story. You can buy a copy of Raised By Wolves as paper book, ebook and audiobook via online booksellers here. Find links to soundtracks for my other books below.
