Before I start writing any book, I have to have a playlist ready. It’s simply impossible to start writing without it.
It evolves as the book goes on – in fact, sometimes I’ve fixed a plothole in the book by moving around a few songs, or deleting one completely. Songs represent moods and character developments, and listening to a playlist is like an audio version of reading a book – it’s the unfiltered ups and downs and swings and roundabouts. It’s the essential feeling of a book, distilled.
It’s also the easiest way to slip into writing. Playing the first song in a book’s playlist, wherever you are, is a kind of instant connection to the story. It sets you up perfectly to begin writing without having to reread anything to get yourself in the right frame of mind.
Good music also has a way of tricking you into delusional grandeur – you can make believe that you’re writing The Illiad, instead of the mediocre first draft of a YA novel. It’s exactly the kind of belief you need to force yourself to see writing it through to the end of the book.
So here’s the soundtrack of the last four years of my life.
Playlist for The Next Together (All links lead to Spotify)
I haven’t listened to this playlist since mid-2015 – by the time I’d finished work on TNT, I was so sick of these songs that I couldn’t play it again. But I listened to it while writing this blog post, and it was an instant transition back into being 21 year-old me: a nervous, adrift debut author with no idea how people would react to this hefty thing I was writing.
Track list:
- shine/anna nalick (The past, it knocks on your door and throws stones at your window at 4 in the morning)
- love story/taylor swift (We were both young when I first saw you. I close my eyes and the flashback starts: I’m standing there on a balcony in summer air.)
- tired of waiting for you/the kinks (I’m so tired of waiting for you, I was a lonely soul, I had nobody till I met you)
- dear river/kina grannis (I doubt anyone can keep up with you)
- i will wait/mumford and sons (These days of dust which we have known will blow away with this new sun)
- rattlin’ bones/kasey chambers (Till they bury me down beneath the ground, With the dust and rattlin’ bones)
- back to where i was/eric hutchinson (New life decides we never had a clue, The two of us deciding what to do, I rebound so I can say at least I tried)
- pompeii/bastille (If you close your eyes, does it almost feel like nothing changed at all? Like you’ve been here before?)
- radioactive/imagine dragons (I’m waking up, I feel it in my bones. Welcome to the new age)
- when the war came/the decemberists (A terrible autonomy has grafted onto you and me)
- young volcanoes/fall out boy (We are anti-venom, we’re the beginning of the end)
- rolling in the deep/adele (I can’t help feeling we could have had it all)
- to the dog or whoever/josh ritter (She makes the most of her time by loving me plenty, She knows there’ll come a day when we won’t be getting any. Stain of the sepia of the butcher Crimea, through the rack of a brass band I thought I could see her.)
- la meme historie/feist (While there is time we all go round and round, partners of lost and found)
- centuries/fall out boy (We’ll go down in history, remember me for centuries)
- man o’ war/eric bachmann (Many messengers and rebels have come and gone without a trace, And many more will come tomorrow and many more will be erased)
- maybe/ingrid michaelson (‘Cause maybe in the future, you’re gonna come back around. I still feel you on the right side of the bed)
- brand new day/joshua radin (This cycle never ends, You gotta fall in order to mend, And it’s a brand new day)
- first day of my life/bright eyes (This is the first day of my life, besides maybe this time is different, I mean I really think you like me)
The song that never fails to make me cry when it comes up on shuffle is Dear River. It just gets to me. It sums up the way my characters feel about each other so well that I always take it like a blow to the heart. It’s impossible to underestimate the power of good music.
This next playlist is for my novella about Kate and Matt, ANOTHER TOGETHER, which comes out in eBook on June 2nd. The story is set during World War II, so I listened to a lot of 40s-era music while I was writing to get me in the mood.
There’s also some modern songs, which I heard when I was writing, and just made me think of this story. Sometimes it’s hard to isolate just why a song makes you think of a story – but when you can work it out, it can give you a lot of insight into your characters, I find. (I feel like I’m talking nonsense now, but this is a legit thing! Promise!)
I’m less sick of this list – it was a much shorter writing process, so I didn’t listen to them an indecent number of times.
- history/one direction (You and me got a whole lot of history, We could be the greatest team that the world has ever seen,
So don’t let it go, we can make some more, we can live forever) - collapsing stars/the mountain goats (We knew if we waited long enough the change would come, and then the day did come, and at last)
- agape/bear’s den (I’m so scared of losing you
And I don’t know what I can do about it about it
So tell me how long love before you go and leave me here on my own) - i’ve heard that song before/harry james and his orchestra
- chattanooga choo choo/glenn miller
- oh Johnny/the Andrews sisters
- buttons and bows/dinah shore
- mr. sandman/the chordettes (Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream, make him the cutest that I’ve ever seen)
- posh girls/scouting for girls (Posh girls have good manners but they go like the clappers because they never got to hang around with boys at school)
- this is war/ben kweller (Hunted you all day and night now I’m ready for a fight)
- liars A to E/dexys midnight runners (You choose sweet stolen info’ you must never lose, until you’re so secure in your habitat familiar)
Playlist for The Last Beginning
Okay, this one, for my second novel THE LAST BEGINNING is very, very long. I’m going to cut it down eventually, because it’s just plain greedy at the moment – but as I’m still working on this book, I’m not ready to let go just yet. I’m not going to give you lyrics, because that might be a bit of a spoiler – you’ll have to work them out for yourself!
- girls like you/the naked and the famous
- classy girls/the lumineers
- happy together/the turtles
- love you much better/the hush sound
- a better son daughter/rilo kiley
- campus/vampire weekend
- why am i the one/fun.
- the weight of living pt. 1/bastille
- you’ve got time/regina spektor
- sail/awolnation
- wonderland/taylor swift
- she’s got you high/mumm-ra
- exile vilify/the national
- get home/bastille
- samson/regina spektor
- brave/sara bareilles
- become the colour/emily wells
- elenore/the turtles
- she’s electric/oasis
- how you get the girl/taylor swift
- high hopes/the vamps
- riptide/taylor swift
- if she wants me/belle and sebastian
- philomena/the decemberists
- i’m a believer/the monkees
- big parade/the lumineers
- laughter lines/bastille
- help/the beatles
- party in the usa/miley cyrus
- pencil full of lead/paolo nutini
- feeling good/muse
- year 3000/busted
- house of gold/carrie hope fletcher
- shut up and dance/walk the moon
“She’s electric, she’s in a family full of eccentrics, she’s done things I never expected. And I need more time.”
I have become unbelievably obsessed with this series, so fast. It just sucked me in from the beginning. It has the kind of affectionate teasing of its characters which I love, and with every episode the plot gets more and more cheesy and intense and complicated. Basically, this is the tv epitomy of the word outrageous. In the first series finale, I was in absolute buckets of tears, which I totally didn’t expect. I got so attached to everyone.
The epic conclusion to Lauren James’ debut The Next Together about love, destiny and time travel.
Book: 
Okay, so I kind of have a problem? The problem is that I really want to have a cute little flat and fill it with nice things. I’m
Comic: 
Oh, this is a terrible, horrible, mean question, so I guess I need to start with Alexander’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst. I also loved Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett, illustrated by Ross Barrett, illustrated by Ray Cruz, Eloise by Kay Thompson, illustrated by Hillary Knight, all of L.M. Montgomery’s Anne books, the Mrs. Piggle Wiggle books by Betty MacDonald, Paddington by Michael Bond, The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin. (This list is just not going to end.)
Alison Weiss joined Sky Pony Press as an editor after after six-and-half years at Egmont USA. As a kid, it was not unusual to find her huddled under the covers on a Saturday morning with a stack of books rather than downstairs watching cartoons. Reading and writing have always been passions, but sharing that passion with others wasn’t always as easy. That is until she found the children’s publishing world.
Previously: 
TV Show – 
Over the last few months, I’ve read every one of Sittenfeld’s books. A lot of them have similar themes, but I love, love, love all of them. Even this one, which is a fictional account of George Bush’s wife Laura. It’s super weird reading a book where the dorky love interest is literally George Bush, but once you get past that it’s just a bloody good read. Laura is one of the most complicated protagonists I’ve read in a long time (it reminded me a lot of the Neapolitan novels). She has to resolve having met someone who is basically her ideal man, with the fact that he is running for office….and she disagrees with all of his political views. Yeah. If you like House of Cards*, give it a go!
Wren James 