I can’t write with music on in the background. If I try, I end up adding the lyrics into my manuscript, which isn’t very helpful, or singing along and not concentrating at all. But sometimes, while I’m writing a book and I’m out picking up kids or shopping, something will come on the ipod that I recognize as having some interesting connection with either a character from the book or a general sense of the ‘theme’ of the book. Sometimes its the actual lyrics and other times its just the way the music makes me feel-if that makes any sense at all 🙂

For example, I’m a big Madonna fan and a couple of her songs have actually influenced or summed up some of my books.

Here are the lyrics to a song from the album “Ray of Light” called “To Have and Not to Hold”

To have and not to hold
So hot, yet so cold
My heart is in your hand
And yet you never stand
Close enough for me to have my way

To love but not to keep
To laugh, not to weep
Your eyes, they go right through
And yet you never do
Anything to make me want to stay

Chorus:

Like a moth to a flame
Only I am to blame
Ba ba da ba ba ba
What can I do?
Ba ba da ba ba ba
I go straight to you
Ba ba da ba ba ba
I’ve been told
You’re to have, not to hold

To look but not to see
To kiss but never be
The object of your desire
I’m walking on a wire
And there’s no one at all
To break my fall

(chorus)

You’re to have, not to hold
You’re to have, not to hold

(chorus)

You’re to have, not to hold
You’re to have, not to hold
You’re to have, not to hold
To break my heart.

When I first heard this I immediately thought of Peter Howard from Simply Sexual because the words just epitomized how he feels about Valentin. But then, as I continued to write the series and was knee deep in Simply Sinful, I realized that the lyrics actually applied not only to Peter, but to how Valentin feels about Peter and how Sara feels about Valentin. An all-purpose song about the agonies of loving someone who doesn’t seem to want you in the same way.

Recently, I’ve been writing Simply Wicked, which comes out next month, and the book which is most closely related to it, Simply Insatiable, which comes out in May 2010. My musical inspiration this time comes from an unlikely source, The Red Hot Chili Peppers and isn’t as much directed as the lyrics, but more to the desperation inherent in the song and the situation that I felt mirrored the conflict between Anthony and himself and his conflict with Lord Minshom.

Otherside

[Chorus:]
How long how long will I slide
Separate my side I don’t
I don’t believe it’s bad
Slit my throat
It’s all I ever

I heard your voice through a photograph
I thought it up it brought up the past
Once you know you can never go back
I’ve got to take it on the otherside

Centuries are what it meant to me
A cemetery where I marry the sea
Stranger things could never change my mind
I’ve got to take it on the otherside
Take it on the otherside
Take it on
Take it on

[Chorus]

Pour my life into a paper cup
The ashtray’s full and I’m spillin’ my guts
She wants to know am I still a slut
I’ve got to take it on the otherside

Scarlet starlet and she’s in my bed
A candidate for my soul mate bled
Push the trigger and pull the thread
I’ve got to take it on the otherside
Take it on the otherside
Take it on
Take it on
[Chorus]

Turn me on take me for a hard ride
Burn me out leave me on the otherside
I yell and tell it that
It’s not my friend
I tear it down I tear it down
And then it’s born again

[Chorus]

How long I don’t believe it’s bad
Slit my throat
It’s all I ever

You’ll have to let me know if you agree with me on this one when you’ve read both the books-or at least when you read Anthony’s 🙂

So, tell me, am I the only person who relates songs to books and themes and characters?