I read a lot of writers’ blogs and many of them create playlists for their characters and listen to them while they write. I cannot listen to music while I’m working, but music is a huge part of all my writing. Before I met my husband, I owned seventeen CDs and three of them were his (yes, I was a fan who met her rockstar and married him!). In other words, I didn’t really listen to much music and what I did listen to, I listened to over and over again. Here’s a side note: One of the artists I listened to all the time was Lyle Lovett. My husband’s record reviews often stated that he sounded like Lyle. And one of both Lyle and my husband’s greatest musical influence was Walter Hyatt. So I was listening to them both, loving all their music, and not even making the connection why. Not only had I never heard of the late great Walter, but I didn’t know that they both listened to him and (eventually) played with him every chance they got.

Anyway, back to writing and music. Once I became exposed to music daily (my husband’s vast CD and vinyl collection), his playing and singing, and the many, many amazing musician friends that came to our house to play, music began to creep into my writing. It snuck up on me at first, but now music is a huge part of every manuscript. Many of my characters are musicians and are surrounded by music. Music has become another character in my writing. I hope that someday when I have several books out, people will say, “Oh, she’s the one who always writes about music”.

The truth is that while every word of this post is true, I’m really just posting about music and writing so that I can link to all these wonderful videos of my husband’s gig last Friday night that our friend Steve Orsatti put up on Youtube. So, for your musical listening pleasure click here and have fun . He is joined by the fabulous musicians/singers Nathan Tinkham. Kathy McIntyre, and Chelsea Nye.