Every writer has their little things that they do to jar loose their creativity, things that help them get into particular characters or remind them of particular characters. In this, I’m absolutely no exception. Music is something that I use when I’m writing to sink me into the right mindset to get rolling.

Now, I don’t have set playlists for specific projects (if I did, I’d have a ridiculous number of playlists), but I do have absolutely massive playlists for the specific universes I work in. I started doing this back before iTunes got rolling, in the days of Napster and AudioGalaxy and other free music sharing resources that may or may not exist anymore (yes, I’m old enough to remember the days when the dorm networks at GVSU were legally full of scads of free music for download–we used to share entire folders of music on the campus networks for our fellow students to snag). Writing to music has become part of my process and over the years certain songs have begun to relate to specific characters–sometimes overall, sometimes for isolated period of their lives and stories. I’ll often say to my friends (those who are familiar with my work and the characters in it) “You know, this is a Tim song” or “This song totally reminds me of The Measure of Dreams” and “I could see Bryn singing this song at the top of her lungs in the shower.”

Don’t laugh. It’s happened.

On that note, at various points in time I’ve put together much smaller, tighter collections of music at the behest of one of my first readers (Jen Willard reads pretty much everything UNSETIC and Lost Angels as I’m working on it–and considering that Reece Bailey and Kate Berkshire wouldn’t exist without her, I’m totally okay with this) to listen to while she’s reading.

What you see below are two of those playlists. Some of these songs correspond to a particular character or pairing. Others just seem to especially fit the universe of the UNSETIC Files and the Lost Angel Chronicles. There’s one or two that correspond to characters and projects that as of this writing will be unfamiliar to anyone stumbling over this post but may make a lot more sense in the future.

Volume I

Name	Artist	Additional Notes
Carry You Home	James Blunt
Breaking Inside	Shinedown
Airplanes (feat. Hayley Williams)	B.o.B
Building a Mystery	Sarah McLachlan	Hadrian’s theme
Crack the Shutters	Snow Patrol	Tim and Kate’s theme
Second Chance	Shinedown
Firework	Katy Perry	Kate’s theme
Live Like We’re Dying	Kris Allen
Hanging By A Moment	Life House
Hallelujah (Vancouver Winter 2010 Version)	k.d. lang
Welcome to the Black Parade (Radio Edit)	My Chemical Romance
The End of the Innocence	Don Henley
Awake (Live)	Josh Groban
If Today Was Your Last Day	Nickelback
Landing In London	3 Doors Down	Jim and Bryn’s theme
Shattered (Turn the Car Around)	O.A.R.
Time After Time	Quietdrive

Volume II

Name	Artist	Additional Notes
Broken (New Version)	Lifehouse	Tim’s theme
Iridescent	LINKIN PARK	AJ’s theme
So Close	Jon McLaughlin	Michael and Jade’s theme
Toy Soldiers	Martika
Shooting Star	Owl City
All Through the Night	Cyndi Lauper
Mercy	OneRepublic	Tim and Brigid’s theme
Glitter In the Air	P!nk	Brigid’s theme
All We Are	OneRepublic
Clocks	Coldplay
For You	Calling	Scott and Sierra’s theme
From Where You Are	Lifehouse
Not Meant to Be	Theory of a Deadman
Nothing Left to Lose	Needtobreathe
Seasons of Love	Rent
Secrets	OneRepublic	Michael’s theme
Shadow of the Day	LINKIN PARK
Taste	Lorna Vallings

If you’ve read any of the UNSETIC Files or Lost Angels books, I’d be interested to hear your feedback on these choices–are there songs on this list that you don’t think fit?  Are there songs that are missing?

---

The first three books of the UNSETIC Files (Bering Songs and Silence, Between Fang and Claw, and The Measure of Dreams) and the first book of the Lost Angel Chronicles (What Angels Fear)are available where ebooks are sold.

Hit my main page to join my mailing list to stay abreast of what I’m working on and get free books and other neat goodies.