What Megan Thee Stallion has to do with Danny Elfman
They're both on the playlist for my book that's out today!
I make a playlist for almost every book idea I have that goes beyond the “one line in a google doc” stage. When I’m starting to write down plot beats and snippets of prose it helps me capture vibes and imaginary conversations between characters, etc. Songs will also reach into my brain at random times like, “Hey, this lyric expresses exactly what [Character] would be thinking in [Scene].” It’s kind of a digital version of when I used to write NIN and Skinny Puppy lyrics on the back of my notebook in class to express how deep and tortured I was, except I’m getting deep into my characters’ minds and torturing them.
It’s tempting to look at the dynamism of my playlist as a proxy for whether my book idea has legs. If I add two songs and forget about it, I might need to focus on it more if I ever want it to become a book, or it might be one of those that’s destined to sit on the shelf forever and THAT’S OKAY because ideas are cheap as fuck. But I also have very short playlists for premises where I’ve made folders full of scene excerpts and character sketches and a full-on beat sheet.
I don’t actually listen to the playlist while outlining/drafting. It’s there to focus vibes, and drafting (at least initially) is more about plot for me. But it does help as a check: am I remaining true to the way I wanted this book to feel when I originally started thinking about it? Or am I getting bogged down in sequences of events? Because music is all about emotion, and emotion is hard to put into prose sometimes!
For WHEN I’M HER (which is out today and you can order it from the retail links here or ask for it at your local bookshop!!) I created my playlist right about when the book idea was approved by my publisher. Before that I really hadn’t done much work1 on the concept, which at that time I was calling “Persona book” after the film that was one of my major sources of inspiration.
For my debut THE OTHER ME, I made a nice neat playlist for public consumption (it has the book cover as thumbnail and everything!) I did this partly because my publisher included it in the discussion guide in the back of the novel and I didn’t want it to be the raggedy ol’ thing I had made while drafting. But for WHEN I’M HER, I’ll show you the original list in all its unhinged glory because why not.
It’s interesting (to me, anyway) to use my playlist to trace the evolution of the novel through its drafts. Like there are several tracks that are clearly from the era when my girl Mary was practicing astral projection instead of using tech like she ended up doing in the final. And I can look at one segment and be like, “Oh, here I was thinking about the relationship between [REDACTED] and [REDACTED].” But some songs don’t have a concrete connection to the narrative at all, other than a couple of lines that made me feel things about what I was writing or helped me get into characters’ heads. A few are just random (“Weird Science”? Really? I must have been in a puckish mood that day lol!) And of course we couldn’t leave out Megan Thee Stallion’s “Body” which is a banger in any playlist but especially one for a book about body swapping.
A lot of authors talk about how strange it is to release a book and have people coming to your work fresh, months after you’ve moved on from it. I added the final song to my WHEN I’M HER playlist in August 2023, but as I’ve been preparing for interviews (why yes, I do have to study my own book) it’s been cool to revisit the novel and remind myself why I love it.
Now I’ve moved on to a new WIP and a new playlist. It has 18 tracks and counting, which is encouraging! (Though not as encouraging as the fact that I’ve finished a first draft.)
Since I’d like Book 3 to be published one day and an author’s sales record is (somewhat unfortunately) important for selling the next book, I’ll put in one last plug for WHEN I’M HER. Buy it, read it, review it on Amazon or Goodreads or Storygraph! I appreciate you. 🫶
Author updates
I have an in-person launch event tonight! Super stoked about this since my launch for THE OTHER ME was virtual, and I’m looking forward to celebrating with friends, family and readers in the same room. WHEN I’M HER is marketed as both thriller and sci-fi2 but also has a few stealth romance tropes baked into it, so I’m extra excited to be in conversation with
, one of my favorite romance authors.If you’re in the area, come hang out at 6:30 pm at Third House Books in Gainesville! There will be a signing as well.
Reading/watching/listening
- - ensemble cast, dual timeline, shades of Stephen King, this is right up my alley.
There’s a new live-action adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender out! Is it good? I don’t know, because we’ve been rewatching the Nickelodeon animated series. Also, Legend of Korra has reignited my latent crush on Henry Rollins and I’m not sure how to feel about that!
Saya Gray, whose music is pastoral in a weird and unsettling way (aka exactly the kind of music you would hear just before the faeries kidnapped you).
If you enjoy my ramblings, you might like my books!
THE OTHER ME, which PopSugar called a “Black Mirror-esque rabbit hole,” is an inventive page-turner about the choices we make and the ones made for us.
WHEN I’M HER asks the question: How far would you go to get even with the woman who ruined your life? Out March 26, 2024.
Most authors don’t get the luxury of noodling on a book indefinitely before bringing it to their publisher, and then there’s always the chance that the thing you’ve been working on is not what your publisher wants. So getting approvals or even entire book deals based on a relatively brief synopsis (I think mine was four paragraphs) is not uncommon! That said, this experience taught me that I like to have the book a little more firmed up before anyone else sees it.
More on the fun and peril of writing cross-genre books in a future newsletter maybe?
yay! and happy pub day! I only ever did playlists once but i think im going to start doing them for my WIPs.
I love the idea of a playlist as a vibe check! Congrats on the release of a new book, and can't wait to see you tonight!