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Phew.

Good to find out I’m not alone in needing a soundtrack to my life. Thought I was crazy for a bit!

For my stuff, it really varies. I’m pretty good at writing even while listening to music with lyrics, and lyrical music often helps me nail the tone of a given story or a character. I’m pretty sure I’m still weird though, because I prefer to listen to single songs on repeat rather than whole playlists when writing – hence how some of my songs have thousands of plays. I don’t really pick and choose specific artists – I find the weirdest stuff on the internet.

For my villain-protagonist MC, Lady Kyreleis von Gottschalk, I’ve long since used Leslie Fish’s musical rendering of Kipling’s poem “Cold Iron,” to describe her entire character arc; to get into her scheming, melancholic head, I listen to Woodkid’s ‘Iron”, Johnny Cash’s “Hurt”, German medieval folk songs, “Wir sind des Geyers Schwarzer Haufen” and “Die Eisenfaust.”

For the younger characters, I’ve made use of Imagine Dragons, Christopher Tin, other soundtracks; for one character who tends to be a zealot in everything, I’ve used the Powerwolf song “In the Name of God” – wouldn’t recommend much else by them, they can get uncomfortably sacrilegious.

Agreed with @r-m-archer on not listening to some of this stuff outside of writing.