How influential is music?

I follow a lot of author's blogs and this seems to be a pretty common topic. How influential is music to your writing?

For me, I can't write unless I'm listening to music. I sit down, put my headphones in, and start writing, I'm in my own little world; in a specific place with my characters. I block out all background noise. It's just me and my characters. I'm the invisible third person in the scene with them. Like scenes in movies, there is background music playing creating a specific mood.

I recently just finished the fourth and final book in the Prophesized Series and for anyone that has read BlackMoon Beginnings, you know that there are a couple of action sequences. For those sequences I had to get some stronger music that what I would usually listen to.

You see, I'm a huge Josh Groban fan. Seriously. I'm borderline obsessed, but his music doesn't cut it for action scenes. I cannot write a fighting scene with "You Raise me Up" blaring in the background. It just doesn't work that way. During those scenes, I pulled up Pandora and listened to the Hedley station. It gave me good mix of Imagine Dragons, AWOLNATION, Thirty Seconds to Mars, Matchbox Twenty, etc. That is much more suitable for the scenes I was working on.

Right now, I'm writing two books, reediting BlackMoon Beginnings, and beginning my edits for its sequel. I was on Youtube today randomly clicking through song videos and I came across this video. I watch the TV show Smash. I love the whole musical thing and I heard this song it on Tuesday night, but thought nothing of it.

However, when I clicked this video today another scene flashed before my eyes. I got an idea for another book. Another book! I'm in college, I don't have time to write three books at once. In fact, I don't have a whole lot of time to write at all.

But when this book idea came to me, I couldn't stop thinking about it. Seriously, it moved into my mind and proclaimed itself the sole inhabitant there. I'm already thinking of characters, their situations, plot developments. I'm thinking of everything. I can't stop. I literally started to get shaky because I knew that I couldn't start writing it. If I started, I wouldn't be able to stop. I can't wait for summer to get here. I need to finish all these books that I've started.

This is the song that I was listening to when this new idea came. 

If I ever actually write this story, it'll be a mature YA. If I was comfortable writing NA, it would fall under that category, but I'm not. However, it's going to be more emotional than my other books. It'll have more angst, sadness, tension, confusion. Basically everything you hate to read, but love when you're done and have let everything soak in. I'm already getting antsy just thinking about it. It'll be a story of second chances and redemption with a possible happy ending. I'm not sure yet. Ahhh....I need to write it.

Music inspires me. It has been said that when life hands you lemons, you make lemonade. Bland, tart lemonade. Music provides the sugar I need to sweeten the lemonade. Music gives me the inspiration I need to write. It allows me to put all these thoughts down on paper and create these stories. It moves through me and pushes me in certain directions. BlackMoon Beginnings, along my other books, would probably not have been written if I didn't have music to help me.

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