Soundtrack Friday

I bring my iPod to work and listen to various random songs during my work day. I do this in part because it amuses me and because I have so many songs between my music and Husband's music if I didn't have the music on a random rotation there would be entire albums I would never listen to.

This week Evanescence has come up on the random rotation so often I almost thought my iPod was malfunctioning.  The group makes up such a small portion of my music library that the songs don't come up on rotation often. Taking this as some sort of sign, I started listening to the emotion in the music and the imagery in the lyrics. As I would listen I could tangibly see or feel things from my current story. This doesn't happen often. I'm not that writer who gets sucked into the world of the story so deeply it's like I've become a part of that world, so when it does happen I try to take notice.

I started playing just Evanescence whenever I opened up my manuscript and sure enough a song would play that fit the scene I was working on in some way. I guess in addition to some of the other songs that have made their way to my WIP soundtrack I'll be adding quite a few Evanescence titles. I just hope I don't hate the music by the time I'm finished.

Here is one song that haunts my writing at the moment. I have three characters who don't feel they are good enough for something. All three have different reasons for why they feel the way they do, and while many people in life feel this way, all three think they are alone and unique in feeling, well, not good enough. Self-absorbed much? Yes, they are, but they are also on journeys that will hopefully lead most of them to some lightening bolt realizations about who they really are.

Good Enough by Evanescence plays beautifully some of the emotion and beliefs my characters cling to as they navigate their world. It's haunting and hopeful and terribly sad at the same time. I play it and I can tap into something in the story I couldn't before.