So I’m driving back from having lunch with the Luke yesterday at school and this song came on the radio. I was so blown away I almost wrecked my car! (I’m not even going to get into all my friends who haven’t bothered to tell me about this group. Y’all know I don’t get out much, and thought from the name that it was some rapper. ANYWAY. I won’t make a “butters” video about y’all, THIS TIME.)
This song is unbelievable. Grown folk music that isn’t 30 years old. It’s perfect for “grown-up time” and it inspired the best love scene I’ve ever written. Tonya and Nate were the perfect couple for it and I absolutely love it.
Writing love scenes can be quite difficult (at least for me). It’s crucial to get the emotional connection, otherwise it becomes pornographic and boring, after all, inserting Flap A into Slot B isn’t particularly interesting unless you’re invested in the characters. But it’s also important to make it steamy and sexy. After all, we ARE grown. Striking the balance is not exactly easy. I often write to music, though it’s not every day that I’m inspired so strongly. Most of the time I don’t include the song in the story, though it happens occasionally, such as DMB’s “Crash” in Let’s Do It Again.
Of course, my entire writing career is inspired by music. Rock Star is essentially a love letter to Layne Staley of Alice in Chains. Many of my books are inspired by songs, Try a Little Tenderness of course and Let’s Do It Again where not only the title but even the characters names (Jack and Dyanne) are from songs I love. That whole story came from me be-bopping along in my car to the Mellencamp classic and wondering what happened to them after the song ended. Santa Baby, is obviously taken almost directly from my fave Christmas song.
I’ve got a ton of story ideas, but if I ever lack inspiration all I have to do is go through my CD collection or kick up Pandora, which by the way is as addictive as crack. The music, combined with my imagination will never let me run out of concepts. And that’s a good thing.
Anyway, I’m going to polish that love scene a bit, then I will post at least part of it for y’all.
the one who writes 
I had wondered if music was the inspiration for Let’s Do It Again…great book, btw.
You should listen to Marsha Ambrosius’ album. She is one of the members in Floetry, and her album is AMAZING!
I completely agree. I send out a playlist every week because of the way music inspires my writing. Great post.