Music to Write Books By – Christina Philippou

I’ve had a manic week attending various events to promote A Deadly Thaw. It’s been great meeting readers out and about but it does mean that I haven’t managed to write a post with my latest reviews. That will be coming Monday but, in the meantime, as it’s Friday I’ve another interesting post on music that authors write to.

Today on Crimepieces, I have Christina Philippou whose first novel,  Lost in Static, has just been published. Christina’s writing career has been a varied one, from populating the short-story notebook that lived under her desk at school to penning reports on corruption and terrorist finance. When not reading or writing, she can be found engaging in sport or undertaking some form of nature appreciation. Christina has three passports to go with her three children, but is not a spy. Christina is also the founder of the contemporary fiction author initiative, Britfic.

Hi Christina – thanks for joining in with this. Do you have particular pieces of music you write to?

Depends on what I’m writing. If I’m writing something sad, I normally have No Doubt’s Tragic Kingdom playing in the background.

If I’m writing something lively, I hit 90s pop (a little bit of Bobby Brown’s Two Can Play That Game or some classic Madonna, for example).

And if I’m writing action, I listen to Greenday’s Dookie and or Offspring’s Smash. So, in answer to your question, sort of?

Has a particular piece of music ever inspired you to write something?

Matchbox Twenty’s 3am inspired a rather sad short story which will never see the light of day, while The All-American Rejects’ Dirty Little Secret inspired a scene in my novel, Lost in Static.

Could you recommend any particular pieces of music for a specific mood? – I love Holst’s ‘Mars the Bringer of War’ for example to get me in the mood to write angry passages.

Haha you’re far more cultured than I am! If I want angry, I put on music that reminds me of people and places that I’d rather not remember – seems to do the trick!

Are there any longer pieces you can recommend? If you need to write for an hour, for example, is there a particular composer/artist you’d chose?

The beauty of Spotify is that you can pick an artist to suit the mood and you can get similar music to listen to. But I normally find myself rehashing old playlists. I find listening to new music distracting when writing. I need it in the background, like the test cricket.

What are you working on at the moment?

Editing book 2 (which is as yet untitled) – which, unfortunately, requires silence, so not so exciting on the music front. Although I did have fun searching through old European hits for the earlier half of the story.

Thanks, Christina for taking part. You can connect with Christina on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Google+. Don’t forget the complete playlist for this series of posts can be found here.