Do you hear what I hear?

I came to the conclusion in December that only Christmas music by Harry Connick, Jr., Elvis and the TransSiberian Orchestra should be allowed to play in public places. (Oh, yeah, and Cheech and Chong's song about "Santa Claus, the fellow with the hair on his jaws," or however it goes.) Some of the versions I heard of Christmas songs last month were horrendous.

Unlike every other author I know, I'm not a movie fan. Don't care much for old movies or new ones or anything in between. Oh, I have my favorites, but for the most part, I can live without movies. But music . . . I'd rather listen to music than just about anything. Rock, blues, jazz, zydeco, folk, country, classical, gospel . . . I love it all. Except rap, but then, I'm not convinced that's music, so it doesn't count.

Some writers burn a "soundtrack" CD for their books. I don't do that -- I can't listen to music while I'm writing anyway -- but there are songs that just "belong" to a book. On The Assassin, I was writing along, coming up on something like page 50 and Tony and Selena hadn't yet met. (So much for all those rule-makers who say the hero and heroine have to meet within the first 10 or 20 pages.) I just couldn't figure out how their first meeting was going to take place, so I was doing what I do to totally relax -- working on a jigsaw puzzle and listening to a compilation of old blues greats. Near the end of the CD was Etta James, singing I'd Rather Go Blind -- I think that's the name; I'm not great with titles. The line goes, "I'd rather go blind than to see you walk away from me." I love the song, and I had it on Repeat so it played over and over, and suddenly there was Tony's voice -- which sounded remarkably like my husband's -- saying, "I'd rather go deaf than hear that song again."

There it was. That was how the meeting went.

I find tremendous inspiration in the blues. Seeing B.B. King in concert was one of the highlights of recent years for me -- he is the king. I love Bobby Bland, Etta, John Lee Hooker, Sippie Wallace, Gary Moore and dozens more.

But there's also a Meat Loaf song that belongs to one character, and an Eric Clapton song that belongs to another, Sarah McLachlan for yet another and Pat Benatar's Evening is the perfect song for a book I haven't yet written.

Hmm . . . better get some writing done cause now I've got a real need to pull out some CDs and get inspired! Rachel9:36 AM