This post was originally published on Kallypso Master's Release Party on Septermber 14, 2012. For the original comments, please refer to the post on Kallypso's blog.

While running through Kally's Facebook page, we noticed readers and fans posting music—a song, an album—that reminded them of a person or an event that took place in her stories. We, too, experience similar discussions and posts with our readers and seeing that interaction brought to light an important part of the creative process.

To us, music is not just entertainment. Music carries a strong influence on our writing. Sometimes, listening to a song can bring to surface entire sequences of events to mind. For example, a song flowed out of the speakers one morning while Cecilia was driving to work and caught her attention. The words, the emotions it evoked flashed an entire scene into her mind. As soon as she could get to her computer, she laid down the draft and later that day we discussed it, improved on the original idea born from that song. That scene became a critical fight scene in Countermeasure.

We have playlists for every story as well as each character we create. We use that as a tool to get us "in the mood" and under the character's skin. Each type of scene requires a different mood and corresponding soundtrack. Each playlist has the exact emotional match for our plot lines so that it emphasizes characteristics and thoughts of a character or pace of the scene itself. If we are struggling with getting a scene just right, listening to a song gives us a flash of inspiration, a direction.

Cecilia and I are both audiophiles and collect music of all genres. Aside from using music as productivity tool, we also use the playlists to differentiate the medium in which we write. Being role players means we switch characters from time to time. We might be writing storylines for a paranormal character one day and for our contemporary techno thriller the next. In order not to confuse them, we have specific playlists for each set of characters which helps us stay in character and not mix them up.

As you can see, as with readers, music plays a very important part in our writing, one we have embraced and made work in our advantage. The result is clearly experienced through the many scenes inspired by those songs and we hope to continue the trend on our future releases in 2012 and 2013.

Sláinte!

Chris & Cecilia