The Influence of Music on My Writing

  I was in third grade when my older brother Adam brought home the first record album he had purchased with his own money. It was Kiss Destroyer. I remember being stunned and fascinated by the four men on the cover dressed in black leather costumes with chains, platform spiked boots, and makeup masks. Scary stuff for an eight year-old whose musical experience prior to this had consisted of listening to my mother's old Beatles albums on our derelict hi-fi, but I cannot understate its influence on my life.
  I grew to appreciate the loud music coming from Adam's room. While my peers were still singing "It's a Small World," I was soaking up Deep Purple, Peter Frampton, Grand Funk Railroad, Boston, and Bachman Turner Overdrive. My brother was also an avid reader, and I don't think it was a coincidence that his favorite genre was science fiction. His music and reading seemed to go in lock-step, and my own reading preferences soon followed.
  I was eleven years-old when Star Wars came out in theaters. The movie seemed to resonate with me as much as my brother's Rush A Farewell to Kings eight-track tape. After reading every Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, and Three Investigators book in fourth and fifth grades, I was ready for something more edgy to stir my imagination. Star Wars was the first SF book I read, and I had to consult a dictionary several times to get through it. Science fiction became my genre of choice.
  In high school I discovered Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat series. AC/DC's Back in Black was my favorite album, but I also played air guitar to Scorpions, Quiet Riot, and Def Leppard. My music and reading preferences were in lock-step, and my writing followed suit. I have a filing cabinet drawer full of short stories and half-finished novellas from high school and college, and most of them are SF.
  Does what we listen to influence what we like to read, and vice-versa? Compare my love of heavy metal and science fiction to my best friend in high school who preferred pop music. The first time she played Madonna in the car, I needed a barf bag. It was no surprise to me that she liked to read chick-lit. Nicholas Sparks is still her favorite author. (I need a barf bag just thinking about it.)
  In college I dated a guy who introduced me to more metal and took me to concerts. Judas Priest was our favorite band. He preferred Tom Clancy novels to SF, but I married him anyway.
  When my youngest child was four, I threw away the Sesame Street cassette tapes (it would be another five years before we had a vehicle with a CD player) and told my captive minivan audience, "Now we're going to listen to some real music!" I think the first song I cranked up for them was Collective Soul's "Heavy." And when my oldest son was experimenting with groups like Fallout Boy and Yellow Card in middle school, I bought him the Best of Led Zeppelin. I'm proud to say that he now knows the lyrics to every song by Metallica.
  Now here's my disclaimer: I'm sure there are some country-music lovers out there who like to read horror. There are probably a few Taylor Swift fans who don't read chick-lit. There's no proven correlation between music and literary tastes, but it's definitely been true for me. Listening to metal sparked my interest in science fiction, and, like most authors, I write what I like to read.
  Music stirs my imagination. Reading makes me a better writer, but it's the music that makes me want to write. While I'm sitting in carpool, I blast Rush Clockwork Angels to help me imagine the next scene in my book. What do I listen to while I'm writing? Nothing. Silence. But I need the music to get me in the right frame of mind to write. It's funny how that works.