The Playlist Under the Page

Micro craft lessons, sensory-rich prompts, and gentle ways to grow your writing practice each week.

11/25/2025

Hi Writers!

Welcome to TPOW’s Weekly Edition.

Crank up the tunes, put on your dancing shoes, let’s get jiggy with it.

I have a Spotify playlist called Jazz for Writing.It’s a bit more all encompassing than that, I’ll admit. It should probably be titled Music to Listen to So I Don’t Get Distracted Because Lyrics Are Very Distracting, Let’s Be Honest. And now that has me thinking about the secret soundtrack of a book. Not the one that plays after it is published, but the one that hums underneath the writing while you are still trying to figure out who the hell your characters even are.

When I started writing Bobbie’s story, the thing that shocked me the most was how much I was learning about her as I went. Yes, we are supposed to write with intention. Yes, having a plan is helpful. But also, sometimes you just write without knowing anything at all, and the little bits of who they are start poking out. What annoys them. What delights them. What makes their toes curl or their hair stand on end.

Somewhere in the chaos of learning about Bobbie, my friend Michael Ferry made her a playlist. Or maybe I did it first and then he made his own. I genuinely cannot remember. There is a universe where I could scroll back and find out, but will I do that? Probably not. What I do know is that listening to that playlist completely blew my mind. Song by song, I would listen and instantly know, absolutely not, this is not Bobbie at all. Or I would skip to the next and think, oh my god, that is so Bobbie it hurts. It hurts. Sometimes I would listen and discover a whole weird side of her I didn’t even know existed. Like she tapped me on the shoulder and said, Surprise, bitch, look at this part of me. Bet ya didn’t know I had that tattoo, did ya?

I started to listen to the refined and constantly added to playlists that were catered to her. I started dividing them into emotions so I could tap in whenever I needed. (And it’s so hard to tap into emotions when they aren’t being actively felt, isn’t it? I’ll save that for another newsletter, though…)

Then my friend Christopher J. Newman released his novel, By Way of Paris, and casually dropped the playlist he used while writing it: By Way of Paris - Luke’s Playlist. A whole curated mood board of sound. Inspiration for him, yes, but also an invitation for the reader to step into the world of the book through their ears. I loved it. I got embarrassingly excited about it. I might have squealed.

The description of CJN’s playlist

Then I wandered onto jamie hood’s (Trauma Plot) substack, and discovered not only was she a bartender (again, we can dig into how this made me feel in another newsletter) but that she also attributed music to her writing. And guess what? SHE MADE A PLAYLIST FOR TRAUMA PLOT. Better yet, this is an example of a memoir with a playlist. Which gets even more personal, doesn’t it?

All of these discoveries made me realize a few things.

1. I wasn’t alone in doing this. So, therefore, I was slightly less crazy. [Grayson (age: 10): Slightly? Me (age: 32): I said slightly, okay…?]

2. Music helps us piece together who our characters are. It catches the tones and emotional fingerprints we sometimes miss while staring at a blank page. Songs help us recognize the paths they might take and the ones they will absolutely refuse.

3. Mixed media. Mixed. Media. MIXED MEDIA. Friends. How cool is this. A playlist to read with. A whole extra sensory layer. You get to listen to the world your characters live in. And if you know me at all, you know I am greedy about senses. I want everything. I want sound and texture and scent. If it were up to me, we would all have scratch and sniffs in our novels. I want a tiny snack tucked into the end of each chapter. Though, yes, good writing does all of this for us without having to have any of these tangible things.

The music of a book while it is being written feels like some secret shared heartbeat. And I think we should talk about that more. So, here we are. Talking about it.

Writers Who Are Doing This

It turns out a lot of writers have playlists for their books.

There are even lists out there! I found two that I especially enjoyed reading through:

1. Book Riot: Their Favourite Songs: Books With Music Playlists

   “From songs that inspired the author’s writing process to ones woven into the plot, these books with music playlists are a layered treat.”

2. Largehearted Boy “A literature and music website dedicated to the beautiful overlap in the middle of that Venn diagram.”

   In the site’s “Book Notes” interviews, the authors curate playlists that go with their books. Yes, this is post-op, but it is still pretty interesting. It gives us, the readers, another layer of stimuli to accompany our books if we want it.

I skimmed through to see if there were any I knew.

Stephen and Owen King created an imaginary vinyl soundtrack for Sleeping Beauties:
“Because vinyl is back, never left, baby. We decided to construct our imaginary Sleeping Beauties soundtrack as a 12 song LP.”

And Joshua Mohr, who I became an instant fan of when he stepped into the Harraseeket Inn in Freeport, Maine during Nina and my MFA residency, whipped one up for Sirens:

“Music is always a huge part of my writing process, as is coffee—so much coffee!—but with my new memoir, music played a more intimate role: It supplied the book’s biorhythm.

In my novels, I use music to channel certain characters, maybe listening to PJ Harvey exclusively, while I’m writing a ferocious/cerebral woman, etc, but with the memoir, I tried to use music as a literal soundtrack.

What the hell does that mean? A literal soundtrack? That’s a good question. I’m glad you’re paying attention.

A literal soundtrack means that not only was music playing while I wrote the source material, but I revised this memoir compulsively out loud, reading it like 100 times to myself to dial in the book’s time signature, its unique sound, and while I read aloud I always had music playing. So when I’m reading a chapter maniacally, pacing and ranting, scaring my neighbors, super disgusting and lovely punk rock blared to help me lock in and keep the proper sonic assignments for certain scenes.”

Largehearted Boy’s list is so long and it is so fun to read through. Like Mohr touched on, some books are heavily music influenced. Some are even about musicians. But then there are those that have nothing to do with music at all, which proves my point. Music influences us anyway. Sound changes our brain chemistry. It shapes our emotional landscape. It wakes things up. It stirs things around. It gives us access to parts of ourselves we might not find otherwise.

So of course it shapes our characters. Of course it shapes our drafts. Of course it shapes our books.

It shapes US. And we are our writing.

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Craft Prompt: Four Songs, One Room, One Line

Choose any character (any POV) from your current project.

I’ll choose the room and the first line.

The room:

• a kitchen at 11:47 p.m.

• Only the refrigerator light is on.

• There is something on the counter — you decide what.

Your opening line:

• “They (she/he/I/you — choose your POV) stopped in the doorway.”

Now write four versions in this scene, one for each of the songs below.
When a track begins, start writing. When it ends, stop.

Let the music shift the atmosphere, the pacing, and the way your character responds to the room.

The four songs:

1. Born in Dissonance — Meshuggah

2. Prelude No. 1 in C Major (BWV 846) — J.S. Bach

3. No One Noticed — The Marías

4. Put Your Records On — Corinne Bailey Rae

Here, I made it a playlist for you:

Four different emotional realities shaped entirely by sound.

Bonus: try this with your own playlists.

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Stories We’re Following: Creative Writing News

Prize & Publication
Black Fox Prize – Theme: “Liar, Liar” (Fall 2025) Submit Here

“We all bend the truth. Sometimes, it’s a white lie to protect someone we care about, or sometimes it’s a series of lies that become tangled to a point that threatens to collapse everything. For our final contest of 2025, we’re asking writers to dissect deception in all forms: quiet lies, shams, secrets kept, masks worn, counterfeit stories, and half-truths. We want them all. Whether it’s a person wrapped up in their own ruse, a community built on falsehoods, or a quiet moment where honesty is sacrificed for survival, write about how lies shape, devastate, or in some cases, save. Your work should uncover what hides in the shadows and show us why the truth might not always be so simple.”

• What they’re seeking: Fiction, nonfiction or poetry.

• Prize: US $325 and print publication in the Winter 2026 issue.

• Entry fee: US $12

• Deadline: Midnight (EST) on November 30, 2025.

Literary Goss

Who’s moving to Ireland with me? Because apparently the Irish government has decided that artists are worth investing in. After running a pilot program from 2022 to 2025, they’re now offering artists roughly $1,500 a month in support. Directly from the government. Not through fundraising, not through private donors, not through a scramble of grants and residencies and GoFundMe prayers. Government-funded. I’m still wrapping my head around it.

There is a catch, of course: You have to apply (okay, duh), and there are only 2,000 (woof) spots. Which immediately makes me wonder if I’d even be worthy of one of those slots. Maybe you’re wondering that too. I think every artist is.

But I’m really just thrilled to see a country putting real value behind the idea that art matters. That creativity isn’t frivolous. That artists contribute to the culture, the economy, the collective memory. That it’s worth supporting the people who make stories, images, sounds, and experiences that shape how a society understands itself.

I hope more countries catch on. I hope we start to make this kind of support the norm instead of the exception. Because the world is better when we can express ourselves freely.

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Upcoming at TPOW: Learning & Community

• Thursday Flash Club — Weekly on Zoom
  - Prompts, mini craft lessons, and community.
  - Keeps us writing, talking, and trying new things.

• When Place Has Agency: Setting & Space in Fiction — Begins April 1
  - Four week class on writing setting as an active force in fiction.
  - Learn to use atmosphere, texture, and spatial tension to shape story.

• Shifting Perspectives: Mastering Point of View in Fiction — Begins April 2
  - Four week class exploring First, Second, Close Third, and Omniscient.
  - Perfect for experimenting with new narrative possibilities.

• Writing With Your Whole Nervous System — Begins May 6
  - Four week class on embodiment, sensory detail, and emotional truth.
  - Learn to write scenes that feel inhabited, grounded, and alive.

• Writing the Wild: Lyric Non-Fiction — Begins May 7
  - Write from the elements: wind, water, wilderness.
  - A generative class on lyric movement and the untamable.

Stonecoast Enrichment Series

• The Habits of Writers — December 9 (Nina’s birthday!) 7 pm EST
  A conversation with Elisabeth Tova Bailey on the real lives of writers: rituals, resistance, joy, and the habits that help us face the page.

• World Building — February 10 - 7 pm EST
  Explore bottom-up, top-down, and goal-oriented worldbuilding with Lucas Carroll-Garrett, and learn how each approach shapes depth, tone, and narrative focus.

• Your Body, Your Story — March 10 - 7 pm EST
  Nina B. Lichtenstein dives into the body as memory archive through sensory prompts. Learn how physical experience transforms forgotten moments into vivid scenes.

• Writing Words into Life! Elements & Techniques of Basic Scriptwriting — April 14 - 7 pm EST
  Develop dialogue, explore the playfulness of scripts, and rediscover fun in storytelling with Adam Rodriquez-Dunn.

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Closing Reflection

In the summer of 2024, I drove from California to Maine and came completely undone somewhere in the unincorporated nothing of Michigan. No town. No signal. Just trees and panic.

The whole trip, JB was sending me playlists while I drove because he knew it was pretty much the only thing keeping me moving forward.

In Maine, my parents (who had flown out to see my graduate) and I all loaded into the car the morning of my graduating presentation. I was shaking so hard I thought I might throw up. Dad was rubbing my back. Mom was in the back seat telling me it would all be fine. But I could barely talk. I was having trouble even focusing on the road. All I could think was that I needed to find this one song, because I knew it would calm me down.

The Brain Dance by Animals As Leaders.

The second the song started, my body dropped back into itself. My breath came back. My mind stopped spinning. We were on the right frequency.

I haven’t done enough research on neurodivergency to explain why that song works the way it does, but I know what it did for me. I know what art can do when nothing else can.

So let this be the reminder: do not underestimate what other forms of art can do for your writing, your process, or your entire state of being.

Until Next Time

Leah (& Nina)