Writing Meme - Day Seven

I usually listen to music when I do things on my computer, so it stands to reason that I would listen to music while writing. Just what I listen to is pretty eclectic, though, since I only tend to keep the songs I like best from albums and stick them in one big, shuffled, library. And ever since I discovered Pandora, I've listened to that just as much (and lately, much more) than my own stuff. In the past I've only had a Showtunes station, but lately I've added a few other stations, such as a dance-mixy station (not my intent, but that's how it turned out, and sometimes I'm in the mood for that) and a Burt Bacharach station.

Whenever I'm working on a new story, brainstorming the plot and the characters, I go through my favorite CDs, looking for songs that sound like they'd fit the characters, and often the plot will permute based on how much I want the songs to go along with it. For example, in my NaNoWriMo from last year, the main character was originally going to gain a boyfriend over the course of the story, but he thought she was an alien, so They Might Be Giant's "She's an Angel" was like his theme song. Sadly, he didn't make it into the story, mostly because in writing it, I ended up liking the main character's roommate more (and she already had a boyfriend), so she got more screentime, as it were. But yeah, I don't really remember which songs ended up influencing which characters after a while, but that's just how I tend to do things.