When I was in law school, I spent a lot of my time poring over dense technical readings for many hours on end. It was difficult to keep all of the competing abstract theories and reasonings straight in my head. Understanding the advanced theories on civil jurisdiction or the rule and perpetuities is enough to get anybody down.
There was a little chair in my law school, though, positioned against a wall of tall glass windows. On the other side of the windows was a sloping hill covered in greenery. In effect, it made a wall of foliage that became my happy reading place.
To accompany it all, while I read, I had a playlist of Norwegian music artists singing quietly in a language I didn’t understand. For whatever reason, this odd combination of environmental settings got me into the right mindset to understand difficult things.
While writing The Onyx Door, the last book in the Luella Winthrop Trilogy, I also relied on music to help me go deeper and understand more clearly what needed to happen. As I struggled over narrative decisions, I relied on and added to this list until now, just hearing some of these melodies takes my mind’s eye to specific spots in the Netherdowns, Dawnhurst-on-Severn, or Fernmount.
I’d like to share this playlist with you, and if you haven’t picked up a copy of The Onyx Door yet, when you get to it, feel free to let the music play while you read. I hope it helps whisk you away as much as it helped me!
