Writing in Orbit

I’ve always written alongside music.

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I think the two became intertwined for me at university, when writing stopped being something I did in ideal conditions and became something I fitted around real life. Deadlines, work, noise; the constant peripheral hum that comes with being a woman who works, has children, and still wants to make something of her own.

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In my twenties, I was finishing my degree in English Language and Literature with the Open University while working full time and pregnant with my son, Noah. Music became a way of narrowing my attention. Not as background noise, but as a way of zoning out everything that wasn’t the work in front of me. Film scores and classical music were especially important then, immersive and atmospheric, and demanding just enough of my brain to quiet the rest.

That habit never left.

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When I write now, I still lean heavily into music as part of the creative process, though I’ve learned to loosen my grip on it. I’ll often let Spotify’s DJ take over for stretches of the day, trusting it to move between moods and genres so my own brain can stay freer. There’s something about surrendering control like that which opens up space creatively. I can be halfway through a workday, not consciously “writing” at all, and suddenly a track will land and I’ll think: that is so Taro. And just like that, it ends up on the playlist.

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Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of times when something like Pink Pony Club will come on when it’s absolutely not required, and that can be jarring. Approach your AI DJ with caution. As with any AI support, you get out what you put in. If you want the perfectly curated DJ, you have to feed back to it. Let it learn what you like to listen to at different times of day. Skip the songs that don’t suit your current mood. Like the new songs that struck a chord with you. And always, always mark every version of Kate Nash’s Lemons as “do not play”… not that I’m bitta.

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When I am more intentional, I tend towards soundscapes rather than songs I can sing along to. Music that creates an emotional temperature rather than a narrative of its own. While writing Demeter, film scores were a constant companion. The influence of Dune will surprise no one. Alongside that were slower, more expansive pieces that mirrored the isolation and scale of the world I was building. For Covet, the sound shifted again. Something darker, more contemporary, and more intimate, with different bands and textures shaping that writing space.

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Music, for me, isn’t just accompaniment. The right track can unlock a scene, sharpen a moment, or help me sit inside a character’s emotional state for longer than silence ever could. It’s not unusual for a chapter to be shaped around the feeling of a single piece of music, or for a particular album to become shorthand in my own notes for a theme I’m working through.

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This logic goes hand in hand with books I’ve read years ago and the music I listened to while reading them. Coldplay’s Viva La Vida will forever evoke memories of a sandy beach, The Host by Stephenie Meyer, and blissful alone time in the Maldives. Deja Entendu by Brand New will always remind me of my teenage novel Looking Glass, a strange retelling of Alice in Wonderland from the point of view of a troubled teenage drug addict.

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Those who read my work closely might even spot musical fingerprints. Certain names, rhythms, or structural choices are often informed by whatever I was listening to at the time. It’s a quiet layer, not something you need to know to enjoy the story, but it’s there for those who like to look under the surface.

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As I work on the Lost Colonies series, I’ve started sharing some of these writing playlists publicly. Not as a soundtrack to the books exactly, but as a glimpse into the atmosphere in which they were written.

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The playlist for Demeter in particular became a kind of emotional anchor while I was writing. It leans heavily into music that holds tension without release. Tracks that sit in discomfort, restraint, longing, and quiet intensity. There’s warmth there, but it’s never uncomplicated. Love exists alongside surveillance. Desire alongside control. A sense of the human body pressing up against systems that are vast, impersonal, and largely indifferent to it. If the book feels intimate despite its scale, a lot of that comes directly from the music I was writing inside.

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The developing playlist for Book Two, Tartaros, feels different. It’s more volatile, more bodily, and less patient. Where Demeter holds its breath, Tartaros pushes back. The music leans harder into confrontation, power, fracture, and momentum. Tracks that don’t resolve neatly and aren’t interested in comfort. It reflects a story that’s no longer contained in the same way, where the stakes are clearer, the systems more exposed, and the emotional cost of resistance harder to ignore.

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If you’re curious about the emotional landscape behind the scenes, or if you simply like discovering music through someone else’s creative process, you can find the writing playlists over on Spotify. I’ve popped the links below and will continue to do so for those who are interested.

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They’re not definitive. They’ll keep evolving as the work does. But they’re part of the orbit these stories live in, and they’ve been there from the very beginning.