I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s almost impossible for me to write without music. Oh, I can do it if I put my mind to it, but I love the way music brings out my emotions and really makes me feel the words pouring out of me. Just about any music will do, but sometimes I find the perfect song, the perfect album or musician, that captures the heart of my story so well that it leaves me breathless.

I started writing my latest manuscript, THE CELL, to Eli Mattson’s Monsters CD, and as I get further into the story, I’m finding that his music only serves to draw me in deeper and forces me to explore my characters’ hearts and minds in a way that I’ve never done before.

Here’s Blue Ocean one of my favorite Eli Mattson originals. It’s become my hero’s “anthem”, his hope that he’ll find a ‘blue ocean’ to wash him clean of all the unpalatable things he’s done and drown him in forgiveness for the people he’s wronged. And maybe, just maybe, the waves will carry him to a love that will save him before it’s too late.