TODAY IS THE DAY!
Today is my stop on the Wilder Girls blog tour! And I’m very lucky to be hosting a guest post by none other than the author, Rory Power!
It’s been eighteen months since the Raxter School for Girls was put under quarantine.
Since the Tox hit and pulled Hetty’s life out from under her.
It started slow. First the teachers died one by one. Then it began to infect the students, turning their bodies strange and foreign. Now, cut off from the rest of the world and left to fend for themselves on their island home, the girls don’t dare wander outside the school’s fence, where the Tox has made the woods wild and dangerous. They wait for the cure they were promised as the Tox seeps into everything.
But when Byatt goes missing, Hetty will do anything to find her, even if it means breaking quarantine and braving the horrors that lie beyond the fence. And when she does, Hetty learns that there’s more to their story, to their life at Raxter, than she could have ever thought true.
Wilder Girls has been dubbed The Power meets We Were Liars and having seen all of the hype surrounding this book I am very excited to be able to finally read it!
In today’s post Rory talks about the tracks in her WG playlist and what they meant to her:
Something I always love asking other writers is whether or not they listen to music while they write. Some people prefer complete silence, or background noise, but I’ve found that what works best for me is to make a playlist for each new writing project I start. It helps me stay in a consistent headspace as I’m working, and lets me pretend I’m working when really I’m trawling Spotify for new music.
To celebrate the UK release of Wilder Girls, I thought I’d tell you a little bit about a few of the standout tracks off my WG playlist, and what they meant to me during the writing process.
One Bad Night
Hayley Kiyoko
I listened to this song on repeat for the last third of the first draft of Wilder Girls. It has a good momentum to it that kept me pushing forward, and to this day I have no real idea what the lyrics are – it was the sound more than anything that helped me focus and get the draft over the finish line.
Beggin for Thread
Banks
My obsession with this song predates my idea for Wilder Girls, but when I made my playlist, the song slotted right in. It describes the kind of complicated and slightly unraveled girl that I love to write about.
Winterbreak
MUNA
“One Bad Night” was my repeat song for drafting, but this was my repeat song for revising. A lot of my work in revisions was focused on the relationship between Hetty, the main character, and her love interest, Reese. This song fully captures the dynamic I wanted to create between the two girls – the sense that they care about each other deeply, and that even though they want so much to make it work, their relationship might not be for the best.
Elastic Heart
cover by Gracie and Rachel
I think you could probably find “Elastic Heart” on every playlist made for a YA book within the last five years, and it’s for good reason – the lyrics are talk about resilience and vulnerability, which are a great fit for a lot of young adult themes. But this cover has a sound that adds a fresh twist to the original. It’s a little quieter, a little more spare, and I think that fits with Wilder Girls so well.
Liability (Reprise)
Lorde
For my last ever set of revisions on this book, I had this song on repeat for about three days. I’m not sure what it is exactly that made it the right song, except perhaps that it sounds a little melancholy, which is how I was feeling at the thought of leaving this particular world behind.
Shots (The Young Professionals Remix)
Imagine Dragons
I truly cannot explain what it is about this song that makes my brain click into work mode, but we just have to be thankful it’s not “Shots” by LMFAO and count our blessings.
If you want to hear other songs I listened to while writing Wilder Girls, and also “Toxic” by Britney Spears, the full playlist is on Spotify – you can find it here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/29VQTFJgym75gIlQAT8psC?si=dWJK3MAxR_-zuyBfuD0DSw
This post been brought to you with massive thanks to Laura at MyKindaBook!