Sean E. Britten

I’ve always been inspired by music (I know, super original!) and music has always been a part of my writing. The first novel I self-published was named for one of my favourite Pixies songs, so that should give you a pretty clear idea!

Way back in the days of burnt CDs, my mates and I used to put together CD mixtapes. I still have a bunch of them, twenty years later, in a couple of beaten up CD wallets! Although I don’t think I own anything capable of playing them… It was my mate Foxums who kicked it off, with ‘All Mixed Up’ and ‘And Now… A Mix’ but I did take the idea and run away with it, as is my wont, with such classics as ‘If Mix was Nine’, ‘No Mix in Mixdamentalism’, ‘I Started a Mix…’ and of course, ‘I Mixed the Sheriff… (But I Did Not Mix the Deputy)’.

Not long after the craze had passed, I graduated high school, did some travelling, and found myself writing more and more original stuff. Somewhere along the way, I came up with the idea of a series of short stories based around pieces of music. Mixtape is that idea finally taking shape, with a series of short stories slated for 2025 sharing their titles with different songs and inspired, to various degrees, by their lyrics, artists, and vibe.

Ironically, I can’t really listen to music while I write most of the time unless it is something particularly ambient. I literally had to pause what I was listening to on Spotify right now just to write this even. And I think for me that is exactly because music engages the same creative centres of the brain that writing does, so I can’t really engage with both at the same time. I can listen to it and get inspired, certainly I listen to music all day when not doing creative work, but I can’t listen and write at the same time.

One thing to look out for, I’m a massive literalist. You remember when the UK series, Life on Mars, itself based on the David Bowie song, got an American remake? And because it was for an American audience they felt like they had to massively dumb it down, and then make it so he was literally on Mars so the title of the show made sense and everyone thought that was fucking stupid? I would have 100% done that. Absolutely, it’s called Life on Mars, it’s got to have some life on Mars in it. If I write a story called Werewolves of London (purely as an example), of course there’s going to be werewolves in it and of course they’ll be in fucking London.

Also, you might ask why I would restrict myself to a theme at all? Why not just write and release whatever I want to write? It’s my website after all! That is because I’m a big believer in restrictions breeding creativity. Coming up with ideas for All There in the (Monster) Manual, a lot of it wasn’t just writing stories about monsters but figuring out how a monster could fit into a story worth writing about. So, by making it harder for myself, I generally feel more creatively inspired.

If I’m right, and I can keep it up, I’m hoping to post a new story every two weeks on Friday mornings, so please keep checking back! And I’m also planning on updating a playlist on Spotify with the songs to make an actual Mixtape out of what I’m writing. There’s already a few of the first songs on there so check it out!I’ll see you in 2025, and remember you can find updates from me on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and Instagram.