Tag Archives: Gloria Gaynor

Many of the writers I know personally are big into play lists. They have their favorite music streaming while they write; they even come up with individual play lists for each book they pen.

Not me. Not so much. I NEED peace and quiet when I write. The one noise I love to listen to while I’m at the laptop is the sound of the rain as it comes down outside my attic loft writing room. Rain in the ultimate white noise for me. If I’ve got music on in the background, I tend to sing along and never get anything written. I envy those writers who can compose written lines while listening to background noise. Their brains work so much better at compartmentalizing than mine does.

Having said all that, I love music – of any kind. Classical to rock; rap to hip-hop; Elvis to Eminem. When I’m not writing, I listen to my playlists on my i-Pad. My favorite song of all time is Secret Agent Man by Johnny Rivers. I just got distracted and listened to it 3 times while I uploaded it to this post. See? This is why I can’t listen to music while I write.

So, that’s my favorite song. But to answer the question in the title of this blog, the song that defines me is Survivor by Destiny’s Child. Although, the Gloria Gaynor I will Survive is a pretty close second. The fact I have survived many horrible things in my life and have come out in the light instead of turning to the dark side, is a testament to my faith, my determination, and  that I believe like Eleanor Roosevelt: “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” 

Now, the things I’ve survived in my life may not be as horrible or as life changing as many others have lived through. But they’ve been pretty brutal to me. I survived a fall out an apartment window when I was 18 months that all the doctors said should have killed me. It left with a face full of scars and a terrifying fear of heights. I lived through a childhood rife with functional poverty, ( for those not acquainted with this term, it simply means we lived a hair above the poverty line but could never qualify for any “assistance”),  a horrible adolescence filled with bullying, an eating disorder that still plagues me sometimes to the day, profound emotional abuse from someone I loved and trusted, family psych issues. I almost lost my daughter – twice!- and I’ve fought  melanoma. Again, others have gone through and come through much, much worse than all this. But this is what defines me.

So, Survivor is my  musical anthem…what’s yours?