The musicalised novel is a recognised sub-genre in English literary studies, but the authorial processes underpinning literary musicalisation remain underexplored, and scholarly self-reflection by novelists is rarer still. This critical scarcity deprives the field of valuable insights into the practice of musico-literary relations. My practice-based thesis, comprising my novel Andalusian Sonata and its critical commentary, addresses this gap and responds innovatively to calls in the academy for deeper examination of author-centred facets of intermediality. One such facet is the silent, deferred, or withheld musical experiences that are metaphorically referenced or evoked through their absence – a recurring but underexamined aspect of music in literature. Through self-reflexive analysis of my own novel, comparative study of musicalisation techniques in the works of Vikram Seth and Kazuo Ishiguro, and engagement with key strands of contemporary theory, I explore the music evoked in absentia in literature and the unique narrative affordances it provides to the author. Absent music – which frequently interacts with other forms of literary musicalisation while operating beyond conventional diegetic boundaries – presents a definitional challenge to formalist frameworks of musico-literary relations. In response, this thesis employs an innovative methodology that combines analytical and descriptive approaches to develop a conceptual framework grounded in the unique insight afforded to the author. By foregrounding an authorial perspective in this way, my research contributes to the methodological and theoretical plurality of Word and Music Studies (WMS). It also encourages novelists to engage more actively in academic discourse while exploring and experimenting with the musical dimensions of their writing.