Writing to music
Hey, Happy Friday! One question I've been asked a couple of times is whether or not I listen to music while I write. Yes, is the answer, but my method is a bit weird. On the odd chance that the story is going well and I'm in the zone, I can have anything playing - my entire Itunes catalogue, one song after the next. But that only happens about one day in every ten.
For the other nine days, when my story isn't going well, and I'm having trouble getting into it, I use music as a shortcut. Everything that I ever write has its own song. That long short story I was talking about a couple of posts ago? Its song was 'Stuck in my Id' by Reptar. I don't know why it was that song, but it just was - it seemed to be a good fit for some reason. (The story is called Molasses, by the way.)
Whenever I sat down to work on Molasses, the first thing I'd do was play 'Stuck in my Id' four or five times, and then maybe I'd move on to something else. For whatever reason, doing this helps me get my head in the story quicker. Most of the time, I'm not even aware of the song. Which is good, because as you can imagine that song got a real thrashing.
The other thing is, if I haven't got the right song for something, I usually can't get started at all. So I have to hunt around until I find something new that conjures up the right associations. I call that research.
How about you? Do you use music when you're writing, or studying, or working? Or do you need complete silence? Maybe you prefer the sound of a dripping tap, or perhaps the noise of a crowd. What's your thing?
Kirsty :)
PS How are those GIVEAWAY notes going?
