It’s National Novel Editing Month and I have been dutifully putting in my 50 hours (or thereabouts). Originally my goal was to get the rewrite to the end of Act 2 by the end of March, but I’m not at all sure that’s going to happen now. Particularly as I’m, you know, writing entirely new chapters. (The story remains the same; the plot has changed somewhat.) But I write. I’m a much happier person when I’ve written. Somewhere I’ll put up a sign to remind myself of that.
Wherever I sit down to write, however, I need music. I ripped a couple hundred albums* in November in order to build up a backlog of music and promptly filled up my 15 gig iPod. However, I don’t use the iPod for writing; I use it in the car. When I write, I whip out a pair of headphones and listen to music off my iBook.
I need either instrumental music or music with lyrics I can tune out. For the past several months I’ve been listening to the New Age playlist—Enya, Vangelis, Mike Oldfield, Andreas Vollenweider. It’s a big playlist, and while I’ve heard many of the selections multiple times, I’m sure I haven’t heard all of them, because I keep hitting Shuffle. But I’ve gotten tired of that and have now created the Classical playlist, which has an eclectic mix of Beethoven, Philip Glass, Gregorian chants, and Soeur Marie Keyrouz. I have decided I am not as enamored of Philip Glass as Darin apparently is (since Darin has bought all of his CDs).
I think I’m going to start ripping more CDs and see if I can’t do all of the soundtracks Darin has bought over the years.
My friend Mary says she likes to write to salsa. (She also mentioned another type of music that had, I believe, a Portuguese name, but I can’t remember what it is now.) Maybe I should try that. God knows it’s certainly worked magic for her.
For other writers out there: do you like to write to music? Does it have to be a certain type of music? Or do you come up with music that has a flavor for the type of scene/story you’re writing?
And I am open to any suggestions for music to check out that is mostly instrumental or has singing that preferably is in another language. I have some French jazz that I listen to occasionally, but I keep trying to understand the French, so that doesn’t work as well.
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*All albums I own, for what it’s worth. Can’t believe I even feel compelled to say that.
I listen to all kind of music while writing. Some of my playlists: all-time faves, entire albums, recently acquired, or just shuffle. I need wordless music when I’m reading, including reading/editing/polishing my own work. For that, I have a “music to read by” list that includes Orbital, Autechre, Windham Hill, soundtracks, and miscellaneous instrumentals. Sometimes I listen to streaming radio in iTunes, especialy in the Electronica and Classical categories. And except for streaming radio, I always listen on my iPod, because it’s easier to pause, change volume, etc.
When my kids were small I listened to loud music. I thought I wrote better to music. Then they were all in school and I realized that music distracted me. (Example: Writing an intense scene, and suddenly “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” pops on the radio, and GACK. Scene gone. Mood gone. Characters gone. Desire to murder Bobby McFerrin live and well.)
I then realized that music had been my white noise — Guns and Roses was blocking out the sounds of boys running amok through the house. (“Don’t knock on my door unless you’re bleeding from a major artery.”)
But I eventually moved back to “mood music.” When I was writing a script that all takes place on Christmas Eve, I listened to Christmas music (Hymns from various English cathedrals, the soundtrack to Home Alone, etc.) all year.
When writing a script about a group of women from Charleston, I found an internet station that played all “beach music” all the time.
And I find I mainly use music as white noise again, when writing at Starbucks, etc. At home, I’m still more likely to write in silence.
But I definitely like having music that somehow amplifies the world I’m writing about. Music that I think would appeal the characters I’m writing about.