Music for getting in the mood and silence for actual writing. I would listen to the same few songs that I relate to different scenes over and over again for weeks when not writing. Lately, that is 2 songs, replayed all day for over a month now. To work, from work, at work... The music makes me connected to my imaginary world when real life prevents me writing it.
Music without lyrics, mostly classical, but as long as there are no distracting vocals, anything from techno to dubstep. Recently I had a musical Renaissance when writing after discovering rap orchestrals. Not sure why, but the repetitive nature of them without the lyrics is the perfect backdrop to think of words too.
Silence. I'm keenly aware of the rhythms of my prose, and music spoils those rhythms. I have to hear what I'm writing in my inner ear, and music makes it impossible for me to do that.
The more of my life that I devote to reading/writing is the more I value silence. At work the play the same station day after day along with non-stop whistling from a co-worker, at home its Elmo this and Barney that and int he car my wife like the radio louder then I do. That is another reason I like the late night or early morning when only the birds make noise with the occasional train in the far off distance.
I prefer silence though I can work with music or the tv on. Once I get into it I tend to block most of it out anyway.
Music, definitely. Even if it doesn't set the mood for a piece I'm writing, I can work with it most of the time. Right now I'm playing some random obnoxious dubstep song, but I can write better with the background noise. Total silence drives me nuts.
Warren Zevon is my spirit animal. Put one of his albums on and go, five minutes later it's 45 minutes later and there's a thousand word or so on the monitor. I just realized I haven't done this for a while, and my output's been down. Time to atart again.
Have you ever been actively working on a story, and some other idea on something completely unrelated comes flooding in and keeps gnawing at you, like it came out of nowhere? This happened to me recently, a "masterpiece" idea and I can't focus on what I'm working on. I have some delusions of grandeur with my writing though, but at least I'm attempting to meet my imagination's expectations. ...oh, and also, what do you like to listen to when you write, if anything? I definitely have found my music; compositions and soundtracks from movies and video games. Things with a lot of emotion and big, epic swells of melody. It works really well for me. How about you?
I have ideas for 4-5 novels in my head and several short stories...I try to focus on a few at a time but it's a bit difficult. I guess that's partly the problem of being a completely new writer but having had ideas for stories most of my life ^^ I do always listen to music when I write, almost always some dark ambience as most of my stories are pretty dark in their nature and helps me get in the right "mood". Stuff like this:
Have fun browsing, bit of everything that most don't look for or find. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=FLVtG30jLWUHkyK_6nvDOYQw https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-7gDlaHdaPUD6X2qH_UKIEtCz80RoqvN
Hello, I am new here so please forgive me if I am posting in the wrong place. As I stated in my introduction, I'm a songwriter, and I have written hundreds of songs over the past thirty-five years. I've played in quite a few bands, and I am currently an audio engineer and own my own recording studio fwiw. I started out writing a memoir, and quickly decided it was fairly boring so I began to fictionalize and before I knew it, I had quite a story going, a rambling romantic novel about a struggling young musicians making their way through mishaps, some humorous, some not. There are plenty of stories of success out there, but not many about the struggles and failures in the entertainment industry. I have plenty of experience in that for sure! While I was writing, I would attempt to conjure memories from my past by going through the music I've written. Music, as most know, can evoke powerful memories of people, places and events, and mine is no different, for me. Most of my songs tell a story of their own, and I found them more and more working their way into the overall plot of my book. I'm at a point now where my characters are the ones who have written these songs. Of course, I wrote them all, but since none of my songs are famous, I don't mind having them incorporated into the story as if my characters take the credit for them. Most of the songs are online already, and I am working with a female vocalist to re-record some of the material to be from one female characters. It's been a lot of fun in making all of this come together to tell a story and watch it go from my mind to the page. I've worked on a lot of musical projects in my career, but this is hands down the biggest of them all. As I've written, my story does not require the music to make it work. I've included snippets of lyrics in the text, where appropriate of course. However, I would love to somehow have a way for the reader to hear the actual recording if they should be interested. I'm more of a purist when it comes to reading, but I'm not terribly opposed to links in e-book format. BUT, I'm on the fence about it too. It's something I thought would be neat, but I've never seen anything like it in all my reading, so I just don't know. I realize that I've created something that is non-traditional at best, but that is sort of how I tend to create anyway, so I'm not surprised. The thing about it is, I can't find anything to compare it to, so I don't really know how to proceed, or if to proceed with it at all. The music is actually real and out there though, and I really want it to be heard too. I've thought about perhaps linking through footnotes or something along those lines. I've thought about various other ways to work it without annoying the reader. But without other works to compare, I'm coming up short. I don't know whether something like this would add or detract from the story. My gut tells me that it will detract, but I don't know. Still, it's important to me... Any ideas or thoughts on how to handle such an unconventional approach?
I admit I haven't seen anything like this where the prose author also writes and records music. I've seen it the other way around: songs that tell a story (ie: opera). The closest I've seen to what you're doing is that some authors have identified songs that suit their novel and created a recommended listening playlist. Some have curated a dedicated Spotify playlist based on their recommendations. If I was doing something mixed media like this, I think I might be concerned about future proofing monetization, rather than the mechanics of formatting in our current list of technologies, some of which will be obsolete by the time I finish writing this post.
yea, I am not trying to do anything complicated. I already have some of my material up on iTunes as well as the free sites like Bandcamp, so monetizing is not a problem as the sales are well documented. I would probably just make them available for streaming for free. It appears I am in uncharted waters, which is actually an exciting challenge for me.
Do y'all like writing to music or do y'all prefer silence? If you write to music what genre is it? I'm a huge fan of Jazz music, so most of the time I'm listing to that when I write. Sometimes (when I've had a little too much to drink) I like describing my writing style as "Modal Writing" because I tend to write stories that slowly build in a mysterious intensity. Even the way some of my characters speak is based on the rhythmic structure of Jazz music.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=FLVtG30jLWUHkyK_6nvDOYQw 993 choices, but I have a whole playlist devoted to mellow stuff too. (Just have to understand that there is a whole world of music most don't know).
Depends. Sometimes if I'm conscious of the music, it starts impacting my writing; the tone and mood. Often this isn't appropriate. Ideally, whatever it is I'm listening to, I use it as a means of entering the zone. Slipping into stream of consciousness. So being aware of the music takes me out of that zone, which is no good. If I'm writing in a public place, music can be a big help to block out other people. If I feel like I'm easily distracted, I prefer silence and solitude.
I prefer silence, unless there is other activity going on around me, such as the television being on, which I find extremely distracting. In that case, I'll put headphones on and listen to classical music - Bach (J.S. or J.C.), mostly, but also Mozart, Scarlatti, Vivaldi or Respighi.
I find I often can't write without music. It depends on what I'm writing, but most often it's film soundtracks or atmospheric & ambient compositions. I have to fit the music to what I'm writing though. I'd find it impossible to just listen to a random song.
All the time. Cinematic and epic scores are my favorite. One I really enjoy is called: "The Arrival of The Birds + Transformation" Really puts me in a relax state that is perfect for a creative flow.
It's a great aid to help wrap your mind around a time period or an emotion your trying to harness and put into words.
