Adventures in Writing: Music
Do you listen to music when you write?
Sometimes I do, sometimes I just have the tv on in the background. When I’m writing on my lunch break, I don’t listen to anything in hopes that people won’t even know I’m there and I can whip out 800ish words before returning to my desk.
There are a lot of opinions on what music to listen to when you write. I know there are authors out there that have character or story-based theme songs. Listening to certain songs will help them write that character perfectly. There are people out there who can’t listen to anything that has words to it because then they get distracted by the lyrics and want to sing along. There are people who only listen to classical music. There are many ways to do this if you choose to listen to music.
I fucked up today.
Yesterday, I planned to play Skyrim for a couple of hours while sipping my coffee before starting my day. That couple of hours turned out way beyond that. It was always “well, I’ll go here and do this thing and then I’ll stop…” which didn’t happen. So, I overdid it yesterday with the gaming and not the writing.
Today I decided to put on music – no tv in the background. I turned on Pandora on the Xbox so I can listen to it through the tv speakers (and it’ll keep me from turning on ION’s Sunday Leverage Marathon) and Christian Kane (who’s in Leverage) pops up with The House Rules. Okay, cool. So, I make coffee while that’s playing and start laundry and then I’m vacuuming the living room after picking it up. Do you see what’s happening here? I’m becoming distracted.
What can I say? Christian Kane is distracting.
So, after a few more distracting songs, and running out to the mailbox to rescue my Supernatural LOVE t-shirt from the freezing cold, and changing the laundry loads, I’m sitting down to write. I decide I need something that won’t distract me. What do I Do? I turn on the Skyrim Soundtrack station. It doesn’t only play Skyrim tracks, it also plays Assassin’s Creed, HALO, and many more other soundtracks. But the ones that are kicking my ass right now? The Skyrim tracks.
I’m debating on changing over to something techno-ish or ambient. What type of music do you enjoy listening to when you’re writing or studying? OR, do you require absolute silence? Did you know that there are people who will listen to certain albums or songs while studying and then listen to those during a test and do really well? Are you one of those people? Does it really work? Share your thoughts in the comments.
