Do you write to music?
I often do. But it has to be the right music, at least for me. And it really depends on what stage I’m writing in—first draft? Rewriting? Editing?
First draft. No. No music. Except (there are always exceptions) if I’m stuck on a scene. Then I’ll select some appropriate music for the background. Like, say, I’m writing a fight scene, or some scene where I need some heroism, then my fave background music is the soundtrack from the TV series Hercules, the Legendary Journeys. Yes, I mean THAT show starring Kevin Sorbo and Michael Hurst.
I really liked the show but the music even more. They did a great job with the music, I thought. The composer is Joseph LoDuca who composes a lot of fun shows like The Librarians, Spartacus, Ash & the Evil Dead… You can see a pattern here. DeLuca composes a lot of work for Dean Devin (The Librarians), Sam Rami (Hercules, Xena) Rob Tapert (Time Cop, Spartacus).
If I’m writing a love scene or a scene with some deep relationship, I usually select Outlander’s musical—Bear McCreary. Outlander isn’t all he does, but as Outlander is one of my fave series of books (by Diana Gabaldon) and TV series and music, the choice is an easy one. McCreary has music for any setting.
Then, there’s my fall back music—Startreams.com. I’ve listened to their programming since the 80s? 90s? I forget. A long while. I first heard them on the radio, you know, those things that sometimes has transistors and was live over the airwaves. I followed them to their website, Starstreams.com, and I’ve been hooked ever since.
What got me on the writing to music topic, you ask?
I was perusing along on the web, minding my own business, and found a site talking about music and writing and the studies that have been done.
Step back. First, I was researching more creative website design and found Muraki Murakami, whose book, 1Q84, I’m reading now. He also writes to music and he freely shares what he listened to while writing his books, which I thought was a pretty cool idea. Something I’ll be adding to my website for sure.
Which got me to wondering, is this normal? Do other writers write to music?
I knew that Kevin J Anderson, author of many books, but my favorites are the Dune continuation with Frank Herbert’s son. Kevin often talks about writing to music, in particular Rush.
But how prolific is it?
Now step forward and I had stumbled onto The Story and their article “The best music to write to (according to writers who listen to music as they write).
“In a 2012 study, researchers showed that most people reach peak cognitive performance in moderately noisy conditions. This explains why you may feel more productive responding to emails at a busy cafe, where the ambient noise can heighten your focus. And for those engaged in creative tasks, which require a state of flow rather than strict concentration, music has been shown to help ideas flow more freely, putting the listener into what you might annoyingly refer to as “The Zone”.”
Michael Chabon says he listens to music to help him get out of the flow instead of into it. While writing Telegraph Avenue, Chabon listened to ’60s & 70’s jazz.
What I find more interesting, however, is that he listened to it on vinyl. Not like I don’t have vinyl. I do, and lots of it! I’ve always thought that listening to a record album on the record player would interrupt my own flow. Chabon says no. He told The Jewish Chronicle, “…every 20 minutes or so you get up, go over to the turntable and turn the record over.” Not a bad idea until you get so wrapped up in your writing, like me, and the record is just spinning away playing nothing, just the round and round bit before the label. Yes, that’s me.
The Story says, “…Chabon maintains a series of writing playlists on Spotify and Apple Music based on his “current work go-tos, some old standbys, and some new faves.” … “…“conveniently divisible into eight one-hour work sessions, four two-hour work sessions, two four-hour work sessions, or one eight-hour work session.”” (That’s a lot of quote/unquote/quotes, huh?)
Stephen King is fond of LCD Sounsystem and Fatboy Slim.
Octavia Butler, the heroine of science fiction writers everywhere, (esp. female SF writers) andf the first science fiction writer to be awarded the MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grant,”” started her days at 5:30 am (AM!!) with a lot of loud R&B. Don’t think hubby would like that, though he is up most days by then to head off to work. So maybe it’ll work for me? LOL
In the article “The daily writing routines of Joan Didion, Susan Sontag, Haruki Murakami and other famous writers,” Haruki Murakami wrote Norwegian Wood at four a.m., writing for six hours and then went for a 10-kilometre run or a swim. And goes to bed at 9:00 pm. Pretty early for me! I suppose the point here is keeping a routine.
(Nix the run for me, and the 4am wakeup call. It’s now 3:30am and I’m still up, writing, thinking, editing, and rewriting and finally tried sleeping about midnight, got back up, and here I am. However, 9am comes early. I attend my writer’s group, The Apex Writers Group, Zoom meeting at 9:00 am. IF I can wake up!
The article says, “…Joan Didion spent most of her day “just sitting there, trying to form a coherent idea”;…”and didn’t actually start writing until 5:00 pm, felt she was lucky to get a paragraph down, then retired for the evening. Didion never mentioned anything, that I found here anyway, about writing to music. Perhaps that would have helped her? Maybe not.
Murikami says, ““But to hold to such repetition for so long—six months to a year—requires a good amount of mental and physical strength. In that sense, writing a long novel is like survival training. Physical strength is as necessary as artistic sensitivity.”
Biorythms are very personal. Some can write with music, some can’t. For me, it’s a maybe depending.
And, I have tinnitus. So it’s not like I have any quiet at all. I’m either paying attention to it and hearing it, or I’m not. But it’s always there. Background music gives me something to drown out the tinnitus. And I do try to use it to best effect for my scenes. I keep a playlist for different themes–romance/relationship, action/fight scenes, tension/mystery, outer space stuff, thinking/pondering/being creative by me or my characters.
Music while writing, for me, is another tool in my writer’s toolbox. It’s pleasurable, yes. But it’s also a tool to help improve my writing.
Check out some other websites about writing to music:
BTW, the JSTOR article mentioned above gives the optimal dB for listening while writing:
“This paper examines how ambient noise, an important environmental variable, can affect creativity. Results from five experiments demonstrate that a moderate (70 dB) versus low (50 dB) level of ambient noise enhances performance on creative tasks and increases the buying likelihood of innovative products. A high level of noise (85 dB), on the other hand, hurts creativity. Process measures reveal that a moderate (vs. low) level of noise increases processing difficulty, inducing a higher construal level and thus promoting abstract processing, which subsequently leads to higher creativity. A high level of noise, however, reduces the extent of information processing and thus impairs creativity.”
I’ve shown you mine… some of my musical playlist while writing. What’s yours?
