Some time around 60K words in my novel, I discovered writing to music. I had always written with some music in the background -- wordless music -- but I had never tried to use the music as a tool.
What was I thinking? It literally transformed my writing power from sluggish to full-speed-ahead.
Where I had always been thinking of music as a distraction, I found the right song at the right time strengthen my craft and encouraged me to write longer and more intensely.
I learned to use the music to help pace scenes, set the tone for the emotion as well as show the right kind of energy. Fast-paced music helped get through exciting scenes while slower, low-tempo music helped scenes full of feelings and internal thought.
Here's the playlist of some of my favorite songs/groups to help me write my novel. The first two just happen to be my top choice for all occasions.
Dana Parish
Missy Higgins
Sigur Ros
Ben Harper
OneRepublic
I also enjoyed a little Indian music, inspired by Sex and the City 2 and Celtic Woman, inspired by a service at our church in honor of women.
How about you? What music do you like to write to? Let's share and expand our writing playlists. I'll post your choices in next Monday's post if you leave a comment or post a link to play along.
Photo credit: Mara~ earth light
You know what? I've always written in silence, but the other day I was listening to Pink's Glitter in the Air and I got this sudden urge to write, so I put it on Pandora & wrote for like an hour straight with this type of music. I'm going to try more of this, too.
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