Music to write to?

[littlebutfierce]

The writing session is still going on if anyone wants to join -- though obviously I am, er, taking a break right now...

I want to talk a little about writing & music! Does music help you concentrate when you write? Or does it distract you? Are there certain types of music, or maybe even certain bands, you put on when you're working on different types of scenes?

Because I write tons of schmaltzy emo stuff (I say that w/love, I think...), bands like Stars are total writing mood music for me. Also Joy Ike seems to put me in that headspace lately. If I am writing sexytiems, sometimes I listen to Alice in Videoland.

Lyrics don't seem to distract me too much, or if they start to, I can usually turn the music down slightly & it's fine.

There's a fine line between being able to take in the music to the point it relaxes me or gets me in the zone & not being able to shut it out enough to concentrate. I know some folks make writing mixes -- & if you are one of these energetic sorts, please feel free to post one! -- but if I don't have an itch for a specific band, most of the time shuffling randomly through iTunes seems to work. If I start skipping every other song, it's usually a sign that I need to take a break to get my concentration back.

What about you? (Any recommendations... ?)

And now back to the writing session! No, really... I'll leave you w/Fuck Yeah Fanfic Flamingo, which makes me laugh inordinately hard.

Comments

[charamei]

*cough*

It used to be about three times that length, before I completely failed at gracefully porting from iTunes. (If I were on my Linux drive right now, I could screenshot my Rhythmbox lists, too...!)

I can't use shuffles. I just end up listening to the songs; if I want to zone out I need something predictable. Most of these are quite short, especially since I'm still rebuilding them; the longest one is maybe twelve songs? A couple of them have nothing in them at all... :p

Since they're almost all character- or fic-specific, probably the only one that'd be of any use to anyone else is the City one, which currently contains... umm... In The City by Charlie Chaplin and Johann Strauss II's Morning Papers and Hail to Hungary (but lest I end up sounding like a snob, the one that was playing when I took the screenshot has Jonathan Coulton and the Arrogant Worms in it, so... yeah.)

[littlebutfierce]

Wow! That's really impressive! & obviously they help, if you keep making them--I feel like I would just flail & use them as a way to procrastinate b/c I wouldn't be able to come up w/just the right thing. Maybe I should try, though. Even just creating a v. general mood might help.

[charamei]

I do use them to procrastinate, yeah - but I find that it's a decently productive form of procrastination. Hunting up a playlist for a character or a scene helps me to get into the swing of things, because by definition I'm finding things that I associate with that character or scene.

It works the other way, too - I can't listen to some of the things on the older playlists out of context any more :p I hear G4's 'You're The Voice' and my brain switches straight into 'Regan is making a speech' mode. It's not much use in 99% of settings, but it's extremely useful when I need Regan to make a speech.

[littlebutfierce]

That's a good point about it being productive procrastination--anything that helps w/getting into a character's brain is a good thing!

[elf]

I made music mixes for working on both of my snarry_games entries. I occasionally consider posting them somewhere, but aside from the logistics issues (I'm pretty clueless about filesharing), have no idea if there'd be any interest.

Hmm. And I'm stalled on my current snarry-a-thon entry, so maybe I should take a bit of time and throw together a mix for that. Even though I lost my iPod shuffle a while back and probably need to poke around craigslist for another one. (I can get one for $40 anytime. Finding one for less than that is erratic.)

[littlebutfierce]

I'm really terrible about bothering to make & post mixes--which makes me sad cuz as a teenager I was all about them (including making collaged covers for the cassettes, & later, CDs).

Oooh, I hope if you go ahead & make a mix it helps you out of the stuck spot in your fic!

[destinyislands]

I used to do that more a few years ago than a do now. At one point, any time I wrote fic, I had to have some music on. I still do that now, but it depends. If I do, I have to go with a few songs or one song on repeat that has the same mood I want in my fic. If it has a different feeling to it than what I'm going for, then it ends up being distracting. I've noticed Utada Hikaru is a frequent artist choice lately.

[littlebutfierce]

Music definitely helps me if, say, my partner is cooking downstairs & blasting a podcast to keep him company, heh. Otherwise, if I didn't occasionally need to block out background noise, I'd probably end up listening to less music while I write. Except it does pump me up sometimes!!

[haruka]

I just got a new computer and for the first time in years I'll have to re-load all my music again so it'll be awhile before that happens, but I usually prefer having the tv on when I'm writing, anyway.

[littlebutfierce]

Out of curiosity, what kind of stuff do you like to have on the TV while you're writing? Is it background noise or random inspiration or... ?

[haruka]

I wish I could say I chose programming designed to inspire, but usually it's just whatever's on that I like (these days, mostly interior design shows, as we're getting our house ready to move), or if nothing is on, maybe a DVD of Spongbob. XD My fandoms are all Japanese, so it would be hard to find something on tv that fed into it -- all my anime and J-dramas are on computer.

I grew up with a tv in my room, so it was always company for me. I rarely just sit and watch a show without also doing something else at the same time (usually writing) due to ADHD restlessness.

[littlebutfierce]

I could totally see myself having the TV on an interior design show, or, say, a makeover show, & getting completely inspired about some little related detail in my fic that no one else would notice or care about, ahahaha, like the pattern of a character's skirt or something!

[linaewen]

When I'm really doing proper writing, I can't have the TV on or music that has words to it. I don't have to have music to write, but it does help. I tend to listen to movie sound tracks or New Age type stuff that has nice instrumentals with birds chirping in the background! I'm currently trying to make some headway with some Lord of the Rings fic, so I've got headphones on and I'm listening to the extended sound track from one of the films. Works great for getting me in the right kind of writing mood!

[littlebutfierce]

Oh, the soundtracks for those movies are so, well, epic! (& a good job they are, too!) I can see them being really fantastic to write to. Well: depends on what one is writing, I think. If I'm writing silly high school anime fluff it might make me feel like I was taking myself too seriously, hehehe.

I could see it being a good background for, say, a training montage for Goro, though. ;) & obviously for your LOTR big bang!

[mystiri_1]

I belong to fictunes on IJ, so some of my stories come from or are inspired by songs to start with. That said, I hate song-fics - if you can't convey the mood/theme/image the song gives you without resorting to dumping somebody else's words in the middle of it... well, it seems like a bit of a cop-out. That's harsh, but it's never an exact match, and a lot of the time it detracts from what was a decent story.

But yeah, I have songs that I listen to when writing certan things. There are songs that always speak of certain characters to me, and I am deeply resentful of the fact that Media Player doesn't have a tags system. I have a mediafire account, and sometimes share stuff if its relevant.

I do get complaints when I have the same playlist running for four hours on repeat, especially if it's only a few songs.

And regarding FYFF - porn does cure all.

[littlebutfierce]

Yeahhhhh... Never say never, but I haven't yet come across a songfic that I thought was well done. A single lyric for an epigraph, okay, that can be all right (or, um, part of one as the title? Which I rely on way too much, as does the fanfic flamingo!). But... yeah.

Tagging songs sounds like an amazing idea--& now I have googled & abashedly realized that iTunes apparently has had this capability for a long time? Though it's never even occurred to me until your comment!

[slippy]

I tend to stop hearing music after some time writing, but if a catchy, angry one comes on it makes me start writing faster. "Animal I have Become" by Three Days Grace and the end part of "All the Love in the World" by Nine Inch Nails make me start pounding on the keyboard, even if the story has a completely different mood.

Fuck Yeah Fanfic Flamingo - thank you for that. XD

[littlebutfierce]

Hee, that's great that catchy, angry songs make you write faster! Even if the mood is completely different (I assume that it doesn't ruin the mood in the fic for you, just make you crank out the scene faster).