Timewaster's Guide Archive
Local Authors => Writing Group => Topic started by: Dangerbutton on March 01, 2009, 05:15:11 PM
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Last weekend, while at scifi/fantasy symposium, Tracy Hickman was there, and one of the things he talked about, while only briefly, was that he listened to music while writing. I do this too, but mostly because I'm listening to music wherever I'm at. However, he said that he's made different playlists specifically tailored to what he's writing. He's got his action scene playlist, his traveling playlist, his sad scene playlist, whatever.
I was wondering how many of you listen to music while writing, and if so, what?
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I'll toss stuff together depending on what I'm writing at the moment; I don't have specific writing playlists other than such things which I pull together on the fly.
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Dan mentioned something similar to this in one of the writing excuses podcasts a while back. He said something to the effect of "each of my books has a different feel musically." I've always wondered what that meant...
I sometimes do listen to music when writing. The trick is to NOT think about the music, for me. If it has lyrics, and I start thinking them in my head, I am already lost. I have to pull myself back on track.
I don't listen to anything drastically different when writing from what I normally listen to. Sometimes instrumentals work well, sometimes I want something a little bit heavier. It really depends. I just set my ipod on shuffle and let it run through.
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For my current book I have two playlists. I kinda separate them out for different scenes, sometimes. One is Avenged Sevenfold and the other is Iron Maiden. I've got other stuff, but so far these two have been the most help on this project.
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Sweet, I love Tracy Hickman's stuff....
Well, I always listen to music when I write, but it was only recently that I've tried to fit the mood of the music to the mood of my writing. Lately it's been techo type stuff by Cascada and others because I've been in cutting/editing mode and wanted things to move faster. But I am sure I'll get sick of that eventually and be searching for something else....
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I actually used to make a point of not listening to music while I write. I've gotten a little looser about that since discovering that I can actually write on a computer screen when I have to (I used to write all my stuff out longhand. Now I find I'm writing more and more on the screen, even though I still prefer writing stuff by hand.)
I never have specific playlists, though. If I do have music on while I write, it's because I didn't turn off whatever music I was listening to before I started writing.
Speaking of soundtracks, though, I have a soundtrack to write.
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I listen to anime music. It's easy not to pay attention to the words because I don't understand a lot of the words. I also sometimes listen to Persian radio streams in which I understand even fewer words.
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For me, what I'm writing and what I'm listening to generally have the same mood. For example, when I want to write something in a distopian setting, I'll listen to the Halo soundtrack, because to me that has the same mood as my writing at the time.
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I have a hard time concentrating on writing if I'm listening to music, so when I do listen to music I usually have to pick something that doesn't have any words. I'm with Ookla 0n this one, I'm fond of anime and video game soundtracks. .hack and final fantasy are my particular favorites.