When writing...

[VictoryPanda]

When you're writing, what puts you in the mood. Do you like background noise? Complete silence? Certain objects or things to look at during?

 

Personally, it depends on the genre or scene I'm doing at the moment. It's always music though. Usually indie folk and easy listening 'deep' music. Oddly enough, at the moment Wiz Khalifah is my top along with Sia and Jem. I don't really listen to rap.

[Mikelaing74]

When I'm writing I generally have music on really loud with my headphones on so I'm isolated from the world. I sit at my desk and just tap away at the keyboard. I also generally don't like having anyone around, and that includes Snuggle. I also make sure, because when I start I'm probably going to be there for a while that I'm in my rattiest, and therefore most comfortable clothes

[Andy78]

I always have music on in the background. Mostly it's Abba with some 60s/70s stuff thrown in.

 

When I was writing Kyle and Kodi (which was very much happy-happy stuff), it was a lot of Dancing Queen, Summer Night City, Voulez-Vous, Walking Back To Happiness.

 

The current story I'm working on is in a not so happy place at the moment so I'm listening to a lot of Chiquitita, Angeleyes, Pretty Flamingo, American Pie.

 

I've tried writing in silence and it just doesn't work.

[Cia]

I go for big voices or bass if I need to block out the family. Otherwise it's just background noise; the tv, the kids playing, the hubby on the main computer distracting me to look at this or that jig pattern he just found... I'm not sure what puts me in the mood to write, sometimes I just feel like it and that's what I do. I don't think I can really induce the mood to write through music or anything; I'm too analytical about my writing and HOW I'm actually doing it to zone like that.

[SidLove]

Music is my thing too. Currently it's Adele's "Rolling in the deep" that puts me in the mood lol Everytime I write, I feel the need to listen to that song first.

[Cyhort]

I can't have any noise except my white noise machine or an air conditioner when I'm writing or I get distracted and can't concentrate. Music gets me in the mood to write, but once I start writing off it goes.

[John Doe]

Fight scenes intense music. Writing other scenes: anyway is fine. Touchy and sappy scenes, sad instumental songs. Then when I edit, I need complete silence. I need to know that my story is invoking the proper emotions without the influence of music, because music is a big influencer of mood, hence movies use music so much.

[ToddYoung]

I like peace and quiet, and often get up early in the mornings to write - sometimes as early as 3 or 4. I like that feeling of writing when the sun comes up.

 

I did once write most of a novel listening to nothing but Portishead, but that project is one of my mangled manuscripts, never meant to see the light of day.

[gavinmlfletcher]

Music from Pandora does it for me. But before I write sex scenes I may watch a porn real quick.

[colinian]

I'm much more productive when it's quiet. I don't mind interruptions; they just piss me off a lot.

 

Colin

[Xtro]

I think a lot depends on the mood I'm in at the time. New writing is usually silence, whereas revision and reworking can be done in front of the TV when the other half's watching something that I can disconnect with. If I'm copy typing then it could be anything in the hopper - vinyl, tape, FLAC/mp3.

[crazyfish]

Music, silence, it's all the same to me.

[Henry_Henry2012]

Silence and being naked. I strip my clothes, sip my coffee or tea and just start to write away. I also listen to a music that compliments the mood of my story, otherwise, I find it a distraction to listen to the genre of music opposite to the emotions that sets the tone and mood of the story or chapter I'm writing.

[Menace]

well for me, I write poems. i like silence more when I write.

[Hayden L]

I go for a long ride on the motorcycle so I can clear my head and organize my thoughts. Then, just normal background noise of the dorm is all i need to write. Sometimes I prefer to write longhand with a very fine point pen and a pad/notebook, other times it's on my laptop or my ipad with wireless keyboard.

[JamesSavik]

I like to write late at night when its quiet, the phone isn't ringing and the cat is sleepy.

 

Between contracts (that's how I work) I will write until 3:30 or 4:00am.

 

I'll sleep when I'm dead.

[layla]

Music and candles. I absolutly cannot write without music, and I've found that need certain types of music just go with certain stories while I'm writing them, while other music will distract me from a story or pull me into a different one. For example, the two pieces that I have up here at GA were written with different kinds of music in the background. Cold Confusion was written almost entirely to Nine Inch Nails, Manson, and Black Label Society, while Desolation Angels, is being written to classic rock and blues, with John Moreland's music being a huge influence on the piece thus far. I don't like a lot of light or added destration when I'm writing, thus the candles let me have the lights out and focus on the computer screen and not other things in the stuido, like the half finished drawings I really plan to get back to or the photos I'm still trying to decide how to mount. I tend to pounce from thing to thing too easily, so i do everything in my power to cut down on distractions and i love to write at night, since I work on most of my freelance projects in the day when the house is empty and the kids are at school and my vamp roomie is passed out. When I can get away from the house and out to the woods, I write by the river, or while sitting with my camera, waiting to see what happens by.

[Xtro]

NIN & Manson? Lawks! That's a bit of a mix. Try some UK early material - Bauhaus & Sisters of Mercy - that might take you in totally different directions, but retain the atmosphere.

[layla]

Hey thanks, Just gave a bit of a listen to Bauhus on YouTube, Bela Lugosi's Dead sets an awesome mood, I coudl write to that for sure!

Edited December 3, 2012 by layla

[James Hiwatari]

I can't listen to music with lyrics while I'm writing because I get distracted and want to sing along (badly, of course)...

 

But After some experimenting I realised there are certain songs that put me in the right state of mind to write a given story. Be Myself! and The Orchestra are both written in first person, so I need to get their voices and their tone right all the time, particularly in the case of The Orchestra, where the narrator changes each chapter.

 

So, I now found that:

 

- Beethoven Symphonies 3 and 5 (without the slow parts) are the background of choice for Be Myself!. I just got Symphonies 6 and 7 in my computer, so I'll see if I can include them too. I know I'm never writing anything to Symphony 9 because I always get in a kind of trance that's far too distracting.

- Mozart's Violin concerti n. 1-5 put me on the mood to write Gunni's parts in The Orchestra. It's fitting because Violin Concert n. is his favourite piece and a kind of character theme, as much as there can be one.

- Tchaikovsky's Pathetic Symphony is the background for Siggi's chapter in The Orchestra. It's actually the music I imagine as Dmitri's theme, but it's inspiring nonetheless.

 

For all pieces, I never listen to the slow parts. Not even when things get dramatic. When I'm writing slow movements make me sleepy and unproductive.

[JDwrites]

For me, it is baroque music ... there but not so much that I can't lose myself in the story ;-)

[Lypiphaera]

I like to have music that I can sing along to...sometimes though I'll get so focused on what I'm writing that I don't actually hear anything around me.

[Kai Taylor]

It really depends.

 

If I'm at home I really, really need things to be quiet in order to focus properly. On the other hand, I've also been able to write on planes, trains, in airport terminals... obviously I can't escape the high ambience, so instead I build my own little zone and that works fine. But if someone simply started talking outside the room I'm working in at home, then the process quickly begins to fail.

 

As for music, I find it very distracting when writing, but instrumental when planning.

Edited March 2, 2013 by Kai Taylor

[Fishwings]

All I need is a truckload of work piled on top of me, 3am while I'm taking a shower, or 3am while I'm in bed, or when I'm out on the bus, or any similarly extraordinarily inconvenient situation... and then wapow! Inspiration. Right in the mood for writing. 

 

I wish I had a button I could press to turn myself on for writing but sadly it just doesn't work that way.

[Blackman]

I've found that music actually keeps me from my writing. I have to have untimate silence and about the only time I can get it is between two AM and seven AM.  Whether I'm writing my notes, the story, or reading through what I've written, external stimulus distracts me and I find it nonproductive.