Do you listen to music while you write? What kind? How do you relate music to your writing?

I almost always play music when I’m writing. There’s multiple reasons for this, the first one being that turning on music gets my brain in gear for writing.

I’ve got to cover up the noise around me to focus on writing. Without it, I usually get distracted by conversations around me, the sound of the air conditioner turning on, squeaky chairs or questions from people. When I want to get some writing done, I put on my headphones (two fold for blocking out noise and signaling to others that I’m not in a mood to converse) and turn on my iTunes.

The music that gets my creative gears going has changed over the years. It’s a gradual transformation that’s moved from rock music to atmospheric and recently something that could loosely be described as “electronic folk rock.” Um, yeah, I don’t know quite what to say to that except that for some reason it makes me start writing. Once I get started, I’m able to listen to a whole range of music, usually chosen depending on the mood of the scene.

I love to create soundtracks for my stories. Often I hear something on the radio or on the internet that makes me think of a character or situation in a story, and I quickly add it to a playlist in my iTunes. I try to build up my playlist to about thirty songs before I start listening to it while writing, since if the music tends to repeat too much I get distracted and bored.