Music and writing.

For me music is as important in my life as reading or writing. I was lucky enough that my mother raised me around all types of music so my taste has always been quite eclectic. In fact as I write this blog my head phones are sending out "Slow Ride" by Foghat and just a few seconds earlier my foot was taping to "Some Nights" by Fun. I am just as happy playing one of Adele's heart-tugging ballads as I am Korn's rhythmic rock. Music is another escape, it allows us to tap into our emotions and vividly explore our own mind with an awesome sound track.

As far as my writing goes music actually plays a big part. The first and biggest area I use music is brain storming. If I'm not pacing around doing my best impression of a hamster wheel powered idea machine, I have some kind of music playing, generating images for me to pluck stories from. Maybe it's "O Fortuna", helping my mind paint a battlefield of armor clad combatants as they look across an overcast stretch of earth preparing to give their lives in service of their kingdom. Or it could be Katy Perry's "Wide Awake", allowing me find a character pulling herself up from a failed relationship to find her strength and move forward. It could be the rhythm of a good beat, the flow of violins, the whine of an electric guitar or vivid lyrics, all of these help the churning chaos that is my mind focus and find things. 

As far as actually writing to music things are slightly different. I have seen interviews where author's have said they can't have any sound at all, others have said no music is allowed while they write, and some enjoy music only if it has no lyrics. I myself love to have music playing while I write, with some exceptions. If the song's front focus is lyrics, like many rap and hip hop songs are, I tend to focus too heavily on what they are saying and it pulls me from what I'm trying to say. Most of the time I find a playlist of stuff I put together before hand and play it at low volume letting it fade to the back of my mind. This is something that works for me, it helps me focus and when my mind starts to wander, the music can help me stay in a creative mood. Anyway I hope some of you aspiring writers give it a shot, it isn't for everyone, but for those of us that it works it is a great writing tool.