Music or quiet when you write?

[RobinKaye]

I have a soundtrack for each book I write. Lately I'm listening to a lot of Dashboard Confessional, Nitzer Ebb, Sharon Little, Saosin & Sick Puppies. I always write with music when I'm not writing at Starbucks--I think it keeps one side of my brain occupied while the other is busy creating. In my office I have iTunes on one screen and my WIP on the other. Iron and Wine is a favorite, but was part of a soundtrack about three books ago. My last series took place in Brooklyn, I had a New York soundtrack that had everything from Kirsty MacColl and Death Cab for Cutie to Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra and Madeleine Peyroux with Landon Pigg and Avi Vinocur thrown in for good measure. My kids can't wait for me to start my next book, they love my soundtracks.

[rgouldtx]

I personally listen to streaming Jazz when I write. I keep the volume low so it doesn't distract, but I feel it helps me focus on my writing because the EDITOR is distracted and I can get into the flow.

[lyndoncr]

I need absolute quiet for most things, including reading. Watching films and TV shows I get particularly antsy about anyone making noise or light around me.

That said for a recent project there was a particular song I listened to on loop while I was in the ideas stage, I find it helps then. The nitty gritty writing stuff though, that's all silence.

[JULIEMAC]

Music can inspire me to go and start writing, by transporting me to my anything's possible/mind travel/creative zone. HOWEVER, once I start typing I have to turn it off because I get lost in the world of sound and it won't let me loose into the world of words. Wish it would, because writing can be quite a lonely business. my only accessories are my wads of resources and notes, and a plastic container of fruit gums and fruit salads, the old fashioned kind we all had as kids. Consequently I'm getting a sore tongue and putting on weight. Oh there's one other accessory I'm grateful for: a stunning view of the ocean from my writing table, I've waited a long time for that and it truly can inspire.

[Steppe]

When I'm actually writing I surf six channels.
Classical
Alternative
Classic Rock
Classic Rock
Talk Radio
Easy Listening (taken over by xmas tunes for the duration.)


For longterm motivation
I compose soundtracks as if the book is already a movie to keep me in touch with the cold sterile skeletons of outlines written in those bursts of enthusiasm
that slowly dissipate and need to have their fires banked and propped and then stoked back up to full blown mega weirdness originality as raging firestorms..


http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p ... D23D7694AD
Book-1&2 Finished Gist = Veni, Vidi, Vici. "I came I saw I conquered."

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p ... 527AF80A93
Book-3&4 2ND Draft Gist = Novus ordo seclorum personalized as "To thine own self be true."