Every morning I sit up, pull my laptop over onto the bed, adjust my eyes to the bright white of a blank page, and then pull on my headphones. When I text my little sister later in the day she asks what my music of the day is and tells me hers. (in case you’re wondering, today is Queen and The Cure).
If I can’t pick the right music for my mood, I have a very hard time moving to actually working and filling up that blank page. My thoughts become disjointed, my body tense, and each word if a hard struggle.
But with the right sounds? It’s like my body falls into tune. My mind and shoulders relax, outside my headphones is the fast tip, tap, tip tap of the keys, but I don’t even notice the soothing sound. It feels like I’ve hit the right frequency to let me slide into another world, and I’m gone. The wrong song comes on, I snap out, hit the skip button, and slide right back in.
There are certainly days that don’t work like this, but they mostly go down as the days I couldn’t find a single agreeable song. In contrast, there have definitely been those days where I’ve listened to just one song loudly on repeat for hours on end to reach the conclusion of a story it inspired.
Music is more than just my inspiration, or even my motivation, it’s part of my writing routine. Though my words are hopefully always changing, my routine changes little, and when it does, my relationship with music always stays the same. The music I listen to helps mark my days.
Do you have a music routine, some other routine that helps you work, or are you one of those people that avoids routines?
Well, it seemed like a really brilliant idea at the time, I promise you. Climb palm tree. Wait for brains to go by. Jump out. BRAINS! Simple, really. But there was an unknown factor that came to play straight away: palm trees are tricky. From a distance you would never realize, but as you can hopefully see in this picture, they are pokey.
But Pieces persevered and got to the top, and waited. And waited. And then when it finally happened and a brain walked by and he went to make his daring jump for the prize-he was stuck. He was skewered. It took a good ten minutes to get his young body free and by then the brains had long gone by.
Like I said. Palm trees are tricky.
When I decided to look at what I’ve read over the past month I was surprised to see how long the list actually got. I’ve never been great at keeping track of time or how much I read. This year I’ve resolved to keep track of everything I read in 2012! I’ve got a 2012 shelf on goodreads set up so hopefully I’ll be keeping track of things. Anyhow, some of the greatness I’ve read lately includes…
Breaking Twig. This is my first official book of 2012. It’s a story about growing up in the worst circumstances. It’s not the books events that have really stayed with me, though there’s always something happening, it’s the characters that made me really appreciate the book. They’re real, they’re interesting, they grow, and when the book was over I wanted to reach in and give them a hug for all we’ve been through together.
I think this book is only available in ebook formats, but if you’re good with that I recommend it.
Everyone Gets Scared Sometimes. I love reading short stories. Daily Science Fiction has a ton of great flash fiction that you can read if you think you just don’t have time to read. Some are better than others, and this is one that really stood out for me lately. Zombie apocalypse, post traumatic stress…. brilliant.
Looking For Alaska. I know that everyone is reading The Fault in Our Stars right now, but this is my first John Green experience. I’d seen a lot of people in love with this book, and now I know why. This book was laugh out loud funny. It’s one of those great gems that made me both laugh and cry, and another book with real characters I just wanted to hug. I feel like everyone should read this book.
Obviously, I need to read more John Green, and will really be doing this soon. Promise.
So, what have you read lately?
Meet Pieces. It wasn’t that long ago that his life began in the labs at think geek, but since then his adventures have taken him far for such a young zombie. While trying to keep his parts together, he is currently exploring the Sonoran Desert in his unending quest for brains.
Tune in on Fridays for his dangerous exploits with cactus, playgrounds, and the dangers of youth.
It all started when Buffy graduated high school. I’d seen enough sitcoms (Boy Meets World, Saved by the Bell) to know that when they leave high school and head off to college they’re about to ruin my damned show. It really broke my heart to see it happen to Buffy, especially after we’d just had such an amazing ending to Season 3, but alas, I knew it was true. We were going to college. Angel was leaving. A spinoff show? Yeah, ’cause THAT always goes well…. Farewell, sweet show, I loved you so.
And while I know a lot of people rag on Season 4, I really liked it. There are some low points, but there are some amazing ones, too. How can you be mean to a season that has Hush, Something Blue, and my favorite Halloween episode, ever?
And Angel! Oh, Angel! You’re not bad at all. You make me weep like a baby, but I can work with that.
So, okay, Joss. I’m still with you, after all. Oh, Season 5 Buffy is mysteriously getting a little sister? Why do you do this to me. You’re ruining my show!
Oh…okay…this is interesting…..
A MUSICAL?! WHAT THE?! … oh my god, it’s the best thing, ever….
And you’d think I’d have learned, after going through all of that, but I didn’t. And when I was at my weekly Joss meet up group and someone brought up that there was a new Joss show, I got excited—until they said “scifi western”. It filled me with dread. It got canceled after thirteen episodes? Well, of course it did, my god. If it weren’t for the peer pressure of a bunch of geeks wanting to watch it RIGHT THEN, I never would have given it a chance at all.
Oh. My. God. Firefly… Okay, I see the error of my ways now, Lord.
I went home that day with an important lesson that has stayed with me and given me an important motto. In Joss We Trust. We never question the Joss until after we experience the phenomena, to avoid feeling embarrassed about our ridiculous lack of faith later. So now when I hear something like he has a new film coming out in April and someone starts trying to tell me what it’s about I stop them. “No, no, that’s okay, I don’t need to know what it’s about. I have the faith.”
Follow Faith On….