Music Marks My Days
By Faith | January 24, 2012
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?
5 Comments
Liz
Twitter: ElizabethBarone
on January 25, 2012 at 7:46 am.
I almost always listen to music when I write. If I’m not listening to music, I feel weird (and get more easily distracted). I have several go-to artists and musicians for writing: Silversun Pickups, Colbie Caillat, Florence + the Machine, Nine Inch Nails (especially the Ghosts album; Trent Reznor is such an amazing composer)… I could go on. I’ve also been writing to a lot of The Dead Weather (Jack White band) lately. Music is my crack, but it just seems fitting, making art while listening to art.
On a totally different note… You switched blogs! I’ve kind of been thinking of starting a second blog (and then I remind myself of the fact that I’d have to keep up with two).
Faith
Twitter: faithmckay
on January 30, 2012 at 12:44 pm.
I listen to Florence when I write a LOT.
And yep, I did. The short explanation is that I’m moody, haha.
If you had another one that would be even less time for the all important writing!
Kristina
Twitter: kilikina719
on January 27, 2012 at 8:00 am.
First of all, I love your blog!
Second.. I wish I was more routine-oriented in general. I think I would accomplish more that way.
For me, when I write, I tend to get distracted by songs with lyrics so I have a HUGE playlist on spotify of various instrumental songs that help me focus.
Faith
Twitter: faithmckay
on January 30, 2012 at 12:43 pm.
I can get really suffocated if I try to stick to routines too tightly, so I always make sure that any routine I have is loose and not something I HAVE to stick to.
That makes sense! I love a lot of the Vitamin String Quartet and Explosions in the Sky and Penguin Cafe Orchestra, especially Perpetuum Mobile. What do you like?
I use spotify, too! I have Writing playlists for different stories
Spring on January 27, 2012 at 3:48 pm.
I pretty much listen to Evanescence’s Anywhere But Home album on repeat when I’m at work. But that’s pretty much because it’s my most recent purchase. I’m cheap; I buy, like, two or three CDs a year, so I make sure I get some use out of them before buying a new one! lol.