Silence?
To music?
To some other form of background noise?
At first I had to have silence--or at least only the background noise of my family playing and chatting and sometimes arguing--often laughing. Then, I moved on to music. I wrote to movie soundtracks. Anything by James Horner. That man stirs my soul. Seriously. A writer should be embarrassed to write such possibly trite words, but those words are absolutely true. I put on the soundtrack to Glory whenever I want to believe I can be better than I am.
I also loved the Out of Africa and Green Card soundtracks. In fact, I just added the Green Card tracks to my writing playlist. (Back to that in a moment.)
From soundtracks, I moved on to the news channels on TV. I needed voices, but I am a multitasker. If I hear conversation I haven't heard before I have to pay attention while I write. So, I went for movies I've seen a billion times. The comfort of both voices and the familiar.
Inevitably, that kind of wore out, too. :-) Lately, I'm running on a mixture of all my favorite sounds. Depending upon mood, I put in a well-watched DVD or I turn on a rerun on the History Channel (who can live without the History Channel?) Or I glom on to the iPod.
I noticed my iTunes writing playlist is growing lately. I went through a Phil Collins period. His voice just really works for me, and I love the 80s music of my youth! :-)
Anyway, I don't seem to be looking for a mood or a tone these days. The playlist includes Billie Holiday, Simon and Garfunkle, Kanye West, Ne-Yo, the Eagles, Don Henley (by himself), Sting, the Police, Duffy, Rascal Flatts, Keith Urban, Toto, John Mayer--and I recently had to move Chris Brown off. Marvin Gaye is always on there, as are Louis Prima and ohhhhh, Nat King Cole! But I've added the most beautiful piece of music, ever. Meditation on Thais by Massenet. I can't listen to it very often, because I cannot pay attention to anything else when I'm hearing it.
Isn't it amazing how some pieces of music feel as if they were written just to make you feel?
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Whenever I need a good essay topic, I go out in city, look around and listen to the different sound and noises of the outside world. Trust me, it works because soon enough, I will have a topic and ideas will begin to flow. When it comes to actual writing, I need to listen to different sounds depending on the custom essay I am writing about. Most of the time, I can write when I hear pop music or when I Sesame Street is on tv.
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