Hello Loves and welcome to another Inside The Nation blog post. Today I have a question for you. How many of you listen to music while you write? If you do, are you using it to block out the outside noise or is it motivation? Is music a muse for you or is it a way to get your brain going in order to write the perfect paragraph? I have asked a few authors this same question and each of them gave me a different answer.
Omega, my VP and the author of 'Yours Truly', uses music as a tool. It has literally become as important and as necessary to her writing process as her laptop. Depending on the character, her music will range from folk to classical and everything in between. It amazes me how engulfed she gets in her writing when her music is blasting through her earbuds.
Nefertiti, another Red Ink member and the author of 'The Curse', also listens to music while she writes. She uses music more to set a mood than as a tool. If she is writing a fight scene she will go to a more aggressive type of music than she would if writing a love scene. Sometimes she will forgo music altogether and simply write.
As far as for me, I am somewhere in between. Omega makes me a playlist for every book I write. We will go over what the book is about, who the characters are, things like that and she will put together the music she thinks I'll like to go with my project (she is usually right). I will go to my playlist more times than not, but if I don't have it I don't feel as if I'm stuck or like I can't write without it.
I have read that music inspires authors and enhance the mood of a writer, but I know there are exceptions to every rule. So... What say you? Do you need music as badly as you need your computer to write? Are you the type of author that can take it or leave it? Or do you need complete silence in order to create your masterpiece? I am curious to know how listening to music helps/hurts your creative process. Feel free to leave a comment below.
I hope this helped and as always, I wish you Happy Reading!