The Music That Makes Me Write

I ❤ Music by Dia

As writers we have our lucky pen. And our trusty laptop. And our favorite writing programs. We have our routines, our favorite writing spots, our “bibles”, our quirks and our writing buddies. I am no different. The pen I use changes, depending on what mood I’m in. Some days I can get a ton of writing done at home and some days I can hardly get two words out. I have a three ring binder that I carry with me wherever I go, even if I know I won’t need it, because it has all of my Mind Games stuff in it and I can’t bear to not have it on me (because, the one time I leave is the time I’ll need it). But my most important tool? The one that affects my writing the most? That one never changes.

My music.

Give me my music and I can turn almost anywhere into a writing spot. I can write in the middle of a lunch rush at Chick-Fil-A, with a packed lobby and a gaggle of high-pitched little girls two tables over. Music is one of the most important parts of my writing process. Can I write without it? Yes. Will I like it? Heck no. And it’s not just because I am a music major and have constant need for some form of music to be playing.

Music helps me write a better story.

Now of course, it does often help me to write faster (once I resist the urge to sing). I don’t have a specific writing CD as some do. What I listen to can change from day to day. Right now, country is the music of choice. Tomorrow, it might the Star Wars soundtrack or a Broadway Musical. Or,  it might be a collection of songs that I picked because they sync with my WIP in some way (Yes, I have a Mind Games playlist).

One of the things that music affects the most is the development and the relationships of my characters. For example, if I’m writing from Annette’s point of view, I might listen to Trouble by P!nk or As She Cries by La Rue. For David, I might choose Build Me a Wall from Shrek the Musical or Hero by Bethany Dillon. My friends can testify that I’ve been listening to my iPod in the car or at home and gone, “This is such a/an [character’s name] song.” I eat us any song that fits with a characters journey or relationship with another character. I have (or had, it’s gone apparently) a playlist that was dedicated to the relationship between Annette and David (my two mains in case you hadn’t guessed) which includes Accidentally in Love, both versions of You Found Me, some Disney,  and Haunted and several other songs by Taylor Swift.

In addition to inspiring my work with the characters, music is also extremely helpful in setting the mood when you’re working on a specific section. Creepy beginning? Then I listen to Fog Bound from POTC. Am I trying to get the writing fires revved and type a storm? Then I skip to the section of the list with the Kelly Clarkson songs. This may seem extreme to some, but when I was developing the playlist for Mind Games, I actually sat with my outline and arranged the songs so that they fit the mood of certain chapters. Doesn’t mean that I always stick to that, but it helps when I’m trying to get into the scene.

And who knows, the music you’re listening to might cause you to realize something about a character or discover a plot twist that you didn’t know was there before. Example? Oh boy, do I have one. Picture this: I’ve finished getting the outline for Mind Games down. It’s typed, I’ve divided it into tentative chapters, I’ve started picking songs that match them. And then I go jogging and Speak Now comes on. BAM! I realized that my book was missing a whole four chapters in which the heroine actually agrees to marry the big bad evil dude. What?! Needless to say, David’s not happy. It didn’t affect much of the beginning of the story, but it did completely change the ending of the book. Okay, not really, but it threw quite a loop in the road that got me there.

So what’s your relationship with music and writing? Can you live without it? Is it a necessary part? Or do you just use it when the mood hits you?

Keeping Me Honest–NaNoWriMo 2011

So, I figured that there is no better accountability partner than the internet. I’m trusting all of my friends online to keep me honest about my word count…and nag me if I start to slack. Yes, I’m giving you permission to heckle me.

Nov 1- 1866

Nov 2- 1020

Nov 3- 581

Nov 4- 2,008

Nov 5- 2,578

Nov 6- 0

Nov 7- 0

Nov 8- 266

Nov 9- 1322

Nov 10- 0

Nov 11- 0

Nov 12- 1223

Nov 13- 0

Nov 14- 927

Nov 15- 3,39

Nov 16- 4246

Nov 17- 851

Nov 18- 1,789

Nov 19- 0

Nov 20- 225

Nov 21- 517

Nov 22- 2,430

Nov 23- 1,099

Nov 24- 4,336

Nov 25- 1,035

Total: 31, 681

% Finished: 63%

That Little Lightbulb–Or I take a look at the writer’s true muse

“ Well, the first thing you should have is an idea and then… Well, first you need something to write with. They… they know that. Well, obviously you need a writing instrument and you need an idea. I’m just not sure which should come first.” –Dr. Temperance “Bones” Brennan in The Woman in the Car 1.11

Warhol's Lightbulbs by zetson

Are there any Bones fans out there?

Oh, wow, yes I see you all. Remember this hilarious interview from the first season? I do. As a writer myself, I love it any time they work in details about Bones’ writing career. Moments like this make me giggle.

Though, I think if she went about it scientifically, she’d find that the idea usually comes before you even pick up the pen. The idea is, in fact, the reason that a writer starts writing.

You hear a lot about writers and their muses. This is it. The idea is the muse. The idea is the thing that gets us up in the middle of the night when we have a 6 a.m. shift and makes us turn the laptop back on. The idea is the thing that makes us laugh and cry and tear our hair out when we can’t quite figure out a certain part of it. Ideas don’t always come when it’s convenient and hardly ever when we have a pen or a piece of paper handy (often they like to come when you have one, but not the other). We learn to carry notebooks with us and enough pens to supply a small classroom, because, when that idea comes you don’t want to lose it. (Any fledgling writer’s out there, learn now. Go get a small notebook and a pack of pens and keep them with you at all times.)

And ideas aren’t that hard to come by. We are inundated by them (which is sometimes a problem). What’s the saying… “There’s nothing new under the sun”? It’s true. Original doesn’t necessarily mean brand spanking never-seen-the-light-of-day new, but it does mean that you’re looking at something in a new way. Think about all the retellings of Cinderella that there are out there:

• Ella Enchanted
• Just Ella
• Ever After
• A Cinderella Story
• Before Midnight
• Princess of Glass
• Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister

Those are just the ones that I could name off the top of my head. I know that there are oodles missing from that list. Each one of them tackles the “original” story in a different way. They play with characters, relationships and even the very plot.

This is one of the reasons that reading books is so very important. Reading provides constant exposure to other ideas. Ideas outside of our own experience and exposure. And you never know where a story idea is going to come from. You can find them in books, movies, music, dreams and life experiences just to start. Don’t believe me? I can give you a few examples.

My first “novel” (which is unfinished because I lack the skill to rewrite it into what I want it to be) was inspired by Lord of the Rings. Not the movies, but the books. I mean, the movies are awesome, but it wasn’t until I read the actual books that I realized that I wanted to be a part of that world. TROA (Still working on an actual title) started out as a LOTR fanfic and evolved from there (more about that later).

There’s also Shattered, my own Cinderella retelling (as a lover of fairy tales, I felt that I had to  add to the list at some point) which was inspired by a movie. That one came to me one day while I was watching Ella Enchanted with friends. It struck me that it might be kind of fun to write my own reinvention, but the kind of character that I envisioned wouldn’t be one to just sit idly by and let her stepmother bully her. So I started wondering: “Apart from horrible curses, how could I get Cindy to act so out of character and make it credible?” And then the answer came to me. Of course, that is still highly top secret. You’ll read about it someday.

And then there is my current WIP, Mind Games. My baby. The book that keeps trying to grow up too fast. This one is a hodge-podge of ideas and inspirations ranging from manga to previous story ideas.The first actual scene I wrote was inspired by a dream (which was the product of an Alias marathon and a Kelly Clarkson song). The idea was in my brain brewing, but I didn’t know the characters or anything about them. My dream didn’t lay out the whole book, it was only the one scene, but that was enough for me to sink my teeth into the idea and really start to develop it. Of course, that scene has since been cut. Sad, I know. But the story moved away from that plotline and into something better.

And that’s my final bit of advice. Don’t get too attached to your ideas. They’re going to grow, they’re going to evolve. So often ideas start out as a question, that becomes more questions with each answer you discover and the idea becomes more than you ever imagined. Remember that first story, TROA? That’s actually an acronym for the original title, The Ring of Alythya. That story started from a simple question (I am bearing my former sixteen-year-old soul in telling you this): What would happen if there was someone who was born to face down Sauron? That little bit of fanfiction eventually ceased to grab my interest (I think that character could win some serious Mary Sue prizage), but the idea was still there and some of the scenes I’d come up with were kind of decent. TROA started as a LOTR rip-off that was truly cringe-worthy, but with each successive edit/rewrite I discovered that even though the characters (and I) thought it was about a ring, in the end it wasn’t about the ring at all. It was about making the main character into someone who step into the role she was being prepared for. (Or course, it still is kind of Lord of the Rings-y, but now it’s more because they share the same genre.) I had to let go of a lot of my first ideas somewhere around draft four or five (And I’m going to have to let go of more when I’m ready to pick it back up again). It wasn’t pretty. It hurt. And turns out, it was better without all that gunk. Writers are like parents, we give that idea years of our lives, nurturing and growing it and then we have to let it go make its way in the world. We have two choices: We can let the idea change as the years pass, allowing the story to be its own person. Or we could be that psycho parent that forces their kid to wear children’s clothes and locks them in a closet. You know, the scary one that has to appear in at least one episode of every crime show? (Mrs. Epps anyone?)