All the great writers have playlists.
That's not true actually. But all my favorite writers, all the writers who have huge fan bases that ask a ton of questions of them, all the writers I have really investigated (which in fairness, is not a lot) have playlists for their stories.
Now I am over here wondering what they use those playlists for. Because if they use them for writing, props to them. A ton of them have songs with words in them in their playlist. I cannot write to a song with words in it unless I am really, really sure where I am going with the chapter. Unless I am really in the mood for the chapter. Unless the song really floats with the mood of the chapter and with me. And unless I somehow am able to drown out the words of the song as I type and not accidentally keep typing the words of the song instead of the words of the chapter.
Such an occurrence only happens once in a blue moon.
Which I am sure you can guess, it not very often.
But maybe they intend for the songs to be for readers. Maybe they want readers to listen to the songs as they read which, honestly, is not much better than writing for me. I have been writing and reading most of my life. I like to think that I am pretty good at doing both things. But when it comes down to doing either with music with words in the background, I start to flounder. I struggle to focus on my words not the words on the song. It is particularly bad if I know the song. Which, if it is on a playlist I use consistently, I probably do.
So I didn't quite understand the use of playlists for my books until one day, sitting around bored, I decided to make one.
I chose instrumental songs, of course, so as not to distract from the writing I was doing, but nevertheless, I chose some songs.
The hardest part, honestly, was trying to figure out how to find instrumental songs on Spotify. I had never really listened to instrumental songs before and I didn't really know what I was looking for specifically so I struggled. I really struggled. I couldn't just plug in "Title of Song-Instrumental" because I didn't know what the title of the song I was looking for was. I had to google playlists of instrumental songs and go from there.
But once I started gathering songs, I got really excited about it.
And then I found it. The song. The perfect song to fit the majority of the scenes that I was going to need to write.
"Bad Guy" by the Vitamin String Quartet.
The upbeat song made me laugh and dance and made me think of the fun fights between Harmony Gold and Chase Charming that I got to write. I listened to it often as I wrote the scenes.
I found many songs after that which I enjoyed and which I was able to use to inspire me as I wrote many of my scenes. If you scroll down on my home page, you can see many of them. You can also find the suggestion box to suggest your own favorite writing songs that you think might help me find inspiration as I write and edit in the coming weeks.
But mostly I found the real reason for playlists. Or at least what would be my reason for the remainder of writing the present timeline.
My playlist and the songs on it. Whether they were upbeat, slow, sad, or funny, helped me to get in the mood and be inspired the entire length of the time that I was writing the chapter. I used to listen to rain sounds as I wrote but I will never go back. Rain sounds will never inspire me the same way that my playlists will. I won't go back.
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