Every author has his or her own style when it comes to writing but a notable size of authors write while listening to music. Some authors choose to have the radio on in the background, whereas other choose to put their playlist on random. Quite a few even build a specific playlist for each book that they write. If you look up some of your favorite authors, they tend to post their playlists on their blogs. I personally fall into the last category where I select a choice few songs to listen to over and over while I write.
What I find odd with myself is that I like to read in total silence. My wife reads with music or TV on in the background, but me, I like to focus and concentrate on whatever I’m reading. Actually, I think its more that reading for me is not a creative process, and it strains my brain to try to digest the other stimulus as well as the emotions/thoughts I have from reading. For me, writing and reading are two very different processes.
I’ve also noticed that the playlists for many authors (at least the ones who actually complete books) tend to be short (no longer than 30 minutes long). For me, it has been very similar, and the size of the playlist has no bearing on the size of the text I’m writing.
In college, I did quite a bit of writing, ranging from 500 word short stories to 35,000 word novellas. In all cases, my playlist consisted of around six or seven songs. The only exception to that was when I put on a techno/trance song that was one-hour seventeen minutes long - which I listened to on repeat about 10 times to finish something I wrote. The music that drove my writing varied from techno to classical to industrial to Japanese pop.
How does music effect your reading? Do you listen to music when you read or write? Can you guess what music an author may have been listening to?
-Nick
I’m one of those that if there’s not some kind of background noise like a radio playing or one of my play lists going I get easily distracted whether its reading or writing. I have a pretty good sized play list too. But its broken down into folders usually with songs that stir something similar in me. That way if I need a different mindset then what I have I can just switch folders and the words seem to flow easier. I also tend to end up with what come off as theme songs for important characters.