When is the world silent? Never. Hopefully. My writing world is full of distracting noise; birdsong mostly, calling me outside. It is a shame to blot it out, but I do if I am to get anything done.
How do I do that? With music; my iTunes Writing Playlist. (100 tracks, 7.7 hours of music - I rarely get beyond 2.5 hours, the length of a typical writing session.)
The music serves two purposes. The first one I have already mentioned. The second is the most important. The music provides me with continuity. Like in a film it adds atmosphere and links the scenes and silences. It is a signal that tells me it is time to start work. The familiar playlist is the continuity I need for writing the story; it links one day with the next. Throughout the course of the novel I never change it.
But the music must never have words. It tends to be someone playing the piano, occasionally accompanied by an orchestra. The volume is set to the level of a secondhand bookshop with a Mozart string quartet in the background; it is like mites of dust in a shaft of sunlight. Greenery beyond.
It works for me.
Playlist: click here.
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