Does music help you write, or do you find that it gets in the way of writing?
I’ve spoken to authors who need complete silence to write, some who want
instrumental music only, and others who have full-blown playlists.
I’m in that third group. I like to have music in the background while I’m
writing. Several studies have recently shown that this is a hindrance to
writing. They found that music causes you to switch your attention back and
forth, and multitasking slows down your ability to process creatively.
But then again, plenty of successful authors write with music playing.
Stephen King listens to Metallica when he writes, Gabriel García Márquez wore
out his Beatles records while penning “One Hundred Years of Solitude,”
and Colson Whitehead (author of “The Underground Railroad”) has a
playlist of 2,000 songs he writes to.
So, are there any positive effects to writing while listening to music? I like to think so.
Music brings back memories. Listening to music lights up the brain’s visual cortex. This means you’ll start associating songs with memories and images almost immediately. So many times, I’ve heard a song on the radio and found myself transported to another place and time. I can literally feel everything that I felt back then. I find this helpful when writing certain scenes.
Studies have also shown that music changes your mood. A McGill University study showed that when subjects listened to music, the same areas of the brain lit up as those when humans experience highly pleasurable things like sex, eating sugary foods, and doing drugs.
What’s that saying about sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll? 😉
In short, writing is not all about productivity. Music opens up feelings. Certain songs help stir up emotions which is typically when inspiration arises for me.
I recently spoke to an author who listens to one song, and one song only, the entire time she writes a book. She told me after a while it becomes white noise, which makes sense. Another study (On Repeat: How Music Plays with the Mind) found that listening to a song repeatedly actually makes you more focused and leaves you distraction-free.
I wrote a majority of my first draft for Enemies of Doves on various park benches in my hometown when I was a stay-at-home mom to a toddler. So, it was never quiet. I also had a few late-night sessions at my kitchen table, especially when I was editing. I mostly listened to ’90s country on Pandora since half of the book was set in 1991. Those songs took me back to my own summers in Carthage, Texas and helped bring emotion and memories into my writing.
When I got stuck on some of the ’40s scenes, I usually turned to Billie Holliday. That’s how “I’ll Be Seeing You” ended up as the song Lorraine and Joel shared a dance to.
I made a playlist after the book was over for a blog tour I was on. I included a few ’40s hits, the ’90s songs that I remembered giving me the greatest inspiration while I wrote, and a few extras that had special meaning too.
Cam’s song “Burning House” was not ’90s country at all, but the first time I heard it was right after I started the book, and it made me think of Lorraine and the helplessness she felt trying to help Clancy after the war.
Spoiler Alert. If you haven’t read Enemies of Doves skip the next paragraph.
Another important song for Enemies of Doves was “Let it Go” by James Bay. I really struggled writing the final scene where Lorraine visits Clancy in prison. That scene had been building in the back of my mind since I wrote the first words of the story, but I got stuck when it came time to actually write it. I was getting tired of the ’90s country, so I switched to a different Pandora station, one with modern hits. The first song that came on was “Let it Go” by James Bay, and it just felt so perfect. A song about two people who love each other, but know their relationship can’t work. Hearing it unleashed the words inside me.
I listened to that single song on repeat for that entire chapter, and every time I edited it. When I was writing about Lorraine getting that final letter from Clancy the night she and Joel left town, the lyric, “Let the ashes fall, forget about me,” came on, and I couldn’t stop crying. I, to this day, still tear up when I hear that song.
For A River of Crows, it was a well-timed Keith Whitley song coming on the radio just as I drove by a creek in Texas that inspired the entire idea. He’s never been my favorite artist, it wasn’t my favorite song of his, but for some reason, it birthed an idea that wouldn’t let go. So, as you can imagine, Keith’s music filled much of my playlist for book two and inspired some of the plot as well. I was listening to my Spotify playlist for my new book last week, and I guess I burned through to all the songs, so Spotify started playing suggestions. One of them was a Keith Whitley song, and I instantly stopped writing because my brain was trying to take me back to A River of Crows and those characters. It was bizarre honestly. I felt like a writer’s version of Pavlov’s dog.
For A River of Crow’s playlist, I added some ’80s country and pop songs along with a few 2008 hits (the year half of the story takes place in). I also included many angry revenge songs. If JT was crying a river, Alanis was screaming her anthem of post break up rage, or Carrie Underwood was keying someone’s car, I was there for all of it.
Like Enemies of Doves, there were a few random songs that brought inspiration for one reason or another including Eric Church, who is one of my favorite singer/songwriters. His song “Hell of a View” came out, and since I had a character who was an artist and one who was a musician, the lyric, “I paint with my old Gibson, you paint your purple sky,” just felt so right. I so associated that song and lyric with the book that I almost ended up with a cover for the book that had a purple sky…almost. (It ended up being my 2nd runner-up, but that’s a blog for way down the road).
Also, like Enemies of Doves, I really struggled writing the ending of A River of Crows. I just wasn’t quite sure what to do with the last scene. I spent two weeks trying to figure it out. Believe it or not, I decided to put on the same song that helped me write the ending of Enemies of Doves, “Let It Go” by James Bay. And a lyric in the song actually gave me the spark of an idea for the final scene. I’m not a superstitious person, but listening to that song may become a tradition when writing the last chapter of all my books.
I’m currently writing my first draft for book three, The Bone Nest, and so far, my playlist is full of lots of ’80s pop hits, but a few others with special meaning to the book are making their way onto the list as well. It will evolve as I write and become even longer.
Now, if I had to pick one song for each book, it would be Cam’s “Burning House” for Enemies of Doves, Keith Whitley’s “I’m Over You” for A River of Crows and “Summer of ’69” by Bryan Adams for The Bone Nest.
Fellow writers, I’d love to hear what (if anything) you listen to when you write and what song(s) you associate with your books.
Shanessa Gluhm 