by Addy Farmer
This is my starter/root/anchor song for a story about a terrible Summer holiday. I put it on loop and I'm into the sad-summer-takemehomenow-groove. It's also, extremely catchy ... BEWARE.
Some people like to write in company, some people like to write in the deep silence of an empty house. Others find that writing in a cafe with somebody serving coffee and cake is tremendously helpful (sounds like madness to me, hem-hem).
Whilst some people like to write to music. Sometimes you can find that song that encapsulates everything you want to say about your story and if you do then you're lucky because that's like finding your voice and it's shortcut back into the groove. More often than not I have to play stuff which reflects the theme of my wip and leave the specific songs to individual scenes. For a general creative lift I might listen to Classic FM or i-player radio 3 . There I can find a shipload of classical toons which help my mood but don't interrupt my tiny brain thoughts.
ALSO, why not try free music streaming from somewhere like Grooveshark. .Here you can make your own collection of music, even play your own radio station. Choose your genre to fit your work - indie, 60s, 70s, rock, R and B etc etc - and let the music waft over you.
So, what great scenes will you write about? How about LOVE for one. Take this - your teen protagonist goes out on a 1940s themed evening and meets The One.
Oh but then it all goes hideously wrong cos your girl has fallen in love with The Wrong One
So she breaks up :(
But then it's unicorns and meadows again 'cos she's met The Right One and life is sweet. It's like Stevie says, As Long as I Know I have Love I can Make it. Quite right too.
What else?
Well, let's take a fight/battle scene. Try this ...
Friendship ...
Being silly...
Existential crisis ...
Okay, maybe I should stop because things are getting a bit personal. You get the idea anyway. If you want to get serious(er) then there was an interesting discussion sometime ago on Goodreads about this and Teaching Authors blogged some useful ideas.
There must be a few more writers who have opinions about music and writing, silly or otherwise. I promise that the team won't laugh/make assumptions about you, if you spill the beans on your music choices. Go on...
