Write Every Day: 05 November 02019

[silveradept]

Greetings! This is the Write Every Day Check-In Post for 5 November 02019.

I've been doing a lot of listening to music while composing things. At least, where I can - it's hard to do at work, because work is a place that values each person being able to choose what soundtrack they would like for their lives. At home, there's only so much background noise that the people living here can take before they have to have it quiet as well. Thus, headphones are my friends, especially when I want to sink into composition. Or marathon gaming sessions. Both of these things are possible. Depending on which day it is, only one of them might get done, but they're both always possible.

So, here's my question for you. Are you a music (or background noise) while composing person? If so, what's your go-to material? If not, is there something else that you really would like to have when you sit down to write? Let me know about it in the comments.

Today, in writing, I made significant progress on an assignment, having decided on a general shape of things. I have no idea how far it's going to go, or where it's going to end up, but I've at least got a first scene to work with, and that will be enough to keep things going until we reach the end of a scene. Or a work. Could be either. We'll see what happens, yeah?

Here's the tally so far:

Day One: alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, azurelunatic, bladespark, carenejeans, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, lferion, ofmonstrouswords, sanguinity, silveradept, st_aurafina, sylvanwitch, umadoshi, yasaman, ysilme

Day Two: alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, azurelunatic, bladespark, carenejeans, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, lferion, ofmonstrouswords, redsixwing, sakana17, sanguinity, silveradept, st_aurafina, sylvanwitch, teigh_corvus, umadoshi, yasaman, ysilme

Day Three: alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, azurelunatic, bladespark, carenejeans, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, lferion, redsixwing, sakana17, sanguinity, sierranovembr, silveradept, st_aurafina, sylvanwitch, umadoshi, yasaman, ysilme

Day Four: alexcat, alexseanchai, azurelunatic, bladespark, carenejeans, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, lferion, nafs, redsixwing, sanguinity, sierranovembr, silveradept, sylvanwitch, umadoshi, yasaman, ysilme

Day Five: alexcat, alexseanchai, auroracloud, azurelunatic, bladespark, carenejeans, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, lferion, sanguinity, silveradept, sylvanwitch, umadoshi, yasaman, ysilme

Comments

[sanguinity]

Nov. 5: wrote.

Background noise. ymmv, but me trying to match a playlist to the mood of whatever I'm writing is just another way to not get any writing done.

[silveradept]

That is certainly a possible problem. Sometimes autoplay is your friend, and sometimes I queue up an album that I want to go through while I write.

[alexseanchai]

couple sentences.

sometimes music helps with writing, sometimes not?

[silveradept]

Yay, words.

Sometimes is a perfectly good answer.

[chanter1944]

525 words so far, and ooh, it's angsty in the way that only a little kidlet's point of view on a difficult event can be. Ow. ... Not Adrien, contrary to the icon. Mylène.

[silveradept]

Interesting. Mylène doesn't get a lot of screen time, so hopefully the work turns out well.

[chanter1944]

Fingers crossed! She deserves a story too, and so she gets.

[cornerofmadness]

Absolutely write with music for me. I often make soundtracks for my stories though this nano is resistant to that.

Managed a little of 4K today so whoo hoo.

[silveradept]

w00t! 4k is both a nice resolution and a good wordcount. Well done!

[cornerofmadness]

thanks

[lferion]

Day 5 -- 282 words, including some notes on Lamps/Hostages, and an HLH drabble that I hope will be a seed for the story itself.

[silveradept]

Good things in both directions.

[china_shop]

Are you a music (or background noise) while composing person?

Nooooo, I need quiet. I mean, a little ambient computer hum or bird noise is fine, and I'm more forgiving of background noise in a cafe or other public space, obviously, but generally music (especially music with words) or talking makes it really hard for me to focus. If I have to listen to something (to drown out other people's conversations, for example, or if I need to give my ears something to focus on), I usually default to Dirty Three, who do atonal soundscapey stuff. It's great because my brain doesn't get hooked into anticipating what will come next too much.

Today, in writing, I made significant progress on an assignment, having decided on a general shape of things.

Woohoo! That's great. Yay you!! :-D

Day 6: I added 1,409 words and now have a completed draft of time travel fic #5. *chairdances* It needs some work, but I'm very happy to have discovered what it's about. *g*

My plan for tomorrow is to tidy it up AND (all going well and life stuff permitting) make a start on #6, which is another magical mystery tour that has yet to reveal itself to me, other than the fact that it's going to be angsty as hell. At some stage I decided there were going to be seven of them, so only two more to go (plus fixing the draft and any necessary edits to the one that's at beta). :D :D :D

[silveradept]

Yay for finishing number 5! (And I'll go check out Dirty Three, thanks for the recommendation.)

[yasaman]

I go back and forth on needing music while writing. Sometimes the effort of picking the right music to go with the right project takes up too much creative bandwidth that should be going to my WIP, so I don't bother. And sometimes I just prefer silence. But when silence won't do and I really want to be in the distraction-free, focused writing zone, I pick something instrumental, often something that has a looping or droney sort of structure. So Colin Stetson and Sarah Neufeld (both together and in their solo work), Zoe Keating, Max Richter, Four Tet, Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians, Hans Zimmer's movie scores, that kind of thing.

Day 5: worked on editing two sections of the draft for a net of 33 words, and wrote 1,723 words on the WIP. Also got my Yuletide assignment! No writing on that yet, I'll have to do canon review this weekend before I write anything, but I opened up a new Scrivener file and dropped my recip's prompt and letter into it.

[silveradept]

Huzzah for Yuletide prompts. And thank you for the recommendations. I'll have to go check them out when I'm looking for some new music to input into my ears and brain.

[bladespark]

I wrote things! Finished a thing, even. So I am pleased.

I *always* love music while sewing. While writing I'm a bit mixed. Depends on my mood. The song has to suit the story? Though also in the past few years it's been very disrupted, because I have a goober-child with opinions about what she wants to watch or hear on my lap a lot of the time, and even when she's not right there, it messes with my flow, as it were.

[silveradept]

Makes sense. Things designed for young ears are a lot different than things that help the older people do their work. I wonder what makes sewing different than writing in terms of music or no.

Hooray for finishing things. That's always satisfying.

[bladespark]

Sewing is just more forgiving. Sending needle through fabric doesn't require a specific state of mind. It just happens. So I can listen to literally anything, from podcasts to Mythbusters episodes (they make good mostly-audio experiences) to rock music. The music makes it less boring. Anything I can do that doesn't require full visual attention is good for sewing! But writing can clash with music, depending on what I'm writing and I definitely can't do podcasts or TV shows.

[silveradept]

That makes sense. I've heard of needlework being a good and useful fidget for people in meetings, as something to do while the attention is mostly elsewhere, so I suppose it would go well with just about any kind of audio.

[auroracloud]

I don't sew, but I crochet, and I often like having music or podcasts on when I crochet. It can create a really specific flow for me, or a state of calmness or focus, which I enjoy and often find hard to attain.

[auroracloud]

I wrote things on the 5th.

Can't usually listen to music while writing, I get distracted, start listening to the music too much and can't hear my writing thoughts, so to speak. Music can inspire me about stories, characters, whatever, though, I just can't be listening to music and writing at the same time. Except sometimes I use it specifically as a writing exercise, freewriting with the music on the background and let it influence the text as much as it will (which is a lot). I generally can't use music as background for much anything except cleaning and crocheting. I need to either focus on the music or not listen to it at all.

I don't have any specific must-haves for writing, though often I like having a cup of tea around. And it's good to have my fingerless mitts because it helps keep my wrists from getting sore.

[silveradept]

That sounds like a pretty complex relationship with music. But yay for tea and mittens.

[auroracloud]

What's so complicated about it? I don't think it's complicated. It may not be the standard of our culture today, but to me it's straightforward. Music has a strong influence on my emotions and imagination, and when I listen to it, I tend to focus on it. So if I'm listening to music, it's usually hard to also focus on writing. And the music will occupy the imagination and emotions so it's harder to use them for writing. Music works better for me when I can focus on listening to it, it's all. When I do chores or such, I don't need to think as much, so I can listen to music. I don't think it's so weird.

I'm also really, really easily distracted, especially by sounds. So I need to minimize distractions if I am to focus.

That said, I sometimes can specifically use music hijacking my emotions and imagination if I don't need to write anything specific, but just want to see where the music will take me. But it doesn't often work when I already have a specific scene in mind.

[silveradept]

It seemed like there were attempts to balance out not being distraction and the sometimes usefulness of having music grew evocative. I was thinking of something more complicated, clearly.

[auroracloud]

To be fair, I was having a bad day (or a few, rather) so I may have been unclear in how I expressed myself, as well. Sorry if I sounded excessively touchy; the aforementioned bad day, and music being an emotional topic for me. Nobody's fault, that.

[silveradept]

Nobody's fault. No offense taken or intended.

[ewt]

I am an actual composer of music.

I cannot handle background music while I do that work. Background *noise* is OK but actual music is not.

(It's possible that music which is sufficiently aleatoric and atonal might work? But that doesn't tend to be background music anywhere.)

[silveradept]

I can see where other music would definitely interfere with trying to compose music. You want your own melodies in your head and in the air, not someone else's

[alexcat]

Catching up a little
Day 3 =- 566 words
Day 4 - 10
Day 5 - 10

[silveradept]

hooray for words!

[ysilme]

Yay on your writing achievements, that sounds quite successful! *\O/*
I'm rather busy again today, and it's also choir rehearsal night, so I hope today is going to be a good writing day as well. I can report 2019 words for NaNo yesterday (the 5th), and the cat has the stitches out. (Now I'm supposed to keep him collared for three more days - not going to happen - or make sue he doesn't lick the area. Ha bloody ha. We compromised on collar at night and disinfecting the paw a few times during the day.)
Music is extremely important to me, and I often listen to it in various stages of writing. I can't wear headphones, though (I have severe tinnitus, I can't even use phones without speakerphones), so often the choice is 'no music', although thankfully the spousal unit fully shares my preferences and is always fine with what I choose. Which is quite important to me - sometimes I also go for 'no music' because I can't decide. *g* (I also can't have TV sounds in the background or so, although video games are ok, if there isn't too much loud talking.)
My preferred kinds for writing are classical (Baroque, Renaissance and Medieval), Scandinavic, Celtic, and Medieval folk, and a few jazzy albums for particular kinds of writing. I need to know the songs/pieces well, though, so I'm not distracted by their newness.
Apart from that, I'm having a pot or thermos of tea at hand if at all possible.

[silveradept]

Cats do what they will do, and we adjust as best we can so they don't actually hurt themselves too much.

Familiar pieces are helpful, sometimes, as having a thing to filter out so your can concentrate, and if they're things you like, that helps, too.

[sylvanwitch]

Oooh, writing music! I'm an instrumentals-only kind of writer, though I can also write without background noise. When I'm really getting into the writing, I will have a fountain running, a "fire" candle (which crackles) burning, and will play moody piano music (I'm a fan of Austin Wintory and Philip Wesley), movie soundtracks (LotR, Last of the Mohicans), New Age music (Dagda is a favorite, also Zen Garden and the Gordon brothers' drum music), and/or world music (Arab Lounge is a favorite, as is Moroccan Nights).

I added 300-some words to the fanfic I've been working on.

[silveradept]

Thanks for the recommendations. I could probably learn how to put together a playlist of everything in this thread and have music for days.

[azurelunatic]

I did at least 1667!

Sometimes noise, sometimes no. Depends on how much I need to focus, whether I need a mood evoked, and whether I need background noise to soak up excess attention so something else doesn't distract me. I have some well-tuned Pandora stations for many different circumstances.

[silveradept]

Sounds like a well-tuned solution. Yay for at least the NaNoAverage.

[carenejeans]

Sadly, I've lost too much of my hearing to listen to music at all (it's an hereditary, progressive hearing loss) but I used to write with music going. What worked best was something I'd listened to a thousand times, so it would mostly sink into the background. Now, weirdly enough, I like to have the TV on while I write, especially in the evening, set to some cooking or travel show that sort of burbles merrily away in the background.

For Day 5 I did the usual nonfiction project/novel mix. However, I think something is going on the with the novel, as in, it's coming apart at the seams. This feels okay, but I'm not sure what's going to happen next with it. At all!

[silveradept]

Interesting that shows with a certain cadence and pacing work now where music used to.

Sometimes, not knowing what's going on is the best part of finding out what happens next.

[umadoshi]

Day 5 was 190 words. ^_^

[silveradept]

Yay for words!