Tuned On, Tuned Out

I listen to A LOT of music when I'm in the rough drafting and brainstorming stages. It sends my brain in so many creative directions. Rhythm is everything for my body when it comes to creativity.  It truly does something amazing to free up that brainstorming and allow my mind to move back and forth between day to day boring old problems and the solutions likewise to writing walls.  If I'm listening to music and working out at the same time...watch out, there's a firestorm of ideas out there. Beware to anyone who disrupts those moments for me. They probably won't recognize me as anything approaching a kind human being. Therefore, I never use music during the drafting and brainstorming process if I have to be able to switch quickly into human interaction mode. 

Confession time....the list of music that I listen to while brainstorming and drafting is eclectic and bizarre.

Synthesized Bach...yeah, he's good. Vivaldi--great. So are collections of Renaissance music (Sting has a pretty interesting one; great for fantasy writing).

And then there's all that other stuff I listen to that I don't think (as an adult who's supposed to be a role model for kids) I should admit to listening to while writing. But here it is:  Coldplay, Radio Head (pretty great stuff for creating a dead narrator), Travis, The Dave Matthews Band, Michael Jackson, Runrig, Enya, Yes, Led Zepplin, The Beatles, The Indigo Girls, U2, The Proclaimers,  Pink Floyd, Abba, Billy Joel, Cat Stevens, David Bowie, The Cure, The Who, The Rolling Stones, Indian Pop-Rock (some of that stuff is awesome; plus I can't understand the words so they don’t distract me ), R.E.M, The Talking Heads, Aqualung, Oasis, Tom Petty, The Bare Naked Ladies....okay, you get the idea. 

But during revision, I DON'T listen to music. When I'm struggling with organization, or with getting connections across sections of the text, I need to spend some time away from music, just looking at what I've brainstormed on the page, and then some time away from the page and just with music envisioning all the possibilities. I never reread my writing to see how it sounds or feels when listening to music. I can't hear the rhythm of my own language then. I'm pretty good about knowing when music is helping and when it's hindering me.