A lot of people speak of how they need silence to write. Not me. I’ve many playlists/ cds that I use specifically for writing. Sometimes of course, pure silence is fully necessary, and any music would irreparably damage the balance of what I’m trying to do . On said occasions, music is OFF. Most nights though, there are songs that are NEEDED to write different scenes- (well the songs I need);)
In writing ‘It Started With A Snub’ some of the following songs were ‘used!’
Romance-Up (Olly Murs and Demi Lovato)- just has enough of a boppy beat to put a bit of an edge in there to give me the passion that might make two characters work whatever they need to out.
Drama- November Rain (Guns and Roses)- you don’t get more dramatic than the guitar part of this song, put this on and you can be sre that your characters will do … let me see, how do I put this … crazy s@*t.;)
Anything by Cher Llyod will make your character turn all kick ass.
A song where the lyrics gets you thinking from sections of your head that people shouldn’t really think from: Beatle Silver hammer / anything by Lady Gaga (more for the images she conjures up from videos than anything else)/ Sia Elastic Heart.
A song which gives you some form of a secretive espionage scene that may end in some form of a chase: Ellie Goulding Outside.
A dramatic scene which may involve inner turmoil/pacing/some form of tension coming to a head between one or two characters: Heaven by Emile Sande
Lily Allen-Somewhere only we know- perfect for christmassy writing/ scenes that are dreamy, far away, songs with regrets or hope, thinking of times past.
Theme songs to The Omen/ Halloween to write stuff to scare yourself silly. I no longer do this as I once wrote of a man wandering in people’s gardens, ready to take them at night. His gappy smile and sunken eyes made me check on the kids constantly that night, and look away every time I walked by the downstairs window as darkness fell for days!
These are just a smattering, there are many, many more and I’ll definitely share them with you. Feel free to listen to the above songs on you-tube and let me know if you agree (I had to listen to them myself again to see what they conjured up for me!), or if you have any yourself I’d love to hear them in the comments!
BRMaycock's Book Blog 
Great question. I find I can’t listen to ‘songs’ as such, especially if they’re catchy and lyric-heavy, because I end up singing along, not writing. So I tend listen to a lot of electronic stuff when I’m writing or working on my sums – James Blake, The Knife, Air, Grimes – because they keeps my energy up but doesn’t distract me (or in the case of James Blake, brings a darker tinge to characters and story – which is no harm sometimes!)
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Couldn’t reply to this until I’d done my homework and listened to a few of these. Knew Air and knew Heartbeats from The Knife (didn’t know I knew that until I checked it out of course), but really liking James Blake, love his voice and all the songs (that I listened to, anyhoo) reeled you in.
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I need total, total, total silence…which is probably a bad thing. Maybe I should try music and see what happens!
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Whatever works for you! There’s times when the slightest noise can put me off, though I suppose music helps there too, distractions/irritations aren’t quite as obvious. That is, unless the music puts you off … So many factors … 😉
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