Writing

Writing With a Soundtrack

/ A.J. Colby / 8 Comments

I’ve always been one of those people who believes that life should come with it’s own unending soundtrack.

While I possess absolutely no musical talent myself (my brother N got all of the musical genius in our family, and damn is he talented!), I’ve had a love for music probably for almost as long as I’ve loved the written word. Maybe it’s because music is, at its root, merely another way to express emotions and thoughts. The majority of the people I work with know that more often than not they’ll find me with my little pink headphones in jamming along to anything from Queen to Halestorm to Carrie Underwood. My musical tastes are pretty eclectic and have only continued to expand as I’ve gotten older, but one thing has remained: I cannot thrive in silence.

This constant need to be surrounded by music extends to my writing. I cannot create without some kind of noise in the background, whether it’s my iTunes playlist, the TV, or the bustle of the folks at my local bar. Nothing kills my creativity more effectively than silence.

I’ve heard of several authors who listen to music when they write too, some of them even referencing a soundtrack of sorts that they feel fits a specific title or section of a book, helping to develop the mood. Personally, I don’t find that the mood of my writing is influenced by a particular genre or tone of the music I listen to while crafting it, but I have noticed that I am my most creative when I listen to instrumental music such as the work of Lindsey Stirling (I love that girl!) or movie and WoW soundtracks. Maybe it’s because I’m inclined to sing along with music while listening to it and that interrupts my flow, or because it’s easier for instrumental pieces to simply fade away and become background noise. Either way, the words seems to flow like water from my fingertips when I’ve got nothing but the sound of violins and drums in my ears.

So here are my questions for you today, dear readers… Do you listen to music while you write? And if you do, does it influence the mood/tone of your writing?

Do you have a brainstorming buddy?

/ A.J. Colby / Leave a comment

I’m lucky enough to work with my greatest supporter, my fiance, Mr. Awesome Sauce. Although we work for the same company we’re in different departments and located on different side of the office, so other than our mid-morning and mid-afternoon walks and lunch break, we don’t really see that much of each other. When we do get together throughout the day however, we more often than not brainstorm about the Riley Cray series.

Whether we’re talking about the finer points of book formatting, or discussing how to tweak a particular scene to make it fit better into the flow of the current WIP, we almost always talk about some facet of writing several times a day. I’m incredibly lucky to have someone so supportive in my life, someone who’s eager to be my champion, and is as excited to see me succeed as I am (if not more!) We both share the dream of me being able to write full time some day, and when that day comes I hope he’s able to be there right beside me working on his own novel ’cause he’s wicked talented too.

What about all you peeps out in blogland – do you have a brainstorming buddy, someone you can bounce ideas off of and reminds you not to slouch so much when you spend hours at the computer?

To my own brainstorming buddy – I lub ya, babe.

Where do you write best?

/ A.J. Colby / 4 Comments

As someone who never leaves the house without at least one notebook and a fistful of pens stuffed into my purse in case a moment of inspiration should strike me while I’m out and about, I’m curious to know if anyone else writes somewhere other than their home / office.

While I do get a fair amount of writing done at home it tends to have too many distractions for me to be consistently productive – that load of laundry that needs doing, those six episodes of Once Upon a Time on the DVR, and my horde of fuzzy minions all vie for my attention, so as odd as it may sound I’m actually my most productive at my local bar. At least once or twice a week Mr. Awesome Sauce and I go hang out at our local bar which is kinda our own version of Cheers, where everyone really does know our name, and knows that I am working on finishing my first novel. With an endless supply of Diet Coke, chips and the best damn green chili in town, it has turned out to be a surprisingly good locale for me to jot down several pages at a time.

I’m not sure if it’s just that we happen to go to the bar at my peak time of day for creativity, or if its the constant hubbub of background noise that makes it so easy to write while I’m there, but whatever it is, I’ve definitely found that I can write a helluva lot more there in a couple house than I can in an evening spent at home.

What about all you folks out there in blogland – where do you write best?