I know some people can write no matter what is going on around them, but I like a little music when I’m writing. It blocks out outside sounds and helps me focus on what I am doing.

Some people can listen to normal pop radio while they write but my number one rule for writing music is that I need to not be able to sing along with it. Otherwise, I sing instead of writing which is sort of useless. Here are some suggestions to give you mood music to write to:

Yahoo Launchcast Music Film Scores Station

This is my #1 biggest recommendation. This is hands down my favorite thing to write to. Last year’s NaNo, I pretty much had this station on 24/7. They play a random assortment of music from movies. No words, just instrumentals. It’s all pretty dramatic so it makes writing much easier because it adds importance to whatever you are writing. Sometimes it also affects how you are writing and makes you kick your game up a notch to match the music. It is free and you don’t even need a Yahoo Account to listen to it. There are commercials but they are few and far between. If you write a lot year round, they have a paid version without commercials if you really want, but you don’t really need it. Commercials force you to take breaks which is good for your eyes! (Hot tip: They offer a two week free trial of the commercial free version. I recommend signing up for it for only the last two weeks of NaNo to get that extra kick while you are working the hardest and then cancelling before you are billed.)

Pandora – Build a Station with the keyword Enya

It doesn’t matter if you like Enya but that type of music is awesome to write to. You cannot understand half of what they are saying, it’s all so airy, so you won’t sing along but its dramatic in the same way film score music is. Pandora is commercial free and also is free even if you don’t have an account. The biggest downside to this for me is that here is no way to make Pandora just give you film scores like Yahoo can. Even with the commercials, I still prefer Yahoo to Pandora. That said, Yahoo doesn’t work in Firefox and Pandora does so its nice to have it as an option.

Music in another language

I love Celine Dion. Her music is very dramatic. I also love to sing along to it at the top of my lungs which is counterproductive to writing. My solution? I got some of her import CDs from Canada where she sings in French. Same dramatic Celine style but I can’t sing along because I have no idea what she is saying. If your favorite artist doesn’t record in another language, try out the top pop chart hits of another country. They will likely be the same type of music on the radio here but un-sing-a-long-able. Another great option is Simlish, the language spoken by the characters in the computer game, The Sims. The Sims radio stations in the game have tons of popular songs from all genres translated into Simlish and downloading a few of these can make great background music. World Music is also great for this but if it conflicts with your setting (Asian music for a western cowboy novel) it can mess you up so be aware of that.

So, what do you like to write to?

You may also enjoy these related posts. . .

• Where have you been?
• My 12 Step Guide for Succeeding at National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)
• Even NaNoWriMo cheerleaders get the blues: a pathetic, discouraging day of writing