I love working to music. Music is pretty much playing all the time, every second that I’m at the computer. When I work, I like to sing along and seat dance. The only time I shut the music off, as a matter of fact, is when I’m writing. But for some people, music is a very important part of the writing process.

If it’s your first time writing something long, like a novel, you may not be sure what works for you yet. In this post, I want to talk about what works for me and then I hope you’ll share what works for you below in the comments.

I find it very difficult to write when music is playing that I know the words to. Oddly enough, if it’s a new song I’ve never heard before, it’s usually not a problem, but as soon as I’ve know the song well enough to be singing along, it becomes a distraction. I find myself either singing and not writing or writing down the lyrics that I’m listening to.

I do like having something playing in the background, it really helps me to focus especially if I’m in a noisy public place. So one of the things I’ve tried in the past is listening to popular music in languages that I don’t speak. For instance, one of the things I enjoy is Celine Dion in French. The music is just like the sort of thing you’d hear on the radio but because she’s not speaking English. I don’t find myself singing along or getting distracted by the lyrics. I also find that musical artists such as Enya, where the music is haunting, but you can’t quite make out the words of most of the songs can be good writing music.

But for me, the all-time best writing music is instrumental music. Most free Internet radio stations such as Pandora or Yahoo music have a film scores station. 99% of the time, when I’m writing, this is what I listen to. The music for films is usually very dramatic, lending additional air of gravitas to everything that you’re writing and can really help to get you inspired and into the mood of the scene. And that drama can really push you to be a better writer and give your scenes a little more pizzazz. The one downside to listening to the film scores music is that every now and then that something like Indiana Jones or Star Wars will play, which is so recognizable you find you can’t write to it because it’s too familiar. But nearly all those Internet radio stations have a skip this song feature, which would enable you to move on in those cases.

Some writers are firm believers in having playlists for certain characters. They compile a list of songs that remind them of their character and get them into their story’s mindset. They listen to this playlist only when they are working on that story to help themselves get into that frame of mind. I have never been able to do this but if this is the sort of thing that sounds like it might be helpful for you, I encourage you to try it out.

But let me turn this over to you: What music do you like to write to? Do you live and die by the playlist? Can you write anything to anything or are you a film scores junkie like me?

I love to hear about how other people work.