Life is either noisy or quiet - and I don't mean that to be a deep thought. As a mother, if my kids are noisy, I am distracted, but when they are too quiet, something is obviously wrong! Maybe the sound of silence in your home is relaxing, but in mine, someone is either flooding the upstairs bathroom, experimenting with ketchup squeeze bottles, coloring the floorboards pink, or doing something else that will require a minimum of 30 minutes to clean-up! Once they are in bed, logically I know none of the above should be happening, but, even so I found myself having a problem getting into the writing mood. It was just too quiet!
My solution was to create playlists of music for my iPhone and laptop. Guilty admission - I have more fun making character/scene playlists than I do actually using them. Yep! And I am downright OCD about them, as well. I make playlists for action scenes, sad love, romantic love, happy scenes, angry scenes, intense scenes…then there are the playlists for individual characters that mirror their personalities. Actually, all this seemingly ridiculous amount of effort in creating music to listen to while writing truly does pay off - it is like the power button of my creative mind's remote control - the "on switch" that gets me writing a scene and into the mood.
And here it is now - the kids are in bed, hubby's working, and the writing window begins. I put in my ear pods and select the "action scenes" music (much of which is instrumental and soundtracks for movies to avoid additional chaos of loud lyrics). My laptop is flipped open and I begin to write. I enter the scene with the appropriate musical nudge away from school books, laundry piles, and finger smudged windows... and into the woods, where lightning flickers in the ominous clouds above and the crackling thunder announces the coming storm...a chase scene.
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