Voyager
Discover Yourself
Do You Listen To Music When You Write?
Just curious.
I don’t really have any larger post ideas, at the moment. And today really isn’t worth a dedicated journal entry, I don’t think. My head’s been fairly empty and all I’ve done is work on stuff. No, that’s not the quarantine. It’s just the mundanity of my everyday life. But I think it’s a pretty fun question.
“What Do YOU Like To Listen To?”
Some people listen to music that suits the story, overall. Some have playlists that revolve around specific scenes. Some just like peaceful (or bangin’) background noise. I’m somewhere between all of those things. It just depends on my mood and what I’m writing. That said, I am a weeb, of course. So with these first few chapters of EXTRA, I’ve been listening to just peaceful and relaxing anime music in the background. For the most part, that is. There’s been a little variation in there. But the quieter music helps me stay in a pretty mellow place to be able to write those more contemplative scenes I’ve previously talked about. I think the story of EXTRA is largely told in those quiet moments of contemplation, where characters are just thinking about things. At least, that’s the vibe I’m getting from it at the moment.
When I’m writing Burning Sky… well… it depends. I’m currently on two of those books and doing revisions on the prologue book. Writing those, I pretty much just wind up all over the place. With Ike’s chapters, I find myself listening to a lot of music from Shounen Battle series, but that includes the quiet stuff. Ike is more on the reflective and thoughtful side of the Shounen protagonist archetype. He’s not all hot blood and action, so it only makes sense that I likewise focus on the softer side of that genre. Things like early Boku no Hero Academia and Kimetsu no Yaiba, where the protagonists aren’t at full throttle all the time, and they’re also not complete goofballs whenever they’re not. Baldrik and Iri also have their own distinct sounds, in my mind.
“How Goes The Writing?”
Good. I made some real progress with Chapter 3 today. It’s been tricky since I’m not entirely used to writing scenes like the ones depicted in it. But I think I’ve got something special on my hands. There’s a character in it that I’m really pleased with, in the way they’ve come out, so far. The most difficult part was making sure the tone works well, though. Chapter 3 is kind of up-and-down in that regard. So making sure the tone always felt appropriate to the scene has been tough. Knowing when one tone has been active long enough and I need to transition to the next one is complicated. It’s sort of a trick of knowing where and when to place the observant eye of the narrator. Multiple moods and tones can easily coexist within a scene, when focusing on the perspectives of different characters, after all.
I think I’ll actually have Chapter 3 done by the end of this week. It’s been a refreshing semi-break from looking at Burning Sky, all year. I’m going to wrap up my work on that pretty soon too, though. The immediate work, anyway. But for now I really want to focus primarily on this little “Me” project, so I can at least finish up this first story arc (it’s a short one). I’ll post a proper update a little later, so stay tuned!
“How Are You Feeling?”
I’m good. At least, I haven’t exactly been in my own head a lot, lately. The times I have been, it was to sort of pull up some old feelings to imagine how Mio would be feeling in EXTRA for a scene or whatever. A dangerous game, to be sure, but I’ve not been dwelling on things. Rather, I’ve been trying not to. I’m managing.
That all. Thanks for reading and putting up with me, ladies and gents. As per usual-
Stay safe, Stay healthy, Stay Awesome!
Voyager
13 Comments on “Do You Listen To Music When You Write?”
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Voyager 
I can’t listen to anything with lyrics else they’ll slip into my writing. Movie and anime soundtracks tend to work best for me. The soundtrack to Claymore is excellent and has a lot of uptempo pieces ideal for fight scenes. I also like the soundtrack to Tron Legacy although that’s probably best for writing sci-fi. Stranger Things also has a great soundtrack.
Often times, however, I’ll write in silence. There’s more than enough noise in my head as it is…
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Yeah, I’m kinda the same with lyrics. Though if I am listening to something with lyrics, they’re in Japanese or some other language in which I’m not fluent enough to listen along in said language. That way it’s actually not really distracting at all. OPs and EDs, for example, can be really helpful if I think they have the appropriate sound for what I’m currently writing. The ED for Irozuku is one of my favorites for more emotional scenes.
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I sort of have a love hate relationship with music and writing. Although it’s quite soothing, I find myself constantly getting distracted by it. My attention would completely shift away from the writing at hand and before I knew it, I’d lose track of what I was originally writing and how to continue my thoughts henceforth. Yet, it’s also hard for me to write in complete and utter silence. Then my more personal thoughts would seep into/drag away from [X] topic at hand. My horrible attention span, huh?
Ultimately, my middle ground is listening to simpler tunes that I don’t fullheartedly enjoy, yet manage to keep me occupied in the very least. Does that make the least bit of sense?
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It does. I think my frame of thinking was more from writing narrative work. Stories, in other words. I do generally write in silence when I’m doing something more editorial. Reviews are a mixed bag and depends on what I’m reviewing. If it’s something where the soundtrack is a significant part of the experience – Kill la Kill, for example – then I often do listen to the soundtrack while writing about the subject. My attention span is pretty crap as well, though music doesn’t really impact it much, I suppose.
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I usually listen to a podcast of some kind for a background noise when I write. I can’t do it with music apparently, it needs to be something where people talk about unique things they find interesting.
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Okay, THAT I would definitely not be able to do. I can’t listen to other people talk about stuff and maintain thoughts of my own.
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Yeah, I have a weird mind.
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I prefer to think of it as “unique” XD
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I’m very mood-dependent whe it comes to music, not just with writing but in general. I once titled a story after a song, used the song to put myself into the mindset for writing and eventually got pretty sick of it, so “blast OP on repeat” is a risky move for me – maybe once is fine though. I have a set of happy/sad songs that I’ll go back to every so often, depending on the mood I need. (I do have a playlist for each on Spotify, but occasionally something off the playlist works better so I don’t intend to share them.)
Play me a song enough times and I’ll memorise it enough to mentally “play it back”, too (no matter how hard the lyrics are!), which is another layer of risk if I end up memorising something I don’t want to remember…if the OP’s on the menu of a DVD as well as the start of each episode, then there’s a high chance I’ll at least remember the opening refrain.
Generally, if I mention a certain bit of music in the post, it’s likely that I played it while writing though.
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It takes a lot for me to really get sick of anything. I’m used to listening to music in loops for long stretches of time, tho. But I’ve lately also just been listening to those 1-2hr playlists of anime music on YouTube to help, on occasion.
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If I’m writing blog posts or something, sometimes I’ll listen to music. It’s usually just a playlist of English music and anime soundtracks so it’s quite varied. However, if I’m writing an essay for uni or something like that, I tend to listen to anything because it interrupts my train of thought.
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I can’t. Either two things will happen: I’ll end up writing the lyrics or singing along 😂😂😂
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