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It’s not uncommon for me to chat with other writers and have the conversation steer toward this question:<\/p>\nIt’s not uncommon for me to chat with other writers and have the conversation steer toward this question:<\/p>\n
What do you listen to when you write?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Even some writers I didn’t expect to lose themselves in the question have a playlist on hand — sometimes with a link to Spotify. (Leaving me to wonder if it’s something they saw others do, so they decided to give it a try…or maybe it was something done at the request of an agent: “Spotify playlists are big right now. Come up with something you feel defines your novel in music.<\/em>“)<\/p>\n
Enjoy the Silence<\/h2>\n
You know I love silence if you read more than a handful of entries, here.<\/p>\n
My ideal writing session is, at most, accompanied by the sound of the air conditioner or heater.<\/p>\n
This poem sums up my favorite writing times:<\/p>\n
4:17 a.m.\r\n\r\nI stop writing when I hear a creak in the kitchen,\r\nthinking my wife may have risen as early as me today,\r\nbut no further sounds come from that side of the apartment.\r\n(Were I superstitious, I'd chalk it up to ghosts.)\r\n\r\nI sit and listen for a moment, to a baseboard shift,\r\nand something outside the front door pop in the breeze.\r\nSometimes a single plate vibrates in a kitchen cabinet,\r\ndriving me mad for days until I find it.\r\n\r\nThis time of the year, when the heat comes and\r\nall the doors are loose in their frames,\r\na vibration expands and contracts in the walls,\r\nas though the apartment were breathing.\r\n\r\nIt's then that I'm aware of my own breathing--\r\nThe slight rasp from a decent-enough night's sleep\r\nthat could have gone on a few more hours.\r\n\r\nBut this is when I write: when only the apartment is awake --\r\nits bones having settled through the night like my own,\r\njust long enough to rest before the sun rises and a new day begins.\r\n\r\nThe vibrating in the walls stops as the room takes a breath\r\nand the air conditioner grunts and exhales.\r\nIt mutes all the soft sounds of the apartment\r\nheard only in the early dark of morning.\r\n\r\nI pull my shoulders back, creaking for a moment like the kitchen,\r\nand then I lose myself again to the sound of typing...\r\n<\/pre>\n* * *<\/p>\n
But I do listen to things other than silence…<\/p>\n
The Ambient March<\/h2>\n
I’ve mentioned this ambient track before.<\/p>\n
I made it one evening while dozing on the couch after dinner.<\/p>\n
The fan was whirring and the dishwasher was slapping its cadence.<\/p>\n
It’s a sound I like so much that I made a 30-minute sound file out of it!<\/p>\n
What I love about it: when I can’t write in silence, this blocks out the world. That it’s 30 minutes and also works like a timer is an added bonus by design.<\/p>\n