Music and I go a long way back. I played the guitar for a while when I was younger until my first year in college. I wanted to create music to stuff I’d written. All the music, theater, reading, concerts, painting, picture taking, arts & magazine collages, writing, singing, acting, dancing–deep breath–until I eventually got too busy to do all of those things all of the time. But one thing that stayed was music. Making a playlist to play as I studied for behavioral neuroscience or abnormal psychology was much easier than reading for fun. I had a lot of schoolwork and extracurriculars as well as a job and fam&social life that I wasn’t willing to sacrifice–I never took a break–so music was always there.
Writing with music has been so helpful. I recommend every writer to try it. Even when you’re stuck writing a scene or stuck altogether. Spend some time making a playlist for yourself or for your story specifically.
I’ve made a playlist for each of my main characters. That’s four playlists with music that I use to identify to their personality traits, feelings, and simply songs that compile that character as a whole. It really gets me in the mood to write in the voice of that character. It’s never bothered me to write to music it’s kind of therapeutic.
You should try it!
Lemmon Avenue 