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!