Whistle while you work

I could not write or create without music. Music fuels me and inspires me and can turn a slow and unsatisfying writing session, into one that flows smoothly and without hesitation. A good playlist can make all the difference between getting those recommended 2,000 daily words down, and committing only two lines to the page. It is a complex issue, however, if the playlist is too good, all I want to do is abandon my task and get lost in the music.

I’ve listened to quite a lot of different songs and genres while writing “Dark Winds Over Wellington”, many of them are from movie scores or are instrumental only – less vocals mean I am equally less likely to get distracted – but some have simply been in my head since I started planning a story. Little snippets of a chord, or a fragment of song lyrics that get stuck in my brain. They travel with me as I write, becoming the soundtrack to the stories in their own right.

Just for a bit of fun, and to give myself a palate cleanser while battling with the editing process, I put together a Spotify playlist, a soundtrack to my chilling tales, which also serves as a little peek into what sparks my inspiration. It might not make much sense yet, not until they are linked with the words themselves, but all of them have a reason for inclusion and a connection with the words they compliment.

Photo credit by Mohammad Metri on Unsplash

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