Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Instant Inspiration with iTunes

One of my most indispensable writing tools is iTunes. 

Now, I don't much care for playlists. I almost never have a playlist for any given novel, and I'm always amazed (and a little intimidated!) by writers who do have a list of songs that inspired them for each part of their books. I do most of my writing to the Bach unaccompanied cello suites or to the background music in Ommwriter (that's O, by the way—more on it later!).

But every now and then, I do have a need to hear a specific song. I'll just get this weird sense that one song would be a great catalyst for the scene or chapter I'm writing. So for that reason, I ask for gift cards to iTunes for small occasions, and let my friends and family know that iTunes cards never go to waste. That way, I keep a balance at all times, and whenever I just have to have a song to write to, I just go and buy it with my balance, utterly guilt-free. 

You can find similar services on Amazon Music. And if you want to be truly cheap frugal, these days a lot of artists are putting professional recordings on YouTube/Vimeo, although you usually have to create a playlist to get the songs you want to loop, and the non-pirated versions (if you're picky like me and try not to listen to pirated music) usually have ads. 


This month I'm participating in the A-Z blog challenge. My theme is "writer hacks," or 26 shortcuts you can do as a writer to get the most out of writing and the journey toward and through publication. Find out more about it at a-to-zchallenge.com, and hop around to read the other cool blogs that are part of the challenge!

2 comments:

  1. I don't write with music one but I've come to like making playlist for my novels because it lets me think harder about characters and scenarios in the book.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's an interesting distinction, and now that you mention it, I think that's really exactly how I use my purchased music. To give me inspiration and keep my head in the game.

      Delete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...