Music and Words

Recently, I created a station on Jango specifically for this book, which is as close to a playlist as I'll ever get for my books.  I started out with the band Of Monsters and Men then added in The Lumineers and Phillip Phillips and then Delta Rae.  All artists that, for me, say 'fantasy'.

It has totally helped me get in the mood for writing.  Even when I don't feel like writing, once I throw this on, I can sit down and at least knock out a few hundred words.  And this is totally awesome, considering I've had a tough time these past couple years getting the words out.

Last night, I was in the process of knocking out way more than a few words when a song came on that was totally not in line with the mood I was going for.  Oh, it was in line with the general theme of the station, so I wasn't going to give it a thumbs down and have it removed permanently from the playlist.  I was just going to click next and move on.  But by the time I had made the necessary move from Word to browser, I was already hooked on the song.  Then I went to my search engine and looked for the video of it and listened not only to the song, but to the lead-in where the songwriter talks about writing the song and why he wrote it.  (The song was No Piece in Quiet by Delta Rae, btw.  It's pretty and kinda sad.)  

By the time that was finished, I was derailed.  Pretty and sad is fine, but it definitely didn't put me in a place where I could write the next BIG SCENE.  I mean, if the next scene had been a pretty and sad scene it would've been great inspiration, but the next scene is fraught with tension and action.  I need zippier music for that.

In the end, getting derailed was okay because it was after 8 anyway and I did already have over 1700 words.  The song probably derailed me because I was already getting tired.  My writing stamina ain't what it used to be.  I let it atrophy.  Still, I really should've just clicked past this song and kept writing.  Worked on rebuilding the stamina and all that.

What about you?  Does music help or hurt your writing?  If you don't write, does it help or hurt your focus on other things?  Do you ever just get derailed by a song?  

Updates and Junk

Okay, if you were waiting for the sale on the A Model Curse books, it starts Monday.  Yay.  SU and UatB will be 99c/99p each through 11:59pm on the 15th.  CU will sit at $3.99. 

If you click that link, you'll see they've put the books together in a series now.  Yay.  If you're so inclined and have read the books, I'd appreciate a series review.

Let's look at those beautiful covers again...

Pissed Jeni, Resigned Jeni, Determined Jeni.  Although, to be fair, Jeni isn't all that resigned in UatB, but it was a good look for the cover.  

Anyway, the books are fun and I hope you'll read them.  

As for other writing stuff, I've been kinda derailed by all this election crap.  I'm trying to maintain my happy, but it's not often easy.   What I need to do is channel all this into some murders or something.  Create some evil villains and kill them off.  Maybe now would be the time to hit the next book in SCIU.  

The idea there is someone is killing off the ones that got away from justice.  Same format at the others, so you know who the killer is and who the players are, and the suspense is in seeing the journeys of both the killer and the ones who hunt her.  I wrote the beginning years ago.  The rest?  We'll see if I can muster the gumption.  I guess, since it's November, now would be the perfect time to get my ass in gear.

We'll see.

How are you doing?  How are things going in your world?  If you're a writer, how's the writing going?  If you're not, are you struggling with gumption in your activities?