I am a biiig fan of writing to music. Writing to silence feels intensely unnatural, writing to TV or movies is impossibly distracting, and writing with the background noise of people around me has me ready to flip my desk. Music is really the main thing that works.

One thing I have come to find though is that the more creative the music, the better able I am to focus on my writing and put out something I don't want to immediately print off just for the satisfaction of being able to physically set it on fire.

Music that isn't very attention grabbing is fine. It makes for good background music, so it's at least not quiet. I admit I don't do my best writing to it, but it serves its purpose. Catchy music is just too much. I can't write anything to catchy music. I don't mean my writing is of poor quality when I play catchy music, I mean I actually can't produce anything. It's hard to focus on my plot, setting, characters, etc when I am belting out the latest Little Mix single, ya know?

What really does it for me is music that has a certain flare to it. Some of it is music that I think other people would find distracting, but it works for me. The music needs to have that spark. Not that pop music doesn't have a spark to it, but it's not the same thing. It's music that the first time I hear it I go "oh" and everything feels right with the world. Electrotango, swing metal, throat singing. Music that a person has put all of their artistic capabilities into, and while it may not get much in the way of radio play (unless you listen to some really sweet radio stations that you will need to send me a link to), it has that fire.

The writing I want to do is like the music that I like to hear. I want to write something unique, creative, and ultimately a little self-indulgent. I am writing for myself, and if other people like it that's great but not why I'm doing it. I want to write things that draw from a variety of influences, a variety of genres, a variety of styles. I feel that writing like that is so much easier to pull off when I have music like that to accompany me.

Anyone else like to make writing playlists? Anyone else like their writing playlists to be a little on the funky side?