Thursday, September 20, 2007

Working to a Soundtrack

By Nichole Giles

By right of thirty-day novelists everywhere, I have managed to lose track of the days of the week. Somehow, Thursday has come and gone, and here I sit, in the last hours of the night only now just realizing that I have neglected my weekly deadline.

So, I have decided to enlighten you with something I have discovered this month during my adventure.

One particular Saturday, during my first week of feverish writing, I was holed up in my home office with my laptop while my children played in the next room. The noise level became distracting and unbearable, and so, in desperation, I found a few of my most soothing (and mostly instrumental) CD’s and created a soundtrack for my novel.

After procuring a pair of headphones, I was set.

In this I discovered an interesting thing. The mood and tone of my writing was so altered for the better, that I have continued playing and replaying this soundtrack as I write, and my creative mind has improved because of it.

If you have never tried it, I highly recommend giving it a shot. Everyone could use a creative boost, and mine came in the form of music.

Also, in case you were wondering, today is day 20—and my word count will top 35,000 by the end of the night. Just thought you’d want to know.

7 comments:

Rachelle Christensen said...

Wow Nichole! You are awesome. I'm jealous. The writer's bug must have really bitten you bad. I'd love to see an excerpt of what you're writing. Keep up the good work.

Cindy Beck, author said...

Nichole,
Hurray for you! Keep on going on your 30 day novel.

Also, thanks for the tip about wearing headphones and listening to music. I'll have to try that.

WM said...

I wrote most of my undergraduate and graduate school papers to the music of Joy Division.

I must admit that by the end of grad school, most of the papers has one-word titles and a couple were even structured like songs (one was a fugue-type thing, the other was verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, verse, chorus).

Darvell Hunt said...

Go Nichole!

I have found it helpful to listen to music while I write. I can't do hard rock or anything fast paced, and the volume is very low, but it helps me tune out the world.

I also often do it for work. (I'm on a computer all day for work.)

Darvell

Unknown said...

Congratulations on 35,000 words. I'm so proud of you.

Nichole Giles said...

Thanks for the encouragement, everyone! It's been an interesting month, but I'm determined to keep going until I reach that 50,000 word mark I intend to end with the two words "the end."

Rachelle, I will be happy to send you an excerpt of this particular story...as soon as it's ready to be read.

Nichole

Rachelle Christensen said...

Nichole,
You've been tagged!