Nov 01 2008
Novel Ideas: The Music Prompt
“Things are gonna change so fast / All the white horses have gone ahead / I tell you that I’ll always want you near / You say that things change my dear”
~ ‘Winter’, Tori Amos
A few days ago, I had an afternoon to myself. I wasn’t planning on writing anything, and I didn’t.
In reality, I was sewing a Yoda costume for my son’s dress-up party (not what one would imagine writers do in their spare time). Anyway, for some reason I felt like I could use some sewing music, and I ended up pulling out an old case full of CD’s I hadn’t listened to for close to 10 years. You can imagine what happened next.
I spent most of the afternoon listening to the angst-filled words of Sarah McLachlan’s Fumbling Towards Ecstasy and Tori Amos’s Little Earthquakes, which would have been particular favourites of mine around the end of my high school years. It’s absolutely amazing what memories flooded my mind; I felt as if I had been transported back a decade.
Not all of those memories were good though—in fact, some of them were extremely painful. Nevertheless, I allowed myself to enjoy looking back on a number of times in my life that I might never have thought about again.
Not one word of my novel got written that day (too busy off in La-La-Land), but the next day I wrote for nearly 3 hours solid. I think I owe my inspired writing session to the music, and you can bet I’ll be going through the rest of my old CD collection this week.
What song or album will you be dusting off before your next writing session?
I have a friend who always has music on her MySpace profile that harkens back to the days when we used to go out dancing all night long. When I want to get motivated I just hop on her page and turn up my speakers…works every time.
I know, it’s crazy how WELL it works. Music has such an extraordinary power over the mind.