Why You Need a Soundtrack

How to Get Into Flow.  Fast...

My tenth grade English teacher had this thing for quiet.  She had us write. Tons.  And she played the same soundtrack over and over in our class when we wrote.

Years later I heard a song from The Last of the Mohicans and I suddenly wanted to write.  Like, the music came on, and next thing I know I was digging out a pen and paper. It was really weird.  And then I remembered Mrs. Lee and that tape she played over and over. She had a thing for quiet, and when that tape was playing, there was no talking. Only writing. So there I was, years later, driven to sit down, shut up, and start scribbling.

Yup. Like Pavlov's dog, I had been trained to respond on cue.  Only with less drool.

Now, let's be real. This happens to us all the time. We associate one thing with another, and bam! Off we go, on auto-pilot! TV's on? Who needs a snack? See what I mean?

Writers are creative, right? So let's use that to our advantage! Instead of associating a blank screen with panic and stalling and general-blockage, let's brainwash ourselves for the better. Here's how this works for me:

Each book I work on I choose one soundtrack or playlist and I play the fool out of it.  I play it when I brainstorm.  I play it when I write.  I play it when I edit. I play it when I daydream scenes. And, seriously important:

I do not play it for anything else. EVER.

If I'm using a quirky playlist with songs from Red Notice, I do not watch the movie. I do not want the movie scenes scrolling through my head, I want my scenes to play when I start that list up!

The beautiful thing is that I don't have to sit down and stare at a screen trying to get into a good writing flow.  I just turn the music on a couple minutes before I start, and bam!  My brain picks right back up where it needs to be!

No bells. No drool. Just words and focus. Lots and lots of focus.

One more note on this: I wrote most of the Milana Legends with The Bourne Legacy playing. It was action and excitement, and hit a lot of what I wanted the books to feel like. And then one year, my teens went to Universal Studios. My son was standing outside, waiting in line, and then suddenly he opens his backpack and starts digging. His dad is like, what are you doing? What do you need?

My son stops. He's looking for a pencil and his schoolwork. On vacation. Want to guess why? Well, the line he was in had wrapped around near the entrance to the Bourne Identity show, and they were under speakers playing my writing soundtrack, which I often used while they were doing schoolwork.

Seriously. This works. Give it a try!

What Makes a Good Writing Soundtrack?
Everybody's different, but here's my recommendations:

1. Big sweeping scores from movies or video games. Skip stuff with words. (All you need is to go through your book and realize you've mindlessly plagiarized all the lyrics). I've taken to hunting through video game sound tracks, because I'm not likely to know anything other than how the music makes me feel.
2. Skip the familiar.  You want to be able to write your own story.  It's okay to use something you've seen once or twice, but you don't want movie scenes popping into your brain. 
3. Don't ruin your track.  Resist the urge to watch the movie.  If you're familiar with the music, you'll recognize it and burn the scene into your brain.

Have fun!
:) Anna