I’ve talked before about how I listen to music while writing; I use it to set a mood while creating a scene or to help me get into the mind of a character. Yes, my main characters have theme songs and I listen to them over and over.
Writing for me is very cinematic. I see what is happening like a film and copy it down as fast as I can. It just makes sense to have a sound track.
The new book I’m working on is post apocalyptic so metal was the obvious choice for music. The crazy thing is, I usually can’t write when the music has words. I tend to copy them down like I’m taking dictation. So I went looking for instrumental metal–and nothing I came across spoke to me.
My son (who is a audiophile of the first order) stole my ipod and loaded it up with what he thought I should be listening to. I plugged in and waded through angry words and the aggressive, rapid fire drum beats and discovered that for this book I can write to music that has words.
I’ve got just about every album from Five Finger Death Punch and Disturbed–I hit shuffle and dive in. Give them a try (and pardon the ads if they play, I had a hard time finding versions without them.)