Words and Music

It was listening to screenwriter James Moran last year at a conference that I first came across the idea of creating playlists to aid the writing process.  It was one of those so-blindingly-obvious-why-have-I-never-thought-of-it-before moments.

There are mountains of articles and studies about how music affects our brains and emotions, and how it can aid creativity. 

And films have soundtracks.  Lots of TV programmes too.  The right piece of music at the right moment can take a drama to a whole new level.  While it's obvious that you add music to improve something after it's been written/filmed, using it to inspire the process had never occurred to me, even though I was aware of songs that had already triggered feelings and ideas for my book.

I guess there are two key reasons why I hadn’t thought of it before.  The first, and most important, is that I need quiet in order to write!!  If music is playing while I’m trying to concentrate then I just can’t.  I’m so interested in lyrics that my ears pull my brain away from the task in hand – I want to listen to them and figure out what they mean, what they’re saying.  There’s no spare mental capacity left to write at that point ;-)

The second reason is that it seems kinda arrogant to create your own playlist, to take on a highly responsible and influential creative media role that you’re not officially qualified for and choose the soundtrack for your own movie/book/programme.  But do you know what?  That’s why it’s such a flipping marvellous idea!!! 

Writers have no control over how the industry will respond to their work.  Will the script (for film or TV) be made?  Will the book be published?  Could it subsequently be made into a film?  Even if the answer to all those questions is “yes”, it’s unlikely that anyone’s ever gonna ask the writer for their input with the soundtrack.

But all is not lost!  We can, at the very least, have a bit of fun and put together our own soundtrack.  We can pretend we have a level of control and influence.  We can choose whatever we like, whatever inspires us, and not have to consider how the target audience might feel about it.  We can select the artists of our own choosing, regardless of whether or not we could ever afford them or have the clout to commission them to write something to accompany our work.

James Moran has extensive playlists for everything he writes (70 songs in just one playlist he says in step 5 if you go to the blog link - it's a very long post, be warned), as well as extra playlists to psyche him up for meetings and other stuff.  He’s definitely much more into his music than I am!

But I have found it useful to tinker around a bit in Spotify and throw a few songs that capture the feeling of my book into a playlist.  To be honest, there’s one key song in there that encapsulates the story and the emotions of the book almost entirely.  A playlist of one song is a bit sad though, so I’ve included a few more for a bit of additional variety and depth.  And it’s always just plain fun to collect together things you like.

I can’t, and therefore don’t, listen to the playlist while I’m writing.  But I do put it on now and again to remind myself – mentally and emotionally - of where I want to go with the story in the future and to measure what I’ve written recently against that.  It helps me to “feel” the story, if that makes any sense.

Soundtracks can also help with writer’s block, as Lucy Christopher told us last year on the Arvon course.  When she was really stuck with “The Killing Woods”, as well as walking more in her nearby woods (which provide its setting and inspiration), she got musician friends of hers to write some songs capturing the feel of the story.  Their music helped her push through and complete the book.

I’m not scientific.  I have no understanding of exactly how music can affect our minds and emotions so strongly.  But I know that it does.  I also know that listening to music is highly pleasurable.  AND I know that writers need all the help they can get to push through and write their stories.  So playlists in my writing life are here to stay!

Music can be a powerful influence.  Use it wisely!

The Vomit Draft

Too many people don’t start writing – or give up on their writing – because they think that what comes out won’t be “good enough” or what they do manage to get onto paper or screen isn’t quite what they expected.  But here’s a massive writerly not-such-a-secret.  The first draft is usually crap!

I initially became aware of “Shitty First Drafts” thanks to Anne Lamott in her excellent book on writing “Bird By Bird”.  This idea was reinforced at Swanwick this year when James Moran (a successful screenwriter) talked about Draft Zero or the Vomit Draft.  Melvin Burgess at Arvon, also referred to a similar phenomenon.

What comes out when you first start writing a book is just raw material.  But it’s essential to get it out, so that it’s there, ready to be crafted and improved.  “Shitty first drafts” is an obvious expression, but James Moran’s Draft Zero is all the more revealing and informative.  The first draft is often so awful that it can’t even be counted as a first draft.  Draft Zero is for no one’s eyes other than your own.  The first draft usually isn’t either.

The analogy I use when thinking about my writing process is comparing it to making a clay pot.  The first draft is just throwing a lump of clay on the potter’s wheel.  The second draft is when it starts to take some shape.  Subsequent drafts add more detail and definition.

And the Vomit Draft.  Sounds a bit gross, right?  I’ll try not to take the analogy too far, in case you’re feeling a bit queasy :-)  Basically, it means you just spew out the story, the plot, the events, the characters, without a massive amount of editing or even care, as you go.

You don’t worry if it seems long-winded.  You ignore concerns about it not being the most perfectly formed piece of prose or a short-hand clichéd description.  You just write.  You get the story, the plot, the characters, the action, out onto the page.  Perfecting it comes later…in the endless editing.

Having finished B4 and started submitting it to agents (more on that next time), in the last month I’ve found myself writing the vomit draft for a new story.  Despite to-ing and fro-ing over several weeks about which YA story to pursue, I have finally settled on CAF.  Wanting to use what I learnt on the Arvon course to the max and realising that CAF is a massive story (potentially trilogy), I was keen to crack on with it as quickly as possible.  So, seeing as it was perfect timing, I decided to use the principles of November’s National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) to help me.

The idea of this initiative is exactly that of a vomit draft – you write 50,000 words of a novel in a month (roughly 1,667 words a day).  The emphasis is on quantity, not quality.  You just need to get words on the page.

Choosing an image for this post was challenging - be grateful I settled on this one ;-)

I haven’t done NaNoWriMo officially as I didn’t want to upload my work to the site at the end of the month and I already had 10,000 words of CAF (although I didn’t get going until a few days in, but you’re supposed to start from nothing).  Instead I just set myself the target of writing 1,500 words a day (45,000 words by the end of November).

Now, I’ll be honest with you.  I didn’t think I’d be able to do it.  Not, at least, without having to play massive catch-up on my scheduled writing days.  I was also dubious because there was so much that I still didn’t know about the story, and I’d always felt that I needed to before I could possibly start writing it.

But, do you know what?  It’s been fan-flipping-tastic!  I HAVE written 1,500 most days (and always caught up within a day when I haven’t).  Scenes, characters, relationships and conversations have flowed and developed easily as I’ve typed.  Yesterday, at the official end of NaNoWriMo, I'm stoked to be able to tell you that I have indeed hit my self-imposed target of 45,000 words, hurray :-)

Taking the pressure off myself to write something “good” has been highly beneficial.  Sometimes the prose hasn’t been very good, but sometimes it actually has!  Everything I've written has helped the story progress in my thinking, regardless of whether or not it makes the final cut.  And in that I think I’m a better editor than writer, at least I now have something to work with.

When I stop writing, that is.  Which isn’t gonna be for awhile.  I have a huge amount more to explore in this story and potentially another 200,000+ words to write!  Having had such a positive result with them, I’m going to work to NaNoWriMo targets again in January.  In the words of the great philosopher Dory, I’ll just keep spewing, just keep spewing, spewing, spewing…. ;-)