Tag: writing memoir

Mood Music for Writing

When I was first writing Hurricane Baby in those days right after Hurricane Katrina, I listened to two CD’s obsessively. We were members of the BMG Music Club back then, and we had ordered INXS Greatest Hits and Duran Duran Greatest Hits in the weeks before the hurricane hit, and they were delivered to our mailbox once mail service was finally restored to our area, in the first batch of mail we got.

So those songs became part of the backdrop of those days following the disaster and were very closely associated in my mind with my emotional state after the hurricane–terrified of what we had become as a society, traumatized by the endless news feeds showing the horror wreaked on the entire state of Mississippi and the eastern half of Louisiana, and desperate for a return to sanity and normalcy in my spirit. And whenever I worked on the novel that my story was becoming–I put those CD’s on the stereo.

So whenever I returned to the manuscript to retool it, revise it, revisit it, I put those CD’s on to try to recreate the vibe of my emotional state when I first conceived and wrote the book. That included this latest set of revisions, the ones that finally got the book sold.

So now I am thinking about my new project, which I am currently calling When I Went Crazy. I decided that since playing mood music in the background worked so well for writing Hurricane Baby, I’d try it with this one as well!

I tried to remember the music I’d played while writing the thesis for my graduate program and just couldn’t come up with anything I had stuck with that inspired me to write. Then I realized that with me concentrating on the time period I was going to cut my thesis down to, it was going to be a lot darker than the thesis. The theme of my thesis had been hope, that there is life after receiving such a diagnosis. But I realized that to accurately convey my emotions during the time the book would cover, I was going to wander into some scary territory.

So I set about putting together a playlist on Spotify that would reflect the vibe I wanted to create in the new project. I started with my favorite songs from the two CD’s I had used to write Hurricane Baby–then I let the suggested songs I was given after each addition govern the other choices. I have songs from Robert Palmer, Simple Minds, Prince, and several other 80’s groups, because I will be doing some flashbacking to when I was a teenager and listening to those songs. Other songs from when I was even younger include some of Elvis Presley at his bluesiest best. Anything the suggestions list had on it with a harder edge to them that would capture that feeling of helplessness I had watching myself fall completely apart went on the list.

When I finished, I had two-and-a-half hours of music listed out. I never write for longer than that at a time nowadays with my job, so I felt like that was a perfect length. I labeled it “Writing Mix–When I Went Crazy” and stored it on my phone. I was pleased with myself. I will reserve it for when I am actively writing on anything related to the memoir. Off to the races!

Edit; Selling Hurricane Baby? That playlist was Hamilton the Original Cast Album. “I am not throwing away my shot!” But I’ll save that story for the book tour. . . 🙂

Facts About Planning to Write

I struggle with a particular problem whenever I start a new project–planning vs. writing.

Planning sounds good, right? We plan for trips, plan for our day, plan for retirement. Why is “planning to write” so deadly to some writers?

Because “planning” isn’t actually writing–and therein lies the rub.

I am by nature a planner. I planned out all the classes I would take for my MFA before I even embarked on the six years it took for me to finish my degree. I plan meals, workdays, life events. I don’t deal very much in serendipity–just seeing what happens when I don’t follow a plan.

But planning to write is not the same thing as actually writing. You can plan out what you want to write and how you’re going to write and when you are going to write, but when you’re done–what have you accomplished to the goal of writing your book (or article or term paper or life story)?

Nothing.

Whereas, if you just sit down with a blank page and start typing, that same amount of time planning could have been spent generating a page of prose (or poetry, whatever your flex is) however imperfect it might look to a trained eye.

That’s where I am right now with my nonfiction project. I have found myself reading the manuscript I already have and inserting scenes I PLAN to write to go in it. This tendency, along with my realization that I’m going to have to find a new entryway into my story since I won’t have the previous 200+ pages of exposition/description/action I now have in the work, I find myself nine days into October with nothing new actually written. And that’s not good.

How to get over it? For me, no other way works except jumping into the cold water of my manuscript and swimming for my life. If I just stick my toe in the manuscript, I will get scared and never get into it and make it all it can be.

So today I will write instead of plan. It’s the only way anything ever gets done. Write today.