A Creativity Challenge: Music to Write By

With Ashley's Creativity Challenge a week underway, I thought it would be a good time to write my first update.  As mentioned previously, the challenge I've issued myself for the month of July is to write.  Write habitually, write unabashedly, just write.  My only requirements were that the writing be done daily, and that its subject matter be creative.

It sounds easy enough, doesn't it?

Enter: Me.

This isn't nearly as straight-forward and simple as I thought it was going to be, but I guess that's why I issued it as a challenge to myself.  It's extremely hard for me to focus long enough to write something worth writing, or to even gauge what that "worth" means.  It's difficult to stay inspired, or to not focus on the ideas I've had and then forgotten instead of creating new ones.  And though I've written something down everyday so far, sometimes it was just a single, measly sentence that was hastily deleted before my laptop even had time to process and auto-save.  I don't know whether this is a lack of commitment or just a genuine lack of ideas on my part.

Given all of this, my mini-challenge for the coming week is to write more.  No more one-sentence-and-delete.  Write to keep.

To help with this, I've resurrected my "Music to Write By" playlist.  It's always been easiest for me to write with mood music.  Like many authors I've read interviews of, I tend to think in movie scenes complete with soundtracks and, in fact, most of my ideas come when I'm on a long drive somewhere, listening to music that just makes me see what's happening.  I usually have an idea for the general story line in my head already, but the music helps me to create scenes and dialogue, environment and emotion.  It's the only time that I can honestly say my characters have told me what they'd like to say instead of the other way around.  Unfortunately, by the time the drive is over, I've forgotten the details of that scene and spend the next few days mourning that loss and trying [unsuccessfully] to recreate it.  This discourages me, and I stop trying.

It's an unproductive cycle, but it's one that I'm hopeful can be broken.

And so, though it desperately needs updating, my current "Music to Write By" playlist looks like this:

1. Lydia - "Fate"
2. Sara Bareilles & Ingrid Michaelson - "Winter Song"
3. Maria Taylor - "Clean Getaway"
4. A Fine Frenzy - "Elements"
5. Eisley - "Plenty of Paper"
6. Snow Patrol & Martha Wainwright - "Set the Fire to the Third Bar"
7. Kat Tingey - "Undone"
8. The Temper Trap - "Sweet Disposition"
9. Sea Wolf - "The Violet Hour"
10. Editors - "No Sound But the Wind"
11. Lydia - "This is Twice Now"
12. Deas Vail - "Atlantis"
13. Ray LaMontagne - "Hannah"
14. The Fray - "Look After You"
15. Death Cab for Cutie - "I Will Follow You into the Dark"
16. Lydia - "Now the One You Once Loved is Leaving"
17. Eisley - "Brightly Wound"
18. Death Cab for Cutie - "The Ice is Getting Thinner"
19. Lydia - "One More Day"
20. Grizzly Bear & Victoria Legrand - "Slow Life"
21. Leona Lewis - "Run"
22. Lydia - "All I See"
23. Poe - "Haunted"