Monday, November 20, 2006

An exercise

What is your earliest musical memory? Is there a song that stands out from when you were sixteen? Who were you with? What were you doing? What about when you were twenty-one? Thirty-three? Forty-six? What played at your wedding or when your child was born? For fifteen minutes, write down these musical memories.

Experiment. Play different types of music and write. Write to silence as well. How does what you listen to—or not listen to—affect what you write?

Put on music you like, set the timer for fifteen minutes and write whatever comes through. Don’t try to make it into something else. Not yet, anyway. Let the music take you and your writing with it, and see what happens.

Work with similes, too. Set the timer for fifteen minutes and start with what you hear right now. What does what you hear remind you of? What does the rain sound like to you? What do tires moving past your house sound like? the whistle of the teakettle? Pay attention to sounds as you sit and write, as you walk, as you do what you do, and bring those sounds into your writing.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I find I can't write with music that has lyrics. I start singing along. I can't even write to instrumental music I know well for the same reason. My brain can't do both at once, so more often than not, I write to silence.

But I do listen to music to get into the mood to write. I've started making playlists in my iTunes for different emotions -- the Melancholy Mix, The Happy Mix, etc.

Deborah said...

Music is my salvation, writing is my refuge and knitting is proof that I'm alive...

Anonymous said...

Lacy, That's a great idea about the different playlists....

And Deborah....you are a poet.

Anonymous said...

I am going to do this for this evening's blog post, I think. Thank you for this prompt!