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I know it's been asked more times that anyone cares to count on the main boards, but it's still a good question. Do you listen to music while writing, and if so what?

For me, it goes back and forth; I have to be in the mood to hear it, the distraction is nice, but sometimes it interferes with the creative process...or mutates it in ways that don't always make sense. But, when I do it's either a radio tuned to one of many 90's rock stations or a selection of music from several genres that I liked; no rhyme or reason beyond I like how they sound.

On that thought, have you ever thought about the music some of your main characters would listen to?

It depends; I really have to be in the proper mood to listen to music while I write. If I'm not, I'll just end up either getting distracted or singing along and losing the will to write. Like now, I'm trying to write while listening to music which has a completely different feel to the fanfic; so far, in just under an hour, I've managed to produce one and a half sentences. Impressive, eh? xd

But, when circumstances allow, music can help my writing process. As long as it has the same kind of tone as what I'm trying to write, of course. There's a Digimon fanfic I'm doing, for example, and every time I work on it I listen to 'The Zookeeper's Boy', 'Comforting Sounds' and 'Like Paper Cuts', all by Mew. It's because those songs put me into the same state of mind as I imagine the central character to be in, and so the feeling is much easier to convey.

That probably didn't make a lot of sense, but you get the general point. Whatever I'm listening to has to make me feel, or it's only going to be a distraction.

Typically, I don't write with music unless I'm writing a song-based fiction.

I feel that music distracts me because I am a musician and I love to sing. If I'm familiar with the song, I often get caught up in the words and don't focus on what I was writing.

When I write a song-based fiction, I listen to the same song over and over again until I get a clear picture of the scenes I should write, couples involved, a main sense of the story of the song, etc.

There is one fanfiction in particular that I'm working on that I'm creating a 'play list' for. Its a set of songs that remind me of particular moments in the piece and just seem to fit with them.

I always listen to music when I write, if I can.
It really doesn't matter what song is playing as long as I'm inspired. Although, quite often a particular song will inspire me to create a random scene, and then I find a way to work it into the overall plot. Other times a song will aid me in figuring out the flow of action within a scene. In short, I give my fics a soundtrack!

In fact, the final installment of a series I'm working on was created when I was listening to a track on a cd I had recently purchased. Images started to run through my mind as if I were watching a music video for the main theme from a movie. Interspersed between clips of the artist performing I imagined scenes with characters I had experimented with but never used and eventually I formulated the ending of what has turned out to be my favorite of the stories.

Music truly is an amazing thing. ^^

...Doesn't help explain the smattering of music some listen to (me included), but at least I was right about the theory behind the music.

I do it with and without, actually. Some music can distract me when I'm writing things. On occasion, if I realize there is music playing, I'll turn it off because my attention is waning, but usually I have something that is going on outside my little writing bubble.

Cascada is great- I love listening to her music if I'm trying to do a more upbeat or fast pass moment particularily if it deals with a budding couple.

When I do my X-men fight scenes I tend to listen to motivating songs like Pat Benatar's Invincible or Midnight Oil's Forgotten years.

Im kinda the same. I'll be sitting around listening to music. Then all of a sudden I have to get up and go write. I cant listen to it all the tiem though, I get ahead of myself and start envisioning what is going to happen later in the story and my hand starts writing down the wrong words and things get crazy.