I often listen to music while I’m writing fiction. I typically pick songs that particularly grab me and elicit some emotional/musical response: I laugh, I cry, I tap my foot. I listen repeatedly to the same tunes while working on a particular piece, as a soundtrack in a way. I used to listen only to instrumental music while writing, ages ago, but found that I like the words, the sound of the singing voices, like somebody chanting in the background. I started doing this to insulate myself from other sounds like a noisy roommate or a jack hammer. But now I do it for the trance-inducing quality of it. John Gardner talks about fiction creating a “fictional dream,” and the first dreamer is the writer. All the good stuff happens when I’m inside the story, in a sense not aware of it as words but as an alternate reality. At such moments, the writing can become almost automatic, like I’m taking dictation rather than assembling words on the page or screen. At the moment, I’ve been listening to The Be Good Tanyas.

I usually don’t listen to anything specifically connected with what I’m writing. The story I’m writing now, for example, is set in the late sixties, and tunes by the Stones and Steppenwolf are mentioned in the story, but I don’t listen to them while I write it. I guess I’m looking for a less literal connection between story and song, something that will surprise me.

While talking with a beginning fiction writer at RavenCon, Edmund Schubert and I both started suggesting books on the craft of fiction. Often more helpful than creative writing teachers and your fellow victims around the workshop table, books are an invaluable resource. Here are some I’ve found especially useful. Continue reading →