(no subject)

[tmcg]

Having cars beep their horns in order to say "Yes, ma'am, signal acknowledged, ma'am, I'm all locked up, ma'am" when you use the remote to lock them is like having a doorbell that's loud enough to startle the neighbors and passersby and that instead of politely chiming cries "Look out!" and "Don't hit me!" and "Help!"

Using a potato peeler to laboriously strip the top layer from a stalk of celery you've already rinsed as thoroughly as possible feels a lot like washing the soap. Then again, sometimes the soap does need washing.

I can no longer listen to music while I write because I sense a melodic, rhythmic shape to sentences before I have the words to fill the shape; I need to listen, I need to be able to hear what I haven't said yet.

(I used to like to have music playing while I was writing, and on a panel at the last Albacon--when the question "What music helps you write?" came up, as it frequently does--I said I couldn't have music on at all anymore, and Barbara Chepaitis was curious why, and I told her I didn't know, although I had a vague unarticulated notion that it might have something to do with aging, that when I was younger I was better at handling multiple sensory input and multitasking. Maybe that is part of it, and maybe it's all just different ways of saying "I need to be able to hear myself think." But yesterday I found myself listening for, reaching for, that word melody that didn't have words yet, and I thought, Huh. Wow. This is why. And it is.)

Comments

[melissajm.livejournal.com]

Funny-I write shorts better in silence, but with novels a "soundtrack" can tie things together and make the project more manageable.

[kurtisroth.livejournal.com]

For me it differs from project to project. Lately I like to have something to inspire a mood. But there are times -- when I'm more clear on whatever it is I'm setting out to do, or more intent on creating that mood from the ground up -- when silence or white noise is better.

I totally get the word melody thing. I imagine that's part of what I'm reaching for in "I need a mood" mode. Never thought of it that way before.

[norilana.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's exactly the same reason I cannot really write well with music on, I ahve to hearthe cadence of the sentences else they don't "work" in my mind.

Btw, happy Independence Day! :-)