I’ll be brief today, since there is a lot of leftover-eating and lounging around to be done.*
D gave me these. For writing. Which is awesome.
Because as much as I like writing in coffee shops, sometimes the noise of them is … too noisy.
And also, if you’re wearing earbuds, sometimes people think that your small, non-confrontational headphones are an invitation to start talking to you right in the middle of a very crucial scene.
These babies, though? These are like a fortress to protect crucial scenes!
What about you? Do you write to music? To noise? In silence?
(And if in silence, HOW?)
*Okay, you got me. I’m actually getting caught up on email, but whatever. Lounge! Eat leftovers!
Brenna Yovanoff 
Giant honking headphones, yes!!!!!!!!!
I used to have a giant pair of studio headphones, and I LOVED them! They were a wonderful $50 pair that did indeed block out the rest of the world, and were absolutely necessary for writing.
My husband stepped on them about a year ago, and got me another pair. Not quite the same, and they don’t have the same ability to completely block out the rest of the world…I miss them. They were so awesome…I’m totally jealous of your wonderful headphones <3
Music is absolutely crucial to the creation process. I have quite a few video game, anime, and movie scores that are my go-to background noise. Singing is okay, if I've heard the song a gazillion times, or if it's in another language.
Music is so…integral. Driving would be boring. Cooking would get kind of lame. Cleaning would just plain suck. My nights of endless coding as a teenager would have been pretty awful without an endless assortment of techno.
So….now I'm totally curious! What is your go-to writing music, Brenna? :D
I’m so happy with these things! In college, I had a giant pair of Sonys that I got on crazy-insane clearance and just loved to death. (Also, I took them everywhere and used them to keep my ears warm and was always shoving them into the bottom of my bag when class started. They lasted a very long time … all things considered.)
It’s funny, I’ve talked to a lot of people who prefer writing to scores, but I can’t do it! For some reason, I don’t have a lot of interest in music without lyrics—I think out of all the tracks in my library, even the most random miscellaneous ones, maybe two don’t have vocals?
When I’m revising, I’ll pretty much always put on just one song and listen to it over and over and over, so it’s not like I’m listening to the words, but I really like hearing the voices. For first drafts though, a lot of times I’ll just make a bunch of stations on Pandora and then shuffle them all together, and then the variety and the surprise is nice.
Also, I *love* driving to music! (For cooking and cleaning, though, I am all about audiobooks. Apparently, I just really like voices.)
Driving music is good…unless it makes you want to drive really fast! Good idea with Pandora…I’ll have to try that out.
I LOVE headphones instead of earbuds. I usually write to music, but sometimes I need a break and switch to the white noise of coffee-shop-like places like Panera. And LOL, that’s so true– people just start up and talking to you even with earbuds in, but with headphones? I don’t think so. XD
I’m honestly kind of curious to see what happens—I mean, I don’t think anyone will try to start up a conversation, what with me looking like an air traffic controller, but the thing is … you can just never TELL!
I love those headphones. Retro and modern in one. Can you tell me the name? I’ve been looking forward a pair like those for a while. I listen to music everyday and what headphones that will shut out everything, but the sound.
These ones are from Skull Candy, but I don’t know the name of the style (just that they have the little skeleton-face on the hinge). They’re not noise-cancelling, and they’re *still* like being an isolation tank—and the sound is so much lovelier than my little ear buds! (Also, I think I just really like having something substantial on me head. I like winter hats a lot too.)
Love the look. Can double as earmuffs in a pinch :) Happy Holidays to you guys!
Can double as earmuffs in a pinch
YES! Back when we were in school, I wore my old Sony ones when it was cold out, even after they weren’t all that musical anymore :)
And happy holidays to you! How are you all? We need to get together soon!
You are SO right about the earbuds and people in coffee shops. I can’t count the number of times people thought it was okay to interrupt my writing to ask where the bathroom was located. Hello?!? Writing here. Guess the buds get lost among my hair. I need some of those headphones. Hope they work out for ya!
I haven’t tried them out and about yet, but I hypothesize that they are so big that everyone will be afraid of them! Like rhinoceroses.
I can write to video games in the background and music blaring, but I much prefer quiet. It helps me think better. When the kids are at school, I can really get cooking on things.
I’m weird about noise and thinking—I must have different kind of thinking that depend on different things. Like road noise or the sound of the shower or the treadmill helps a lot when I’m brainstorming, but once I know for sure what I want to write about, then the music keeps me from getting distracted and going off on some sort of unrelated (and therefore unhelpful) daydream.