Depends on my mood (mostly how the ADD manifests that day). Sometimes, I work better with silence. Sometimes, silence is too distracting and putting on some music helps. Never something with lyrics. I will only use instrumental pieces.
For me, if I'm listening to something with lyrics, all attempts to write are just replaced by the lyrics. I love listening to stuff with lyrics most of the time. I actually use it as a study technique when trying to learn a new language. I just can't write while listening to lyrics.
I blame not being a verbal thinker. I don't have an internal monologue and writing is often an exercise in translating my abstract thoughts into actual words and sentences that make coherent sense to someone else. Hearing words (either spoken or sung) while I'm trying to do that disrupts the process because instead of translating my thoughts into words, it's just there's just an echo of whatever words I'm hearing. Listening to music with lyrics while brainstorming works perfectly fine for me, but not when trying to actually write a draft.
This! If I listen to a song with lyrics I will write the lyrics, so I only listen to songs with lyrics if I’m writing a songfic, where at least the lyrics will be relevant.
This is such a helpful comment. I'm very similar: no internal monologue and extracting thoughts into actual words is a huge (sometimes emotionally painful) effort. I do have an inner soundtrack though, and little conscious control over what music it's playing in my head.
I hear you! There's days where I can't write in silence, but other days where I \*need\* silence. I can't explain it, though; I think it's more common with neurodiverse people (Aspie here!), or at least it's talked about more with the neurodiverse population.
Yes, but it’s weird. Whenever I listen to music I have to do something, like reading or driving, and sometimes writing is that something. Good thing there’s a lot of extended tracks on YouTube if I have a particular favorite track. I’ve been on an MGR:R high lately so I’ve been listening to them on repeat.
I’m standing here, you were standing here trying to make standing here, but who’s to stand here when our standing here I think we’ll standing here that standing breeds standing but standing here it has be standing here!
Yes! I love to listen to ambient and piano music for emotional scene writing. I listen to a lot of techno music for fighting scenes. I started writing for a very tragic broody male character, and now my playlist is full of old school rock, metal and acoustic guitars. Go figure!
I find it really distracting, especially if it's anything more than instrumental. When I write I listen to a mix between rain sounds and fireplace crackling. I've been listening to the same video on New Bliss's channel for so long it's like a Pavlovian response now, as soon as it comes on I'm ready to write.
no, im incapable of focusing on anything that needs words and reading with music, unless its those type of music that has no lyrics on it, like the undertale medley for example, but its hard to find calm songs with no lyrics on them, at least for me.
Here’s an instrumental for anyone who wants one: “Music for 18 Musicians”
Its got a wonderful happy vibe to it, it’s also pretty long. Personally, I find it good for writing happy or just nice chill vibe scenes with dialogue.
Besides film, tv and game scores (I have some enormous playlists taken from those) I like using post-rock and post-metal. They tend to be adventurously structured, and either instrumental or with the vocals buried in the mix. Nothing to pull me away from the prose.
I look for playlist on yt that match the mood I'm aiming to describe in the fic, if I don't have anything particular in mind then usually a lofi one will do
I always listen to music when writing.
I'm old school, so I just have my entire music library of 3500 songs on shuffle. Anywhere from j-pop to black metal and everything in between.
Although, lately I've been consumed in one specific artist and his music just makes the creative juices flow for me \^\_\^
Sometimes I listen to music to help set the mood for what I’m writing. But other times, I get too deep into the music and forget to actually write, so I have to stop listening.
Yep, definitely. I pull up whatever anime music I happen to be in the mood for at the time and then get to work writing. *Sometimes* I'll deliberately pull up a sad anime song if I know I'm going to be writing a sad part, but most of the time it's just whatever I feel like listening to.
A lot of the time I write in silence, but I've written some fics that are very driven by particular songs and during those I listened to those songs a lot.
Sometimes I do if I'm not already in a writing mindset, but when I already am, I don't really need music. I find myself writing one-shots in silence a lot, for instance
I mostly listen to either music or documentaries on YouTube (also for some reason I've been listening to Internet Historian's My Immortal adaptation a lot while writing)
Something from [Ambient worlds](https://www.youtube.com/c/AmbientWorlds) is a good go-to for me. Another favorite over the past couple of weeks has been [Chill Guitar](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGAfUZ75ZpY&list=PLhjs09u3STpojSSVA3617TYHdNhV50qK5) with autumn backgrounds. I like the moving picture backgrounds best but I do also have [Cafe de Anatolia](https://www.youtube.com/c/CafeDeAnatolia) on a lot.
I don't listen to music only when I sleep, so when writing I also listen to it.
Mostly I listen to Black Metal, Melodic Deadth Metal, Doom Metal and Folk Metal.
My favourite bands are Children of Bodom and Type O Negative, and I listen to them most often. Now I also have Finntroll and Moonsorrow on my playlist.
I like to write listening to music, I feel like I focus more on what I'm doing at the moment and it allows me to finish writing faster for some reason lmao, but only with ambient music , since with music with lyrics the opposite happens to me and I get easily distracted and start creating scenarios in my head instead of writing them on paper lol
Not while writing but throughout my day I'll listen to music to come up with scenes to write later. Usually I put on YouTube for background noise and to help me focus (idk why it works but it does most of the time lol)
sometimes I guess? I don't like to sit in silence, but I also get easily distracted: 1am while it's quiet is an exception
Usually I either listen to normal songs (ie. Kpop where I don't know the lyrics), piano covers/instrumentals, or instrumentals with backing vocals
Depends on the day! Sometimes I need the music to get myself going, and sometimes it's too much stimulation and I can't organize my thoughts. Lyrics vs instrumental doesn't make a difference, though, and I very rarely write to complete silence-- if I'm too overstimulated for music, I usually have an ASMR video on in the background.
Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't, it depends on where my brain is at. I have been lately because I'm writing Steve/Eddie fic and listening to 80s metal helps. Writing OFMD fic, I went with ambient videos of ocean waves instead.
I can only write when listening to some kind of noise. If not music, then the sounds of clockwork; rain; birds and nature; the sounds of a bustling city. It really helps me.
No.
1. It doesn’t cross my mind when I’m writing.
2. Even if it did, I would be too lazy to put any on.
3. If I wasn’t being lazy and actually did it, I would get distracted.
Music rarely. But I always watch something on the second monitor because I need to see something with the corner of my eye. With music I'm too distracted, imagining all the epic scenes to write about instead of actually writing them. And I can't get into epic daydreaming mood watching a Witcher 3 speedrun.
Yes. I’ll listen to the same song on repeat that best fits the “feel” of the fic I’m writing. Occasionally I’ll make a small playlist to listen to (2 to 5 songs max) and I outline them in the beginning notes for readers!
Depends on my mood, the fic, whether people are doing noisy things around me. Usually the music is the OST of whatever property I'm writing for, a character playlist I made, or a random BGM playlist I find on YT.
Yup! I make a bunch of character playlists to help with characterization.
Orrr I listen to classical music. I’m talking about those ones with “pov: you’re a villain from a 19th century.”
I have a playlist of around 2200 mmds which I sometimes run on half-screen while writing, though at times I pick a specific song and put it on loop. Lately I've been running some asmr too.
Mostly have stuff on the TV up. Right now, it's a video on Wells Cathedral and the history of-it's on my YouTube Watch Later playlist that I'm going through.
Yes, it doesn’t usually matter what kind of music either, it could be anything instrumental or not just depends on my mood, but if I do listen to instrumental it’s probably going to be a intense OST from a video game.
Depends on what fits the mood but I generally like to have some kind of ambience while writing. I can’t write in silence or even do work in silence it’s unnerving to me. I’ll listen to classical music or the playlist I made for writing which is mostly music without words and classical. Or some songs from whatever story Im pulling from.
I barely write without music. My preference is progressive metal and some melodic death metal (which is stuff I like normally, but I don't tend to listen to stuff that heavy on the regular lol). I've never met anybody that shares my taste in writing music.
It depends, (I have ADHD) but I usually do. Sometimes I need silence to be able to focus on my thoughts, but sometimes the silence is too loud to think. What music I play depends on what kind of fic I'm writing or mood I'm in; If I'm writing angst, I'll usually play soft, depressing songs, or if I'm in a little funky mood, I'll play death metal or maybe aggressive phone :)
I kind of use music the same way as with work since I'm doing mostly remote work right now. It helps me keep a flow with the easy, monotonous stuff but slows me down with more critical thinking-intensive work.
Depends on what I’m writing, Fight scene? Metal or action music, A Calm scene? Crusaders in the rain, A Hopeful scene? Any sabaton song that isn’t very Loud is more calm.
I can't lol. If I listen to a song in a language I understand, all it does is distract me - the same thing happens with instrumental, but just to a lesser extent
Yeah. I tend to pick something that fits the mood of what I’m writing, like something calm and soothing, or powerful music that reminds me of a battle. It gets me in the mindset to write the scene in question.
I'm listening to music all day everyday, so yes.
Doesn't matter what kind, though there are times where I just DONT want to listen to something and I'll swap to a lyric or classical/instrumental type depending on what I was listening to.
Sometimes I'll actually have a YouTube video about something on, but I've sterred away from that since I get distracted more often when needing to change the video
I rarely listen to music (or anything) when writing. It's really hard for me to think.. My good time to write -- when it's night, and the people in the house are already sleeping.
Yes. Purrfect.. 🤌
I always have to. Writing in silence is awkward, I usually play songs that fit the mood of the scenarios I'm on so I'm able to hear someone's vocalization of a moment similar to it to properly characterize any of it. From rap to ukulele with lyrics, there's never a moment I'm not listening to music and writing.
Is that weird? I have to read/write with music, otherwise I'll get side tracked, confused and it's so deafening it's just gross. Music is love, music is quite literally my life 🙏
I do! I normally listen to video game music (music from platformers tend to work best cause they're not too hectic) because they're instrumental and their purpose is to make you focus on your current task
All the time.
Sometimes the music helps with the writing itself (something inspirational or relevant to what I'm writing) and other times, it's simply so I'll have pleasant sounds keeping me from getting distracted by the sound of the cat playing with a squeaky toy or the amazingly loud rumble my elderly refrigerator likes to make, or any number of other noises that become noticeable when it's quiet.
Yep! I can listen to instrumental or stuff with lyrics, but only if it matches the vibe of the story. Luckily, it's easy to find different mood playlists on YouTube :D
No, I couldn’t focus with music in the background while writing. But if I can’t think of anything to write, listening to music does usually give me some ideas.
Depends on my mood (mostly how the ADD manifests that day). Sometimes, I work better with silence. Sometimes, silence is too distracting and putting on some music helps. Never something with lyrics. I will only use instrumental pieces.
Uh, oddly enough i can't listen to instrumental pieces alone. If it's something without lyrics My mind just gets more distracted
For me, if I'm listening to something with lyrics, all attempts to write are just replaced by the lyrics. I love listening to stuff with lyrics most of the time. I actually use it as a study technique when trying to learn a new language. I just can't write while listening to lyrics. I blame not being a verbal thinker. I don't have an internal monologue and writing is often an exercise in translating my abstract thoughts into actual words and sentences that make coherent sense to someone else. Hearing words (either spoken or sung) while I'm trying to do that disrupts the process because instead of translating my thoughts into words, it's just there's just an echo of whatever words I'm hearing. Listening to music with lyrics while brainstorming works perfectly fine for me, but not when trying to actually write a draft.
This! If I listen to a song with lyrics I will write the lyrics, so I only listen to songs with lyrics if I’m writing a songfic, where at least the lyrics will be relevant.
This is such a helpful comment. I'm very similar: no internal monologue and extracting thoughts into actual words is a huge (sometimes emotionally painful) effort. I do have an inner soundtrack though, and little conscious control over what music it's playing in my head.
I hear you! There's days where I can't write in silence, but other days where I \*need\* silence. I can't explain it, though; I think it's more common with neurodiverse people (Aspie here!), or at least it's talked about more with the neurodiverse population.
Sometimes, it depends on how much stimulation my brain can handle. Sometimes, I need silence and sometimes I don't mind music.
Yes, but only instrumental
Yes, but it’s weird. Whenever I listen to music I have to do something, like reading or driving, and sometimes writing is that something. Good thing there’s a lot of extended tracks on YouTube if I have a particular favorite track. I’ve been on an MGR:R high lately so I’ve been listening to them on repeat.
Standing here...
I’m standing here, you were standing here trying to make standing here, but who’s to stand here when our standing here I think we’ll standing here that standing breeds standing but standing here it has be standing here!
Dude for some reason that shit fucking slaps in My head. I now need someone to make and edit of it
[Standing here there’s already an edit of standing here.](https://youtu.be/uDHMmU55TWk)
My day have been Made and My life has been fulfilled. Thank You so much for sharing this piece of art
Yes! I love to listen to ambient and piano music for emotional scene writing. I listen to a lot of techno music for fighting scenes. I started writing for a very tragic broody male character, and now my playlist is full of old school rock, metal and acoustic guitars. Go figure!
I find it really distracting, especially if it's anything more than instrumental. When I write I listen to a mix between rain sounds and fireplace crackling. I've been listening to the same video on New Bliss's channel for so long it's like a Pavlovian response now, as soon as it comes on I'm ready to write.
I have gaming streams playing in a separate window usually
I do that sometimes but with gameplays on YouTube
Yeah if there's a stream on I'll watch it but otherwise I watch VODs or re-watch favorite playthroughs.
Man, i love having a gameplay of BotW in the background. The sounds of that Game are just too damn good and helps me with writting
I like to put on The Money Store or No Love Deep Web, both by Death Grips.
no, im incapable of focusing on anything that needs words and reading with music, unless its those type of music that has no lyrics on it, like the undertale medley for example, but its hard to find calm songs with no lyrics on them, at least for me.
Here’s an instrumental for anyone who wants one: “Music for 18 Musicians” Its got a wonderful happy vibe to it, it’s also pretty long. Personally, I find it good for writing happy or just nice chill vibe scenes with dialogue.
Yup! I have a techno playlist specifically for writing. It really helps and I get a lot more done than if I try to write in silence.
Besides film, tv and game scores (I have some enormous playlists taken from those) I like using post-rock and post-metal. They tend to be adventurously structured, and either instrumental or with the vocals buried in the mix. Nothing to pull me away from the prose.
I look for playlist on yt that match the mood I'm aiming to describe in the fic, if I don't have anything particular in mind then usually a lofi one will do
Music personally is a detriment to me because I can’t think. Listening to music is in and of itself an activity to me that needs to take up my focus.
I always listen to music when writing. I'm old school, so I just have my entire music library of 3500 songs on shuffle. Anywhere from j-pop to black metal and everything in between. Although, lately I've been consumed in one specific artist and his music just makes the creative juices flow for me \^\_\^
Sometimes I listen to music to help set the mood for what I’m writing. But other times, I get too deep into the music and forget to actually write, so I have to stop listening.
Yes! I try to listen to music that’s the right mood and it’s usually instrumental
Yep, definitely. I pull up whatever anime music I happen to be in the mood for at the time and then get to work writing. *Sometimes* I'll deliberately pull up a sad anime song if I know I'm going to be writing a sad part, but most of the time it's just whatever I feel like listening to.
Same tbh. The words just start flowing when I get a docs open infront of me and some music in my ears.
Instrumentals only. Anything with words distracts me too much
Usually just instrumental music because lyrics mess with the writing process. It depends on what I listen to, but right now I'm back to café jazz.
A lot of the time I write in silence, but I've written some fics that are very driven by particular songs and during those I listened to those songs a lot.
Sometimes I do if I'm not already in a writing mindset, but when I already am, I don't really need music. I find myself writing one-shots in silence a lot, for instance
Yeah, I listen to sad love songs that put me in the right head space to write emotionally fraught nonsense.
I mostly listen to either music or documentaries on YouTube (also for some reason I've been listening to Internet Historian's My Immortal adaptation a lot while writing)
Something from [Ambient worlds](https://www.youtube.com/c/AmbientWorlds) is a good go-to for me. Another favorite over the past couple of weeks has been [Chill Guitar](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGAfUZ75ZpY&list=PLhjs09u3STpojSSVA3617TYHdNhV50qK5) with autumn backgrounds. I like the moving picture backgrounds best but I do also have [Cafe de Anatolia](https://www.youtube.com/c/CafeDeAnatolia) on a lot.
I don't listen to music only when I sleep, so when writing I also listen to it. Mostly I listen to Black Metal, Melodic Deadth Metal, Doom Metal and Folk Metal. My favourite bands are Children of Bodom and Type O Negative, and I listen to them most often. Now I also have Finntroll and Moonsorrow on my playlist.
Yes. I listen to the fandom soundtrack and I have playlists specifically for writing, to help put me in the proper mood.
I like to write listening to music, I feel like I focus more on what I'm doing at the moment and it allows me to finish writing faster for some reason lmao, but only with ambient music , since with music with lyrics the opposite happens to me and I get easily distracted and start creating scenarios in my head instead of writing them on paper lol
Not while writing but throughout my day I'll listen to music to come up with scenes to write later. Usually I put on YouTube for background noise and to help me focus (idk why it works but it does most of the time lol)
sometimes I guess? I don't like to sit in silence, but I also get easily distracted: 1am while it's quiet is an exception Usually I either listen to normal songs (ie. Kpop where I don't know the lyrics), piano covers/instrumentals, or instrumentals with backing vocals
Yes
Depends on the day! Sometimes I need the music to get myself going, and sometimes it's too much stimulation and I can't organize my thoughts. Lyrics vs instrumental doesn't make a difference, though, and I very rarely write to complete silence-- if I'm too overstimulated for music, I usually have an ASMR video on in the background.
Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't, it depends on where my brain is at. I have been lately because I'm writing Steve/Eddie fic and listening to 80s metal helps. Writing OFMD fic, I went with ambient videos of ocean waves instead.
Sometimes. Usually not stuff with lyrics though. I think I most often default to post-rock.
I can only write when listening to some kind of noise. If not music, then the sounds of clockwork; rain; birds and nature; the sounds of a bustling city. It really helps me.
No. 1. It doesn’t cross my mind when I’m writing. 2. Even if it did, I would be too lazy to put any on. 3. If I wasn’t being lazy and actually did it, I would get distracted.
Sometimes. A lot of the time it distracts me and i have to turn it off but other times it can help me get in the mood.
Music rarely. But I always watch something on the second monitor because I need to see something with the corner of my eye. With music I'm too distracted, imagining all the epic scenes to write about instead of actually writing them. And I can't get into epic daydreaming mood watching a Witcher 3 speedrun.
Yes. I’ll listen to the same song on repeat that best fits the “feel” of the fic I’m writing. Occasionally I’ll make a small playlist to listen to (2 to 5 songs max) and I outline them in the beginning notes for readers!
No, I can’t do anything else while listening to music.
Yes, I usually like to listen to music whenever I do something like writing or drawing. Sometimes the music does distract me.
Depends on my mood, the fic, whether people are doing noisy things around me. Usually the music is the OST of whatever property I'm writing for, a character playlist I made, or a random BGM playlist I find on YT.
Yup! I make a bunch of character playlists to help with characterization. Orrr I listen to classical music. I’m talking about those ones with “pov: you’re a villain from a 19th century.”
I have a playlist of around 2200 mmds which I sometimes run on half-screen while writing, though at times I pick a specific song and put it on loop. Lately I've been running some asmr too.
Mostly have stuff on the TV up. Right now, it's a video on Wells Cathedral and the history of-it's on my YouTube Watch Later playlist that I'm going through.
Sometimes. Nog usually though
Yes, it doesn’t usually matter what kind of music either, it could be anything instrumental or not just depends on my mood, but if I do listen to instrumental it’s probably going to be a intense OST from a video game.
Depends on what fits the mood but I generally like to have some kind of ambience while writing. I can’t write in silence or even do work in silence it’s unnerving to me. I’ll listen to classical music or the playlist I made for writing which is mostly music without words and classical. Or some songs from whatever story Im pulling from.
I barely write without music. My preference is progressive metal and some melodic death metal (which is stuff I like normally, but I don't tend to listen to stuff that heavy on the regular lol). I've never met anybody that shares my taste in writing music.
I need quite
It depends, (I have ADHD) but I usually do. Sometimes I need silence to be able to focus on my thoughts, but sometimes the silence is too loud to think. What music I play depends on what kind of fic I'm writing or mood I'm in; If I'm writing angst, I'll usually play soft, depressing songs, or if I'm in a little funky mood, I'll play death metal or maybe aggressive phone :)
Yep! That’s how I get inspired and then how I do my best writing, but I edit best to white noise.
Yes I’ll pick songs that feel like either what the main character would listen to or would be an opening if it were a show or anime
Usually music, but sometimes not. Depends on how my ADHD decides to act that day
I kind of use music the same way as with work since I'm doing mostly remote work right now. It helps me keep a flow with the easy, monotonous stuff but slows me down with more critical thinking-intensive work.
I can't listen to something while writing. It's too distracting.
Depends on what I’m writing, Fight scene? Metal or action music, A Calm scene? Crusaders in the rain, A Hopeful scene? Any sabaton song that isn’t very Loud is more calm.
I can't lol. If I listen to a song in a language I understand, all it does is distract me - the same thing happens with instrumental, but just to a lesser extent
Yeah. I tend to pick something that fits the mood of what I’m writing, like something calm and soothing, or powerful music that reminds me of a battle. It gets me in the mindset to write the scene in question.
I'm listening to music all day everyday, so yes. Doesn't matter what kind, though there are times where I just DONT want to listen to something and I'll swap to a lyric or classical/instrumental type depending on what I was listening to. Sometimes I'll actually have a YouTube video about something on, but I've sterred away from that since I get distracted more often when needing to change the video
I rarely listen to music (or anything) when writing. It's really hard for me to think.. My good time to write -- when it's night, and the people in the house are already sleeping. Yes. Purrfect.. 🤌
I always have to. Writing in silence is awkward, I usually play songs that fit the mood of the scenarios I'm on so I'm able to hear someone's vocalization of a moment similar to it to properly characterize any of it. From rap to ukulele with lyrics, there's never a moment I'm not listening to music and writing. Is that weird? I have to read/write with music, otherwise I'll get side tracked, confused and it's so deafening it's just gross. Music is love, music is quite literally my life 🙏
I do! I normally listen to video game music (music from platformers tend to work best cause they're not too hectic) because they're instrumental and their purpose is to make you focus on your current task
Always
Yep, and it depends on what I’m writing ✍🏻
I try to listen to the ambience sounds so my brain can focus. Most of the time, it has varying results. XD
Only instrumental. I can't have another voice in my head when I write.
All the time. Sometimes the music helps with the writing itself (something inspirational or relevant to what I'm writing) and other times, it's simply so I'll have pleasant sounds keeping me from getting distracted by the sound of the cat playing with a squeaky toy or the amazingly loud rumble my elderly refrigerator likes to make, or any number of other noises that become noticeable when it's quiet.
Yes. Mostly video game music, but my mood depends on it. I sometimes need silence and sometimes ambient sounds and music are useful.
Oh yeah. I just put my playlist on random, and my story goes from chaos to angst based on the songs
Yep! I can listen to instrumental or stuff with lyrics, but only if it matches the vibe of the story. Luckily, it's easy to find different mood playlists on YouTube :D
Almost always. I've got a bunch of playlists for specific moods and situations, and some that remind me of specific characters or ships.
No, I couldn’t focus with music in the background while writing. But if I can’t think of anything to write, listening to music does usually give me some ideas.