October Novel Prep Challenge

If you use a streaming service of some kind or (like old-fashioned me) a CD-player sometimes , then yes.

But joking aside now.

I honestly never really wondered. I use Apple Music or - like mentioned above - good ol' silver. In the former I found it quite easy to collect titles / albums / playlists that suit me, not only writing-wise. The latter I use when an album fits the story almost wholly.

I used the album

BOOK

Coming up for Air by Kodaline  (18+) Vincent and Laura are facing life changing circumstances and must find a solution #2270483 by Olivia's getting better

which I wrote originally for the "Musicology Anthology" , to base the whole story on. The texts - their literal and also figuratively meanings - just clicked and so the gesamtkunstwerk emerged... the CD must have a groove by now (and the Apple copy, too).

That'd be an example for "writing music" for me.

Of course, you could do the other thing, too: listen to the radio (streaming service) and let your characters speak to you.

When you listen to music and it sparks whole scenes / chapters (like the album mentioned above), then you're one lucky writing gal. That happened to me a lot during last NaNo. There's a growing Playlist "inspired" by Laura and Vince.

Contains a lot of REM, INXS, Keane, Kodaline, Roxette, Tom Petty, Dire Straits, "Amys" Macdonald & Winehouse, but also local music, e.g. by the Münchner Freiheit and the Spider Murphy Gang, which are local bands from Munich in Germany where my NaNo 2021 was set (I and my FMC are German).

When I have the time to gather them before November, I'll share it.