Music and It's Impact on My Writing

This short blog post is just me talking about how music effects my writing and the importance and impact it has on what I create. I know that I don't have a wide variety of things you can read to see that impact; I write outside of fimfiction frequently, but its not FiM-related so I don't really have anywhere to post it. Gosh though, I couldn't imagine trying to fuse ponies into some of darker stuff I've been trying to work on. I like a lot of the lessons I've learned from writing what little I do have of GPK-- along with some of the taste maturation I've experienced. I think there's certainly chapters of GPK that could have used some patience and maturity considering how the fic starts and the subject matters it deals with. But this has been a rather lengthy digression from the main topic.

Okay. If you've read my work, especially the most recent chapters, you could probably feel a lack of musical rhythm or musical inspiration even. You'd be right in picking that up. The way music works for me in terms of impact on things I write is that I imagine the music to very specific scenes, which have all yet to appear. That actually taps into a certain note of why sometimes writing (for me) takes so long. Not only am I lazy, and loathe focusing on trying to write (not writing itself), but music does a good deal of the heavy lifting in inspiration for me. The other secret ingredient is pain and loneliness: two parts that make up a greater whole.

But I do often still listen to music as I write anyways. And envision the feeling of the scene that I want to write in the future. I have quite a few tracks lined up for GPK whenever I get around to them. I'm not going to include the tracks that inspired scenes when I write them. I think that's a cute piece of fanfiction writing that needs to stay in the history of fics I've read rather than turning it into a tradition I uphold, lol. Not only does it break the immersion of the reader, but its a cheap copout to get those emotions pumping that I want to try to invoke via writing. It may not be completely possible, or simply require a far more skilled writer than I, but its simply thing of pride to me.

Also, I cannot write while listening to music that has lyrics. Does this mean I exclusively listen to classical then? No. I don't even touch the stuff. Classical is kinda just... carries an air of an over achiever. Nah, dude. I'm GAMER I listen to GAMING music. Mostly soundtracks that I like. When it comes to GPK, and other stuff that I write that's medieval fantasy or dark fantasy, I listen to orchestral soundtracks (A lot of Halo and Dark Souls). For the sci-fi (sorta) thing I'm writing, I listen to the Hotline Miami OST, as well as certain music from certain WH40K games.

The reason I don't write while listening to lyrical music? Actually pretty similar to the reason why I don't listen to music at all usually while doing homework or coding: It breaks my stream of consciousness really bad. I'm a terminally online gen z virgin, I can't focus given slight distractions and I actually listen to the lyrics of music I listen to (especially if it's a good song). Eventually I start thinking about what is being said, and then I go into a rabbit hole of thought train from "What does Sturgill Simpson mean by 'Turtles all the Way Down'" to "Oh! Okay, so we shoulda just killed Hussein the FIRST time we invaded Iraq, instead of letting him destroy peoples lives for another decade, but leadership was too afraid of things ending the way the invasion of Panama did! Silly me." And now I'm thinking back to an essay I did with research and everything is fucked because 2 hours have passed and I feel like just watching youtube or continuing Persona 5.

In short, it's too distracting, and doesn't add to the writing I do. I feel the more distracted I get, the more disjointed it becomes and I worry very heavily that you can tell when I've closed the tab and come back later to work on the chapter.

That about covers all the thoughts I wanted to jot down. OH! Except the last most important impact music has on my writing! It's usually fueled instead by an intense caffeine high, because I'm an energy drink addict quickly on the way to kidney stones (shooting for stones by 25, fingers crossed). I'm becoming an alcoholic too, and noticing that the profundity of music increases threefold once inebriated. Thus: the most recent chapter of GPK was finally released two years later (haha).

I'm genuinely interested in the impact music has on your writing, if any, so let me know. Or if you just stick to being in the audience, tell me about how that impacts your reading. I could one-hundred percent make an entire other rant about how music impacts the things I've read. Certain scenes from what was my favorite fic, The Lunar Guardsman by Crimmar, would not have been the same were I not listening to music at the time of reading.

Anyways, thanks for reading my ramble. Next GPK chapter has begun. I'll post it when its done.