Changing your soundtrack will help you get back on track. Let’s go from trying everything from foreign music to nature.
If you’re stuck and unable to write, you’ve got to switch things up to get your mind moving again. It’s tricky, certainly, but we’re writers and thus we must write.
It’s as simple as that.
Whether you typically listen to music when you write or not, try a few of these different approaches. Switching up your routine is exactly what you need to get writing again.
For the last week, writing has been the most painful labor for me. I’ve barely been able to get myself to write an article. I managed one over the weekend, but it was like pulling teeth. My bout of motivation spluttered out and my discipline was the only thing that kept me chipping away.
If you’re in the same boat, here’s what I did with my soundtrack to get me back on track.
Refresh your music library.
You don’t have to break the bank to do this.
Go to the library, borrow some CDs, and import them into your library.
You don’t need to spend a fortune on downloads or discs to freshen up your material.
If ads drive you nuts or the library is too far away, try a Spotify or Pandora trial.
Go simple and just install an ad blocker and listen to music on YouTube; see what its algorithms autoplay for you.
I’m usually in too much of a rush to get to work to put together a playlist.
Subsequently, simply sitting back and seeing what YouTube serves up in autoplay next has been treating me pretty well lately.
We all have music that we love, but if you keep listening to the same things and they stop putting the fire in you, then it’s time to give them a break.
Try music in another language.
If you struggle to focus when listening to music with vocals, then try listening to music in a different language. You’ll probably want to look up a translation of the lyrics if you really start to get into a song, but getting lost in the melody and words you don’t understand makes it much easier to focus on the wordsmithery going on in your head.
Instrumentals are also a great solution to the focus issue, but I find that it’s a more common solution than trying music in a foreign language.
Personally, I love to listen to Japanese and French music. I only know a handful of words in either language, so the lyrics don’t distract me when I’m concentrating on what I’m writing.
Go out in nature to write.
Go to a nearby park and let the sounds of nature be your soundtrack. If you really struggle to focus with music, then that combination of being in a new environment and experiencing different sounds can get your creative juices flowing again.
If you don’t have a laptop, bring a notebook. According to Statista, the share of Americans who own a laptop or notebook is pretty high now. In 2018, 59.64% of Americans aged 18 to 29 own a laptop and 67.72% of respondents 30–49 years old owned one. We’re reaching a place in technology where laptops are common and easy enough to use nowadays.
The “it’s inconvenient for me to write away from home” excuse becomes weaker every year.
Try white noise or background music mixers.
There are a lot of different websites out there that can help with this; simply Googling it will yield tons of easy, free results.
You can mix gentle melodies like wind chimes with the sounds of waves, babbling brooks, rain, and a whole variety of other sounds. It’s absolutely fantastic because it’s gentle, relaxing, has a huge variety of sounds you can go with, and it’s perfect if certain types of music end up distracting you from your work.
Since there’s a wealth of customization when it comes to background sounds, you can do a little trial and error and figure out which sounds you like best.
One word of caution though; don’t spend too much time playing with different mixes! Play with a few options and get to work once you have something you like. You can always change it tomorrow.
If you don’t like variety as much and just want to keep things simple, you could get a white noise machine for your home or listen to white noise videos on YouTube.
Go to a coffee shop and put yourself in a new environment with new sounds.
If money is tight, get the cheapest, simplest coffee on the menu and simply camp out with your laptop or a notebook.
The simple sounds of coffee beans being ground and a jumble of voices that is just indistinct enough to blend together is a fantastic soundtrack to let you focus on writing while experiencing something different.
If you do this regularly, switch things up and go to a different coffee shop. There’s a reason why it’s part of the writer stereotype to spend a lot of time in coffee shops; they’re just so nice to write in.
This is a trick exclusively for fiction writers; make playlists for each of your books.
Remember when you used to put playlists together for that person you liked back in high school or college? Or you put playlists together of forlorn love songs that reminded you of some person you held a torch for?
Well, that trend doesn’t need to die with sappy love songs. Instead, comb through your library and find the songs that remind you of the characters in the book you’re currently working on. This can be time-consuming, but it’s tremendously fun to make a playlist for your current work in progress.
It’s even more fun when you put that playlist on when you sit down to write.
Keep your ears open even after you’ve made the playlist; you never know when you’ll hear a tune in passing that reminds you of your book. Continuously adding to that playlist while you work on the story will help keep it fresh and it won’t get too repetitive.