I was a huge fan of Six Feet Under. One day I saw an interview with Alan Ball about music. He said music was an integral part of his writing because he always listened to it while he worked. It seemed to me that he embraced any tonal influence that the music may bring.
I was living in a fifth floor walk-up on East 4th street, writing on the original iMac. Having recently downloaded the first ever version of iTunes, I hadn't been getting too much writing done. I spent most of my time in front of the computer importing my many cds and watching Visualizer, which I thought was the coolest thing in the world.
The guilt finally started to set in and I got back to writing. Remembering the Alan Ball interview, I decided to give music a go.
It was a real problem at first. I would type the lyrics of the song I was hearing, or I would get so into the music that I would stop typing.
The hardest thing was when the songs gave me other ideas for stories besides the one I was working so hard to finish. I was more superstitious about ideas back then and was afraid I might run out of them. So every time the music brought me a new idea, I'd open another document and follow the ideas until I ran out of steam. Soon, my desktop was cluttered with documents ranging from three sentences to as long as about fifteen pages.
The desktop got so cluttered that I could no longer write. I had to organize! And so the folder "wip" (for works in progress. I didn't like the look of w.i.p. so I took license. It is, after all, my folder) was born. To this day, it is the home of all works before they are finished. There are about fifteen abandoned plays in there.
Eventually, the music stopped running the show and I was able to let it move through me without distracting me. Now I can't write without it. In fact, some music becomes so much a part of what I'm writing at the time that I cannot listen to it when the project is done. It makes me too sad.
So. Thank you, Alan Ball. Thank for Six Feet Under. Thank you for wip. Thank you for opening my mind to the idea of writing with music. It has saved my writing. I really hope True Blood doesn't suck.
Where does everyone else come down on writing or working with music?
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If something moves me, I use it. Anything to keep the work personal.
ReplyDeleteHere's an embarrassing confession: when I'm working on a screenplay, I'll sometimes pick out a song that I think would be good for the trailer, then I listen to the song and imagine what the trailer would look like. Surprisingly enough, I've gotten scene ideas this way. Good ones, too.
For example, while working on "This Great Life" I imagined "That's The Way We Get By" by Spoon for the trailer. But then it was used for "The Savages" trailer. I actually got a little mad, like they stole my idea.
It sounds stupid, but imagining trailers also helps me to think in movie terms. It's always good to remind myself that I'm working on a movie and to have fun with it. Also, I think it's helpful to imagine the 2 minute version of the movie. The tone. What exactly is the story I'm telling?
But it's not just music. "Stockohlm!" really started making sense after I watched Peter Jackson's "King Kong" a bunch of times. It's not the greatest movie ever made, but it's so movie-ish. It made me realize, "Oh yeah, I'm not writing a novel here. It's a fucking movie." Which isn't to say that screenplays are easier than novels, but they are.
I'm too impressionable. Or rather, too easily distracted. I have tried, many many many times to write with music, but I do the same thing you worte about, I type lyrics, I start new tangents, I get lost in rockstar daydreams. Most troubling, as I've gotten older, I get lost in karaoke daydreams. Now THAT is embarrassing.
ReplyDeleteHowever, music is an essential part of my process. I walk around my neighborhood listening to music and imagining. I spend about a quarter of my writing hours doing just this. Snippets of scenes come easiest to me this way. Mostly visual. Then I go home and write them. Or try to.