Many people work better with music in the background. That’s their spoonful of sugar to make the work day fun.
I’ve always been more of an “enjoy the silence” kind of gal. Music distracts me. I’ll catch myself singing along, and the song derails whatever train of thought I was hoping to catch. Television and loud conversation are even worse because, despite my best efforts, I can’t entirely tune out the inane words that trickle into my consciousness.
What does this have to do with writing?
Well, I’m married, and unless my husband is working, odds are the television is on. While I’d like to squeeze in all my writing before the start of the workday, limiting my productivity to the wee hours of the morning severely restricts writing output.
So I came up with a way to accommodate my spouse’s leisure activity with my need for distraction-free writing.
I bought noise-canceling headphones.
Fact vs. Fiction
A native of Taiwan, my mother moved to the United States in her early twenties. She was amazed by the commercials on television showing the beautiful American housewives with their sparkling-clean homes. It took her a while to realize that the marketing claims rarely matched the actual consumer experience.
A few decades later, her daughter, yours truly, fell into the same trap. I had seen airport billboards advertising noise-canceling headphones for a premium electronics brand: screaming kids surrounded a peacefully sleeping business traveler. So I happily forked over a few hundred dollars for what I felt sure would kick-start my writing career, opening the evening hours for my fiction.
When you put on noise-canceling headphones, everything becomes muffled, like someone has clapped her hands over your ears. These devices block out much of the background noise from daily life. But the annoying, in-your-face noise that drives us crazy (remember the screaming urchins from the ad?) is still annoying. Perhaps even more so since you’re now disappointed with this spenny little toy that failed to support the hype.
Where There’s a Will…
Not one to be daunted – or to hear my husband laugh at me with a healthy dose of “I told you so” – I hit iTunes and downloaded some New Age-y music with nature sounds. No lyrics, so I wasn’t tempted to sing or hum. (Classical music also works well.) I found a track that was maybe forty-five minutes, not a bad length for a writing session.
At the time, I was embarking on another NaNoWriMo adventure. So, almost every night, I’d grab my computer and my headphones, and I’d type away to the sound of a babbling brook, accompanied by otherworldly chimes.
By month’s end, every time I put the headphones on, it immediately put me in a writing mindset because I only used them during writing sessions – even though the overpriced headphones worked beautifully with my MP3 player.
Tuning out the World
I like the headphones. They deliver beautiful sound and filter out much of the surrounding noise, which can be especially nice if you like to write in public spots, as I do. Fortunately, the noise-canceling technology is optional. Standard headphones will work just fine.
My must-haves for distraction-free writing:
- Headphones (standard earbuds work great)
- Lyric-free music (New Age, classical, etc.)
Do you have other methods for tuning out the world and entering your writing zone? Please share.
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Nice article as usual, Mistina. But what does spenny mean? Haven’t seen that word before.
Per the Urban Dictionary: Pricey; short for “expensive.”
I saw it once as new hipster speak… several years ago.
I tend to write in a cold basement room. Perhaps the cold keeps people away. In any event it makes me write faster so I can go warm up,ha,ha..
That’s brilliant. In fact, I read a great post along those lines in the Guardian’s Book Blog just this week. Take a gander, if you’re so inclined, and let me know what you think. Thanks so much for reading!
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