I was scrolling through UCWbLing, reading my fellow UCWbLer’s posts, and I stumbled onto Maddie Natzke’s piece from a few weeks ago. Maddie talked about the power of music and how she uses her tunes to motivate her brainstorming and writing process. Go check out her playlist if you haven’t already!
Now, I’m not one to listen to a lot of music while I write; I get easily distracted by lyrics, and anything with a drum beat takes me out of my zone. However, my inability to focus also means that I can’t easily sit in public spaces and write. It’s just too easy to listen to other people, or to start talking to my friends and coworkers at the writing center, or to suddenly end up on Tumblr. (For those who don’t have Tumblr, I have one piece of advice: “Not once. Not never.”) My solution came in the form of instrumental songs, sound generators, or playlists. Finally, I had music/noise to distract me from the people around me without distracting me from my work. Eureka!
So, after seeing Maddie’s post, I felt that I had to share some of my own favorite sound resources. What follows is a list of some of my favorite sites, songs, and sounds. Hopefully this will help any other writers out there who face my same problem.
- Mynoise.net : This is my favorite site, hands down. With 50 different sounds, from industrial fan noise to a walk in the winter, this site has a lot of options for people just starting to include background noise while they study. You also can control different sliders to increase different sounds: if you’re all about that bass, you have the power to up the bass. My personal favorite? The cat purr generator.
- Showertime: At some point during my writing process, I always end up thinking about my paper in the shower. There’s something relaxing about taking a break from your paper, and for some reason being clean from showering amps up my productivity. For those days that I have a paper due in 5 hours and not a minute to spare, I use this sound generator. This site lets you choose how long your shower will be, the temperature of the water, the size of the room, and water pressure. If you’re feeling extra adventurous, there’s also a radio feature.
- My creative writing process isn’t quite as rigid as when I write academic papers. When I do have time to jot down a blog post or work on my UCWbL philosophy, I like to listen to instrumental pieces. This playlist includes some of my favorites, including the “Blue Umbrella” song, and the song from “The Paperman,” from Pixar. I get chills everytime I listen to these songs, and they make my creative juices flow. Choose this link if you’re into
instrumental music and are willing to take a musical risk. - Noisli.net: This sound generator is filled with nature sounds. From wind to rain to thunder, you can have it all. My favorite thing about this site is my ability to combine sounds. You can listen to the crackling bonfire and the rain at the same time. I love this particular combination because it makes me think of rainy April days sitting inside by the fireplace.
I hope my suggestions might help the next time you need to focus on a paper, or maybe you can use these sound generators to help you study. Happy writing and revising fellow writers! Write on!