Whistle while you work

I'm always having to try to write while people near me are watching TV or otherwise making noise. The laptop's ability to play music is a big help with that: I just put on some headphones and play some tunes. I don't even bother to load up the laptop with a bunch of music any more; I just head over to the Deezer streaming website and play one of my playlists there. It's free, there's a lot of music available....and I've already invested the time to make several playlists.

My friend Bill suggested making a playlist of songs specific to one writing project, and then playing that list when I wanted to get in the mood for writing. I thought it was silly, but it's the kind of silly thing any writer might do when procrastinating. So one day I made a playlist for the short story I was working on.

And I'm a convert now. It ain't magic, but it's something. I feel like I'm training myself: when you hear Enya and Loreena McKinnit, get to writin'.

Maybe one day we'll have an application that generates hypnotically productive playlists on demand. I could probably sell those. "Guaranteed to make men fear you and women want you!" I'll be back later, I gotta go work on the late-night commercial for that one.