Do you listen to music while you write?

Sounds like a banal question. But many writers are heavily influenced by music, while others say it helps them to concentrate and focus.

Alan Grant, comics writer of “Batman”, “Judge Dredd”, and many more, says he listens to music for an hour or so each morning before he starts to write. Evidently it gets his creative juices flowing.

Personally, I prefer something instrumental. I won’t bore you with a list of my favourites. Suffice to say, it includes plenty of heavy 1970s electronica and Baroque classical. Anything I can get my hands on that provides ambient background music. Hypnotic white noise helps me to zone in on the page.

Other writers have used music to do more than focus, however. Take Alan Moore. Almost every chapter of “Watchmen” has a musical lyric as its title – a conceit used to brilliant effect in the movie soundtrack. In fact, several of Moore’s stories seem to have been directly inspired by lyrics.

Music can capture your mood. Or it can provide you with tangible inspiration from its lyrics. Just don’t play that Eminem record at full volume on your iPod in the library, or I may have to hit you. Hard. With a book.

So find your muse, find your mood music, and write away…