Music for Writing

I have had a lot of people ask me about my music collection. Or lack thereof. Or just in general, when something is blaring from my phone or computer or -- yep, even boombox -- "What is this?"

Well, you can blame writing.

There was a time when I listened to Dave Matthews, Paula Abdul, and basically anything on Kiss 102 in Charlotte. There was the same time when I was getting those cds for 1 penny (remember that?) and I checked Dr. John and Enya and even Bjork.

Fast forward a few years: I was working on a huge, semester-long writing project in my first semester of grad school, and I discovered writing to music. I had done that before. A bit. But for this project, I looped The Last Temptation of Christ soundtrack. Has anyone heard this work by Peter Gabriel? Does it sound like literary criticism of The Great Gatsby to you? Well, me neither, but for some reason it did at the time. I can still see the color of the carpet of that computer lab when I hear it.

Maybe I've revealed too much, but let's keep going. I wrote a huge paper on Wordsworth and I remember playing "If I Had a Hammer and a Nail" by Simon and Garfunkel for hours on end. On repeat. It reminded me of a 19th century English fair day, for whatever that is worth. My new husband at the time eventually knocked on the office door and said, "Really? Again?" (Amazingly, that romance did not last.)

But mainly what I've learned over the years is that I need either music without words or words not in English. If I listen to too many things in English, I start typing the lyrics instead of what I need to be typing.

So what this sounds like in my day to day life is a lot of jazz, which I will ALWAYS love, and is, to me, the go-to writing music, or music with foreign language singing. You'll hear these often if you come to my abode. I've recently discovered recorded opera (I've as of yet not enjoyed live) and Fado. Oh Fado. You melt my heart.

The best tool ever for all of this is now Spotify. They have not paid me to say this -- I am just that obsessed. Discover. It's worth setting up an account.

The Sweet Life

Sometimes you don't know what you did to deserve the good luck you have.

That's the way I feel about working with the editors of The Local Palate. Not only are they communicative, supportive and quality-driven, the assignments from them are my version of a free Ferris wheel ride. In other words, it feels like fun a lot more than it feels like work.

Case in point: my latest feature article in this month's issue. It's on tea. That's right. The stuff I receive for gifts, that is in my SIGG bottle instead of water, that pretty much fuels my day.

This assignment was to write specifically about Sweet Tea (capital letters required). And no, not sweetened tea. Sweet Tea.

Bill Hall drove me around the tea plantation on a golf cart one early spring afternoon, my pulse already slowed by the drive out to the island through live oak shadows and sun on marsh reaching almost to the asphalt. Bill was generous with his time, had the most fascinating way he rolled his own cigarettes, and fed two farm cats while we visited. We looked at baby tea leaves and talked about London in the early 70s, and it was a good day.

It made me dream of warmer weather and summer and sipping in the sweetness. And look, it's here -- drink it in.

Writer Admiration

People who write often talk about work from other writers they admire. Usually, these are fiction writers, at least for most of us. I'd list Faulkner, Hemingway, Lee Smith, Toni Morrison, and many more on such a list, and give us some time, or at least don't stop us, and we'll tell you exactly why. Until you feel you're in the worst version of talking shop:

"The way he builds the character is so subtle that you don't even notice he's drawing you in."

"I like his use of the color descriptions to illustrate the mood of the antagonist."

"Her work is so multi-layered that it requires more than one reading."

But for me, I admire many others in my field, which, at least for now, is not fiction. One such person is Julia Reed, a writer who used to write profiles for Vogue, but who've I have been reading in Garden and Gun. Her writing is personal, funny, truthful, and well put together.

But more importantly, she has a distinct voice, which in non-writer speak, means that you can "tell it's her." Case in point: I pulled out an old copy of Conde Nast Traveler recently and got involved on a story on Rio's fashion scene. The writer was self-depreciating yet still very knowledgeable, and I liked her take on things. Flipping back to the byline, it was Reed.

Well done, Miss Julia. I look forward to reading more.