About three or four years ago I wrote a satirical happy-go-lucky essay in response to a slew of depressing high school-like fiction I was reading in my creative writing class. To do this I picked the cheesiest happy song I could find, Miley Cyrus's "Dream". Now, before I lose all my credibility as a person and writer, I want to say that this was more of an experiment than anything.
Before this essay I had scheduled my life so that when I had to write I could type out a complete draft in one sitting. This was getting less and less possible. I decided I would use this song as my anchor, play it (very) low in my headphones and see if by listening I could easily fall back into the voice I had started with. The funny thing was that it worked. I listened to the song about 400 times by the end of the final draft, but I hardly remember hearing anything.
Everyone is different, but if you find yourself having trouble getting back into a writing process after stepping away for a while try to create yourself an anchor. For me, it's music, but maybe there is something else you can do to help yourself pick up where you left off.
I've since learned that the qualities of the song don't really matter so long as the song or playlist remains the same. Basically, I could have spared myself the embarrassment of unintentional "Dream" hums in class, but in case you were curious, yes, I did listen to Miley while writing this post.
401.
Wow. You will get teased in class on Monday. That's a promise.
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