It takes a long time to write a book. That means most writers spend a lot of time alone in their house attached to their computers, while in the rest of the house, life goes on.

What happens in my house is that my husband, also a musician, listens to a lot of music. With YouTube, that means virtually any song in the last 30 or 40 years can be found, somewhere, in many versions besides the original. In other words, the selection is almost infinite. So in my house, there is usually music playing.

What goes on in my mind with constant music playing? Lots of writers writer better to music. I do not. I find it distracting because not only do I hum along, I follow and imagine the chord progressions and the listenability of each song. I analyze the hooks and phrasing. Then when the song is over, I wonder why I didn’t get any writing done in the 3.4 minutes the song took. Oh, and I also analyze if the time for the song worked for the band, too.

I almost hate to admit it, but nothing gets done in my head when he puts on something by Imagine Dragons. Fortunately I do not get up to watch the videos, as some of them are too weird. But the music is so well constructed.

Am I getting distracted?

Yup. Part of being a writer.