NaNo and Fugues

Have you ever done National Novel Writing Month?  Participating in NaNoWriMo was how I first became interested in being a writer.  It was a rush!  I was in school at the time, so I had to keep up with my work, but I couldn't wait to get back to my story.

Now that some years have passed and I write more regularly I find it more and more difficult to do NaNoWriMo.  I do a lot of editing as I write, which doesn't lend itself to the fast pace necessary for NaNo.  My stories are usually more than 50 thousand words now too.  But I still have a soft spot for NaNo, and I would recommend it to anyone thinking about making writing more a part of everyday life.

My second NaNovel was a story called Fugue.  It was about music and math and supernatural creatures that embodied things like Hope and Peace.  Hope was summoned from the performance of one perfect Fugue, and then the others came through variations on that Fugue.  (All together the Fugue and its variations were a mathematical group with musical operations, for those who are mathematically inclined.)  It was a very conceptually based story with a shaky plot, but I had a good time writing it.

When I first started writing that story I bought a CD of Bach Fugues and listened to it almost exclusively while I wrote.  Hearing that CD now I automatically go into writing mode.

I have a somewhat different relationship with music than most people I talk to.  I really love music—I love listening to all kinds of music and I enjoy composing too—but most of the time I prefer silence.  Too much audio or visual stimulation wearies me.  So while I like music, what it is, what it stands for, the reactions it can evoke, it is too intense for me to listen to it all day.

However, sometimes music provides me exactly the sort of energy replenishment I need for writing.  If I am at rest, too much music is overstimulating, but if I am expending a lot of mental energy through writing then music helps fill me up again.  I like to listen to upbeat music without words to keep me going while I write.

So what about you?  How does music affect you?  Have you ever come up with a story idea that involves music?