I don't think it would be a stretch to say that I have weird writing  
habits. I spend most of my writing time pacing around my room talking  
aloud to myseWlf, I'm most productive working during the Wesley-Snipes-
in-Blade type hours of 12-4 AM, and I'm most comfortable typing flat  
on my back with the computer resting on my knees like I'm about to do  
a semi-intense set of sit-ups. But lately I've been most conscious of  
my inability to work without music.

My writing friends seem to fall into or between two specific camps  
here. There is the "I could type an essay while sitting in the choral  
pit during a live performance by Blue Man Group with a special  
appearance by Gallagher, such is my ability to concentrate" camp and  
the "I can't hear the question you just asked because it would  
require taking off my noise-canceling headphones and leaving my panic  
room, which will ruin any chance I have of working today" camp. The  
polar ends on both sides suggest particularly neurotic behavior, but,  
as Google claims John Wayne said, "a man (or woman) writer has got to  
do what a man (or woman) writer's got to do."

Now I have very specific music needs. I can't listen to any music  
that has words in it, because I end up thinking about those words  
rather than whatever acrostic poem I happen to be working on. Also,  
depending on the genre and the proximity to my deadline, the music  
changes in severity/intensity/genre.  Here is the sampling of my  
playlist according to what I'm working on:

Novel Chapters and Fiction: Spanish Guitar Magic.
Reasoning: In high school I was walking past a Brookstone (note:  
could have been A Sharper Image), when I overheard the rapturous  
sounds of a guitar playing some latin-themed something. Entranced by  
said music, I entered the store and sat in one of those vibrating  
massage chairs for a little under an hour, or until I was kicked out,  
listening to the music. After inquiring what said music was, I bought  
the opened CD black market style off of one the cashiers for ten  
bucks. Anyway, this is the music that I listen to when writing my  
book or any work of fiction. It is a two hour playlist of Andres  
Segovia, Carlos Montoya and Manuel De Falla tearing it up Spanish  
Guitar Hero-style, and it is soothing, acoustic and has little to no  
words. It reminds me of what it might feel like if I was in the  
Spanish version of The Thomas Crowne Affair and for whatever reason,  
that thought makes me productive. Plus, it drowns out the hippies.

Magazine Articles and Columns: Buena Vista Social Club and Jazz  
Compilation of Miles Davis/John Coltrane
Reasoning: I don't know why my writing seems to be obsessed with the  
sounds of Latin America, but there it is. Maybe I use this mix during  
non-fiction because the music has more flair and edge, or maybe the  
constant improvisational moods in the jazz mimic what I have to do as  
I'm piecing together a story. Or maybe I just dig horns.

54.8 Minutes Before Deadline Regardless of Genre: The Last of the  
Mohican Soundtrack
Reasoning: Um, have you ever seen Last of the Mohicans? Daniel Day  
Lewis is always running, and always throwing things, and there is  
serious sense of urgency. Especially in the song "Promentory". This  
music screams, "finish this or Magua will kill the gray hair's  
daughter!!!"Once this music is on, I'm all about the benjamins baby
business. Probably because I only have 54.8 minutes till deadline.

Anyway, I'm curious to see where and into what camp you fall. Pro-
music? Con-music? Musically Neutral like the Swiss? And if you do  
slay music while writing, what does your playlist look like? Or  
perhaps more importantly, how many Rick Astley songs do you have on  
there?

I await your thoughts via the Commentary.

I Will,
Find You

Daniel Day Lewis

Hello Friends. You know how--when you, um hypothetically, buy the DVD of The Notebook-- there are all those special features and deleted scenes with Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling that you're so glad you got a chance to see, because they really have a great chemistry? Well  consider this blog entry a sort of writing deleted scene fresh from the floor of the editorial cutting room. What you're about to read is an entry I wrote for my This Writer's Life column that wasn't used because it focused entirely too much on my personal as opposed to my professional writing life. Rather than just burying it in the time capsule in my backyard with the rest of my rejected works, I thought it would make a nice teaching point to show that--even after three years of writing a column--I still get things rejected. Plus, with global warming and everything, I think it's part of my duty to recycle, especially 1100 words worth of material. Anyway, here she is, for no extra charge, my Special Edition Deleted Column.

The Best of,
What's Around

DMB


Several weeks ago, I got a call from my mother. Normally, I get lots of calls from my mother, most of them focused around the infrequency with which I answer my phone, but I could tell from the tone of her voice that this was more serious. She informed me that my grandmother had rather unexpectedly gotten very sick very fast and that there was little that could be done. After a few moments of stunned silence, my mom then informed me that my grandmother had a request. She wanted me to write something for her to be read at an upcoming family gathering.

“Did she specify what she wants me to write?” I asked my mom, hoping what she really wanted was some sort of 3 or 4 line rhyming poem, a pre-pubescent Kevin Alexander specialty.

But I wasn’t going to get off that easy. “Whatever you want to do is fine, dear,” my mom said. “Grandma said you’d know just what to write.”

After I hung up with my mom, I sat and thought about what I was going to do. I felt both honored and extremely nervous. I was upset, of course, as I love my grandmother and she’s played a large part in raising me and sickness and loss are never easy to deal with, but I also knew she was older now and she’d lived a great life and so I couldn’t pretend that a small part of my mind wasn’t expecting something like this. And seeing how I’m the only one in my family who writes anything longer than a grocery list, my grandparents had long ago asked me to write and read their eulogies when they passed.

As a writer in a family of non-writers, you come to expect to handle these types of tasks, and, personally, I think they’re the most rewarding. Don’t get me wrong, I love and crave the vanity and personal pleasures of seeing my name in print and spend upwards of twenty minutes a day Googling myself in new and creative ways, but there is something so intimate and honorable about being given the chance to celebrate the life of someone you loved, something so emotionally powerful and important that you can’t help but be taken in by it. Writing is one of those rare skills that afford you the chance to take thought, emotion and coherency and put it towards the memory of another. But writing something honoring someone’s life after they’re gone is one thing. Doing it while they’re still alive is a completely different story.

I spent the next week or so in a daze, my work falling off, my head clouded by the task at hand. No matter what I’m writing, I tend to go through three stages during the writing process. The first is elation, because I’m so excited about getting a new assignment. This usually consists mostly of me bragging to my friends about the cool and unique opportunity I’ve been afforded and why my life is so much more artistically profound than theirs. Other people tend not to like my elation phase. Standing in direct contradiction is the second phase, which could be most aptly summed up as the despondency phase. It’s during this phase that I realize the weight and breadth of said task, and begin to, in the words of my roommate, “lose my shit”. The one positive aspect of this phase is that my apartment gets very, very clean. The final phase is, of course, the “you’ve left yourself with no time to do anything else so you better sit your ass down and finish this before you get fired” phase, which is pretty much self-explanatory.

Because of the uniqueness of this assignment and the limited time frame I was working in, I seemed to be experiencing all three phases simultaneously. I was obviously excited, but that excitement was crippled by a horrible fear of failure, and a voice in the back of my head that kept reminding me of the importance of the task at hand. Talking to Ramsey didn’t help much either.

“Dude, you have to make this perfect, like some Gettysburg Address/Good Will Hunting type shit,” he said, when I told him about what I was expected to do. “Wow. That’s a lot of pressure. If I was you, I’d probably have completely freaked out and—as you know—I pretty much dominate pressure situations.”

My main problem was that I didn’t know what sort of thing to write. Should it be some sort of eulogy-esque remembrance or a nostalgia-inducing poem or something funny to rise spirits? Should I get other family members involved? What about word count?

After another week of sleepless stress, I finally decided to ask my grandfather. I’d been putting off talking to him about it, mostly because I feared that any more talk of my grandmother’s sickness would be too stressful for him. And, if I’m being honest with myself, I also kept quiet because I secretly fear bringing up sad or distressing topics, often taking painful lengths to avoid talking about them while internally freaking out. Not exactly healthy, I know.

So it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that my grandfather was more than happy to talk about it. And when I asked about what specifically I should do, he laughed.

“Kevin, Kevin, Kevin,” he said. “You think your grandmother will be concerned about the form of whatever you present? She’d be thrilled if you read from a science book, as long as it was you doing it. Just do something that will let her know how much we care about her. Maybe you make us laugh a little, maybe you make us cry, whatever, just so she knows we’re there and we’re thinking about her.”

My grandfather paused for a little. “Oh, and one other thing.”

“Yeah?”

“Just make sure it’s not another one of those damn rhyming poems.”

Freed from the shackles of my own mind, I wrote the entire thing one afternoon at my mother’s house, looking through some old pictures and albums. I’m presenting it to the family in three days. Hopefully, there are things in there to make our family laugh, cry and remember just what my grandmother means to us.

And perhaps most importantly, none of it rhymes.