There are a number of things that tend to surprise people about how I write. One is that, for the most part, I write out of order and without an outline.

The other surprise is that I listen to music while I write.

I know I’m not alone in doing this. But, for people who don’t write, it often surprises them that I can write with music playing, a seeming distraction from what I’m doing.

For me, though, the music helps.

While writing the very dark Tacoma stories that ultimately made up my as-yet-unpublished novel Circus Vargas, for instance, I listened to Nirvana and Pearl Jam and Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew. I listened to them over and over, often at the highest volume my ears would allow.

And yet it’s worth noting that, for reasons I’ll never understand, I don’t much listen to the lyrics of songs. This is not limited to listening to music while writing; this is a reality whenever I listen to music.

I find no interest in the insights, imagery or possible meaning of the words to any songs I listen to.

I read Gravity’s Rainbow recently, and even struggled to pay attention to the song lyrics that permeate the book. The same words, set as prose, would have interested me more.

It’s not surprising, I guess, that some of my favorite music, especially while writing, is singer-less (lyric-less? I’m resisting the word “instrumental,” which evokes Muzak and Lawrence Welk) music like Bitches Brew and ambient Brian Eno and Aphex Twin.

Over the past decade, I’ve started listening to the dark, orchestral (and vaguely pretentious) music of Godspeed You Black Emperor and Thee Silver Mt Zion Orchestra. There are songs of theirs that I’ve listened repeatedly, more times than seems possible, while writing.

I’m listening to Silver Mt Zion now. “Sow Some Lonesome Corner So Many Flowers Bloom.”

It’s part of the loose playlist I put together to go with Shimmer. Music I listened to while writing and editing the book. Music that, it seems to me now, goes well with the book.

The list is here on my site. And portions are here on iTunes and Last.FM. (Rights issues, apparently, prevented me from putting the complete list on those sites.)

I’ve even managed to copy and paste the list here. It’s in order, by the way, the music following the changes in the novel.

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