Let’s talk about constant noise. They’re doing work on the facade of my building, and there it is, the dull rounded, distant sound of the concrete drills on the one side; the higher-pitched vibration as the reverberation echoes through the walls. Awesome.
Meanwhile, of course, I’m trying to write. Focusing on something like a blog post, or even an article like the ones you can find under “The Other Stuff I’m Writing” on the sidebar seems to be fine. But a novel?
Nope.
It’s a strange trick of perception, the ability to push the omnipresent noise to the background in some cases, while in others it fills your ears, pushing through to your brain until you can’t be sure if it’s inside or outside of your head. But the noise will be here for quite a while, so the two of us will have to learn to coexist.
I can’t write with music that has lyrics, so when it’s time to work on my current novel, a sequel to my cozy mystery, I plug in the noise-cancelling headphones and crank up the classical. I find it actually gets me typing faster, depending on the piece. But not Beethoven’s 9th. Especially not the Chicago Symphony Orchestra version conducted by Sir George Solti. No, that will stop you dead in your tracks. It’s too glorious to share your attention.
But that’s the thing with writing. It’s all a mental game when it comes to distractions.
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A Bit to Read 
I’m with you on songs. When I see authors posting play lists as the background to their writing, I wonder how it doesn’t distracted them. I prefer silence but in the words of the song, ‘you can’t always get what you wawnt’. Hope the construction doesn’t last too long.
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Sadly, it’s here for the long haul, from March to September this year and next. Delightful. It will be worse when they get to the part near me, but you know what they say about crossing bridges.
Yes, I’ve never understood that whole thing with lyrics, I know they’d work their way into my writing, and then when I went back I’d think, “Hey, that’s good. Wait. That’s not mine.”
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Hope quiet descends on you soon. I had to listen to construction from mid-November to Jan/Feb, as well as their radio, nearly every day. I was fit to be tied.
The View from the Top of the Ladder
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Sadly, it’s here for a while, but if I had to listen to their radio, too, I think I’d be switching my genre to horror 😉
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