Kurt Vonnegut listened to jazz when writing, Stephanie Meyer to Muse, and Stephen King writes to Metallica and Anthrax.  The Beatles are quoted as listened to by every novel writer from J K Rowling, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Salman Rushdie.
Conversely, Philip Pullman says that music ‘disrupts the rhythm’ of his writing, and Nathan Englander wears earplugs when writing to drown out any noise at all.  To listen or not to listen, that is the question. Continue reading →