Noveling playlist: 1920s music

I find that when I'm working on fiction — or just writing in general — music can be either a help or a hindrance.  The right music will help to create the mood I want to evoke in my novel's tone, while the wrong music will distract me from my writing.  I find that lyrics can be especially distracting, especially if it's the wrong kind of music or I have the volume up too loud.

Writing nonfiction and marketing copy, I tend to write without music.  It's been a long time since I've written fiction regularly, but long before there were iPods and playlists, I was choosing specific music as "writing music."  For instance, for one of the novels I started in high school (never finished — still intend to someday, as it was a fantastic idea) I listened to a lot of Enigma to achieve that dark, otherworldly mood.

For Ruby's story, I'm listening to 1920s music.

I could easily get by with stuff like Enigma, and as Ruby gets more heavily involved in the vampire world, perhaps I will.  But I find that 1920s music keeps me pretty well grounded in flapper and speakeasy culture while I write.

When hubby and I got married in 2007, our wedding was 1920s-themed, so we'd bought a bunch of 20s music from iTunes.  When I started working on Ruby Ransome I pulled out those old CDs and created a new playlist.  The jazz of the 1920s is fun and full of energy, but it also does well turned way down, as background music while I write.  If you are interested in 1920s music, here are a few of my favorites from my playlist:

• Crazy Rhythm
• Five Feet Two, Eyes of Blue
• Ain't She Sweet
• Sweet Georgia Brown
• Ain't Misbehavin'
• Coquette
• Dinah
• If You Knew Susie
• My Honey's Lovin' Arms
• Second Hand Rose
• The Black Bottom
• The Sheik of Araby
• Who
• The Charleston
• Honey
• Shiny Stockings
• Down Hearted Blues
• Makin' Whoopee
• My Blue Heaven

You might notice that a lot of these come from a 3-CD set called Rhythm Crazy, but you can also find a lot of them on YouTube, if you're just interested in hearing some 1920s music!