Music is a vast subject that touches every corner of the world and has some influence on everyone, including writers. Writers need to be constantly full of ideas and inspiration, some people call this 'muse.' Using music as a place to find these inspirations and ideas can be extremely satisfying and pull you out of those 'stuck' sections.

When listening to music, think about your current piece, or pieces of work. Think about the characters, who they are, what they do. Think about the setting, time and place. Listen to the lyrics and beat of the music, hear the different instruments working together to make the song a whole. Now, what would it be like of this song had been written by your character? Why have they written the song? Who for or what for or about? What if the song was written about your character or the place they live. Why was it written? Who wrote it? All of these things can stir up ideas and help put a twist in your story, or keep it going.

Using different types of music can stir up different ideas. Love songs, hate songs, songs about an experience, these are all different and can trigger an idea, or two, or maybe more.

Getting the base of the song and manipulating it to fit your story is also easy. Find the main focus of the song and put it around your character, change one or two things to make it fit better, refine it and make it personal to yopur character, then, take the ideas surrounding the song and turn it into an idea for your plotline. Using this same technique, you can do it to places and settings aswell.

So, next time you're stuck for ideas, get out your CD collection, iPod, MP3 or casette tapes and get those sounds out there, get those words in your head, get those ideas flowing.