I Got Rhythm

I've been doing a lot of typing on the computer lately–not the most glamorous part of a writer's job–but music has helped me to stick at it. The tempo of the music has to be just right, otherwise my fingers tend to follow the pace of the scene–slower for sad, fast for action etc. Songs are a problem too. If I listen to the words, I find myself typing them instead of mine.

Experimentation has revealed the ideal typing music for me is flamenco or gypsy music. Its passion can be happy or sad, it's lively and rhythmic but not uniform or intrusive. It moves you along with it, keeping your mood buoyant and preventing your body tensing so that you can barely move when you take a break.

If the Iyessi had computers, they would no doubt play the keys like a piano. Here's another song:

I am the morning of the world
And you the evening.
Shall our swords sing of life and death?
This is no game.
I am what is to be
And you, the past.
Come, let us remake the world together
And sing new rules.