Emirates Airline Festival of Literature PR Co-ordinator Monita Mohan shares her thoughts on words and music Words and music go hand in hand for me. Always have. Be it writing a press release, an email or my stuttering novel, my earphones need to be jammed in my ear for my fingers to begin tap-dancing. Sometimes the most obscure songs spark my imagination; a snatch of a pop tune on the radio, or Mum humming in the front room, and I’ve got a new scenario for my character to wade through. The best music, at least for me, when writing fact-based stuff is Jazz or Chillout. The internet is my saviour and internet radio, my closest pal. Start up my music player, or the recently discovered 8Tracks (thank you to our Finance Head Penny Mackenzie for that recommendation) and I have several unending sources for relaxing my mind. At this very moment I have some Italian jazz playing! I’m a serial looper (not a technical term, yet) when getting my creative juices flowing. I’ll put on my favourite track of the day (or hour) and keep it on for hours. Granted, it just becomes background noise after a while, but when are the Bee Gees not the best noise you’ve ever heard? Film soundtracks, by the way, are an excellent accompaniment for writing. Far too many chapters of my novel have been written to the tunes of Star Wars and Marvel films. Many writers around the world subscribe to this pairing, whether it works or not is still up for debate. But considering a fair few writers also have musical hobbies (Stephen King and Ken Follett are both part of rock bands), this can’t just be a happy accident.