While writing, I frequently listen to ambient videos of various kinds, as I usually find lyrics or speech impossibly distracting. Over the past few months, my favourite thing to have on in the background has been what I’m going to call walking YouTube. In other words, people wearing a camera as they stroll, well, pretty much everywhere.
Having the soundscape of Dublin, or Manhattan, or Sydney, or Rome, or a beach, or a forest in my ears, for whatever reason, strikes the right balance of being both centering enough and stimulating enough to power me on my way as I sit down to the blank page in front of me.