Music often makes stories in my head. Pop music less so; the lyrics are too distracting, and the melody often too repetitive and (dare we say it) not particularly evocative. Which isn't to say I don't like pop, just that I rarely find it inspirational.

Instrumental works, however often inspire a world of stories in my head based on whatever I happened to be thinking about before they came on. I'm particularly partial to the works of Vangelis, Enigma, Jean Michel Jarre and the instrumental works of the Alan Parsons Project for these purposes. Not all that surprising, I guess: those were the artist my father used to blast through the house from his massive stereo system when I was growing up. I have to be careful what I listen to at my techwriting job, lest I get lost imagining some story with the music instead of getting my work done.

I find this can be useful when faced with a scene that I'm either finding difficult, or not really in the mood for -  writing a frantic escape scene when I'm absolutely knackered, or aloving reunion scene when I'm feeling curmudgeonly. They're also great defence against distractions - external or internal - that want to tear me from my precious writing time. Just put the music on, set my fingers on the keyboard, and forget about the world outside my little bubble.

 I'm in the process of setting up "writing mood playlists" for different types of scenes, filtering through the Gigs of music to find the songs that inspire this or that particular emotion. If you haven't tried writing to a soundtrack, I suggest you give it a go - though it takes some prep work to get it right. Make sure the songs you choose are ones that won't distract you from the writing or push you towards an emotion that doesn't work in the scene. Make sure the music goes for longer than you're planning to write - the sudden silence is very disconcerting if you run out of music partway.