I find that music triggers memories, ideas, images. Often times the songs I've played while writing a screenplay end up in the movie. We Say Goodbye' while we were writing, and it is now a very important music cue in the film. Basically I like stories with humor. Not broad comedy necessarily, but movies with wit.
Witty characters are, for the most part, smart characters.
You've just got to get away from it, move past it. Which for me, a compulsive type, is hard to do. Then come back to it at a later time. The great scenes are usually the ones that flow out of you. So I remember, driving in my car, listening to KFWB and hearing we'd been nominated.