So I managed to put down some great notes the other night at AN OUTSIDE LOCATION. You know, like far away from my office and home. Hint hint.
Part of it was the location, of course. The other part was that I'd heard a particularly striking piece of music earlier that day. It stuck with me, and it felt like I was watching a music video of the song, but with elements of one of my stories happening as the narrative happening in the video.
That ever happen to you? Everybody has different muses, I suppose, but in my case it is music. Some of my best stories grew out of those beautiful, unexpected songs that just seemed to click with the subject matter. I'll buy the song, then play it again and again when I'm trying to find the thread of the plot or emotion in the written piece. It almost always pays off.
But sometimes you can force it, and nothing happens. One of my recent pieces was coming along too slowly when I realized I could find a song for it, and move it along. Kind of like an audio delivery of a creative ex-lax. (Thank you Uncle Steve.) Ends up that the song I found that I thought I liked ended up not helping much after the first listen; there was no connection to what the story was becoming, it only seemed to match what was already there. I haven't listened to that song or the album (which I'd purchased) for weeks. Perhaps it will latch itself to something else in the future.
I have a moleskin notebook, filled with notes and scribbles, and almost all of the best ones happened while listening to music. That's my muse, my doorway to creative solutions.
What's yours?
No comments:
Post a Comment