Music and writing

By some of my earlier writings, you can probably tell that I'm not only a writer, but a musician as well. I love to play my guitar and sing, but I take them much less seriously than I take my writing. I still want to improve in music, but I have no intentions of pursuing it as a profession. But that doesn't mean that I haven't thought about how I can incorporate my music into my writing.

Obviously one of the ways in which I do this is by using music as a plot point in stories. But the more interesting way I thought about doing this when I was younger was by giving my books soundtracks. I remember being young and listening to audio books, specifically those for Harry Potter, and while I stopped doing this as much as I grew up, the concept never left my mind. Eventually, it occurred to me that, theoretically, I could take this one step further. If movies and games could have soundtracks, why not books?

The idea was that I would write music intended to be listened to during particular scenes or chapters in my story. This would probably mean that songs would have to be particularly long, or perhaps be directly mentioned in the story, and of course would be an unnecessary but hopefully cool addition you could get to the book. The problem is that I'm not particularly good at actually writing music. It just so happens to be that writing music and writing stories are two vastly different processes.

Thinking back on that now, I have another problem that would also get in the way of making a soundtrack for my books, that problem being entirely unique to me. I actually do often listen to music while I'm writing, but the music I listen to has a bizarre tendency to be polar opposite to what I am writing. I've written some of my best fight and death scenes, for instance, while listening to very upbeat love music. I can't explain why it happens, but it does. Somehow, I feel like if I tried to swap the two, to write music based on the story set before me, they wouldn't quite line up.

But I still love that idea. I would gladly buy a soundtrack for a book, to listen to specific songs while I read about an author's world. To be taken in more than one sense into that marvelous story, to feel even more as though I am experiencing it, rather than just seeing it from the outside. And then, could you imagine if that soundtrack was then taken in to consideration when a movie is being made from the book? That would be amazing. I would be taken that much more into the movie, because there would be that much more familiar from the book going in.

I feel like the connection between music and writing is one that hasn't been explored enough. There is so much more that we could be doing to connect these two things, but I have yet to see anyone try. And maybe I'm not the guy to be doing, but I would love to see someone else take on my idea one day and make it a reality.

100

I know I've been writing a lot of real talk posts lately, and I know that this is a really self servicing thing to write about, but it has to be said. This is the one hundredth post I've made on this blog. And I've only missed one day, which is honestly better than I had hoped going into this. And somehow, despite not wanting to, despite not knowing what to write a vast majority of the time, I'm still going. And that's pretty amazing.

I can't remember the last time I ever did anything for one hundred days straight. I can't remember the last time I did anything for fifty days straight, quite honestly. I've never been particularly good to sticking to something. Especially not something that I would consider to actually be good for me. I get tired of things, or I forget to do them, or any number of things, and I let myself fall off of a path that I am attempting to put myself on.

Despite being something that I have always known I wanted to do, writing has never been a thing I can do consistently. That's part of the reason I didn't make the goal to write fiction every single day. Ideally I would be, but I think it's pretty obvious at this point that I would not be able to pull that off. I would run out of ideas fast, and I would run out of motivation to keep moving. There's a good chance that if you see me writing real talk, then it's because I simply couldn't think of anything fictional to write about. That's not always true, but there's a good chance of it.

If you've never heard of it, I try to always participate in something called National Novel Writing Month. I could go on and explain it, but suffice to say that it is simply setting yourself a goal to write fifty thousand words in thirty days. And I've done that. I've managed to accomplish that twice, which is no mere feat. But even in that, neither time did I do it in thirty days straight. I lost some days, and on my second go, I finished long before I ever hit that thirty day marker.

In these one hundred days I have been writing, I have hit that fifty thousand word marker once again. It wasn't on one continuous topic this time, which is weird for me. I'm used to, in my writing, picking a story and rolling with it for as long as I can, and then not writing again for god only knows how long. But I didn't do that this time. I wrote until a topic was done, and then I picked up another topic and I wrote again. And I did that over and over and over. And I'm going to keep doing that over and over and over. Because I'm trying to teach myself not to stop just because I lose track of where I was going.

I've learned some stuff about my writing in doing this. I've seen some of the things that I do wrong, and I've seen some of the stuff that I do right, and I've started to figure out how to go about bettering what I do. But I still have a long way to go.

I hope that, when I hit a year, that I don't stop. I hope to keep this blog going for as long as I possibly can, because there will always be more for me to learn, more to say. As a good man once told me, this blog should be my playground, where I can experiment and strive to do new and different things. But I also hope to eventually figure out how to balance this with writing privately, making full and long stories that I always dreamed of being able to write. I have tried to do that, but it's harder than you might think. But I'm gonna keep trying, and hopefully eventually figure out how to go about it.

Maybe in my next hundred days, I'll be able to tell you about it.

Vacation

I mentioned before that over the past few days I was traveling out on vacation. I continued to write, but lacking time and a computer, the pieces I wrote are notably shorter than they usually are. I find it doubtful to be honest that any of them actually reached my 500 word goal. But that honestly doesn't concern me. It's the daily part of writing that I am more concerned with. 500 is just a goal to give me something to work towards so that I don't just write down a haiku and call it a day. Daily writing is the thing that will get me going on writing.

But even with having written every day while I was on vacation, coming back from vacation makes me not want to "get back to work" as it were. I mentioned yesterday about how there are days where I just don't want to write. I'd rather just kick back and not really do anything, or play games, or watch youtube, or whatever. Today is a day like that. Coming back from vacation is like that for me. I can't entirely explain why, but it's kind of like I need a vacation from my vacation. And part of that means that I don't particularly want to write.

But again, I know I have to do it anyway. That's kind of a key piece to a lot of my "On writing" posts, and it's something that I truly believe can not be stated enough. Writing, as much as I love it, is a job. And you take anything you love and make a job out of it and it becomes harder to do. That is an unfortunate but true piece to life. It will still be better than taking any other job in the world, but it will be a job all the same. And that means that you have to get used to doing it, day in and day out, and you have to find ways to motivate yourself to push forward no matter how much you don't want to.

That's something I've struggled a lot with in life. A lot of people tell me I need to take more vacations because of it. But my ideas of a vacation is a little different than other people. I've been a lot of places, and done a lot of things. It gives me a lot of inspiration for my writing, and if you've noticed any of my characters doing out there things, that's probably why. But I don't really think of that as a vacation. I think of it as a trip. For most people, those are one and the same. But not really for me.

To me, vacation is being able to kick back and not have to worry. To not have to do things during the day, to be able to just be alone with my thoughts, few as they may be. And when I do that, at the end of the day, I'm ready to get back to my work. I feel rested, and ready to do the things that I need to do. But when I'm out, going places, doing things, I enjoy myself, don't get me wrong. But at the end of the day, I didn't get that break that I need. I didn't get to relax. And so I don't want to sit down to work. I want to not do anything.

I don't know what exactly it is about me that makes me feel this way, but it's more or less always been there. Writing can be a lot more strenuous than it looks from the outside. It drains me mentally. Not that I think that's a bad thing. It drains me and puts everything it took out from me down on to paper. I'm just saying that it's harder to come back to that at the end of a long day of fun and excitement than you might thing.

Cheat days

Have you ever sat down to do something that you really love doing, and you know you do beyond a shadow of a doubt, but you sit down and you just really aren't feeling it? You can't really explain why, but even though you normally love doing it, you just have no desire to at the time?

That happens to me more than I'd like to admit with writing. It's not something that makes me question why I'm writing, though I know that if I ever mention it to someone, that will be the first thing they ask me. Writing makes me happy. It always has. It makes me feel alive, and like I'm actually doing something with my time, whereas most other things make me feel like I'm just wasting away until I get to the next thing of any value. And yet, there are times when I just don't feel any desire to write. In fact, I feel a desire to not be writing. 

That is happening to me right now, as I write this very blog entry. You may be asking yourself, if that's the case, why am I even bothering? Or you may be wondering, if that is something that I previously knew about myself, why did I decide to take it upon myself to write a significant block of text on a daily basis? 

To put it simply, I'm doing it for much the same reason a person goes on a diet. It's something that I feel is necessary for me. It is something through which I want to better myself. And some days it sucks. Some days I want to throw it all aside, say that it's not the end of the world. Take a cheat day, as a dieter might. 

So why don't I?

Because I've taken cheat days before. In other things in my life that I've wanted to better. And it doesn't work for me. I can't just take a cheat day and then come back to it. I have to go full haul, cold turkey, whatever you want to call it. It might as well be 110% or nothing at all. 

So even on days where I hate writing, where I want absolutely nothing to do with the process, I write. Because I know that in the morning I'll be glad I did. 

76268

Number 76268 looked at the wall in front of him, calculating the best means for him to overcome it. There were a variety of options available to him, save a door, which the wall lacked. He supposed he could move straight through the wall, plowing a hole through it, but he was significantly more likely to hurt himself doing that than most other options. He could scale it, digging his metallic fingers and toes into the face, but that faced a similar problem.

As he calculated, his hand detached from his arm and quickly approached the wall, using its fingers to walk. It probed the wall, looking to see the material, sturdiness, density, and so forth. It was a much stronger wall than it appeared. It was likely to have been built that way intentionally, with a very strong core, so as to prevent the experiments from plowing through it, forcing them to calculate their actions. It was also surprisingly smooth and slick, making it difficult to scale. The hand scanned the sides, but there was no reliable end in sight. The simple matter was that it must be overcome, quite literally. 

76268 began separating each piece of himself, each limb and section of his body moving independantly of one another, but all sharing in his one hive mind. The easiest way, it seemed to him, was to go over the wall. Doing so meant that he must be launched, and he was well aware that he did not have the power to move his weight that high and fast through the air. However, by rearranging his body composition, he was capable of constructing a trebuchet that would launch him piece by piece. Starting with his head, the machine made up of himself flung body parts through the air, over the wall, and on to the other side, where a scientist awaited him. 

As the parts arrived, 76268 rearranged himself into the human like figure he had previously held. However, after a while, the trebuchet became less and less effective, resulting in the inability for 76268's left foot and right arm to arrive. He felt misbalanced, and try as he might, he could not fathom a way in which to retrieve the final pieces of his body. 

"Is that all?" the scientist asked, clipboard in hand, writing down information at a constant pace without deigning to look down at his writing. 76268 nodded in silent acknowledgement. "I see. I'm afraid that means you are yet another failure. A pity. I was hoping you would be a success. Your unique ability to work as a unit, each piece functioning on its own, was quite promising. It appears, however, that doing so limited your overall comprehension. Perhaps our technology has not advanced far enough to give you enough computing power to make up for that."

"I will therefore be eradicated, correct?" 76268 replied, voice flat and without tone, more a metallic imitation of a voice than one his own.

"Correct."

"May I be permitted one request before eradication?"

"It is possible, depending on your request."

"I would like to be whole again before I am gone."

"That can be arranged."

"Thank you."

The cave

Conrad looked over the edge of the hole, a flare held in his hand, ready to be lit and dropped. He had come across what he assumed to be the entrance to a cave a week ago, when his foot had slipped into the hole hidden by the brush and nearly dragged the rest of him along with it. On that day, it had scared the crap out of him, and he had had no intentions of returning, but the more he thought about the hole, the more curious he had become. He remembered hearing stories about people who had stumbled across massive cave systems and gaining fame and fortune because of it. 

He had done his research before returning. He wore a backpack with an assortment of supplies inside. A flashlight, plenty of extra batteries, rope, some food, a first aid kit. He wanted to make sure that if he got lost, he wasn't going to be royally screwed. He wanted to be remembered for his discovery. Not forgotten because of his failure. 

The flare burst to life, and Conrad let it fall into the now widened hole. He watched as the light descended, growing dimmer and dimmer, until it finally bounced to a stop far below, and rolled off to the side where he could barely see it. He was glad he hadn't fallen in before. A part of him had wanted to have had all this preparation be worthless, with only a foot or so of drop with nothing to see. At least then he would know he hadn't been in danger before. But now at least he could take an adventure that might pay off in the end. 

He tied his rope to a nearby tree and let it dangle down into the depths of the hole. With a deep breath, he began his descent. As he slowly maneuvered down the rope, trying to see anything around him in the ever increasing darkness, he realized just how tiring such a descent was. He had never been the strongest person out there, but the fear of dropping kept him firmly on the rope. The further he went, the more his arms shook, but he refused to let go, and climbing back up became less and less of an option. He hoped desperately that this would be worth it, as getting out would prive to be a challenge. 

Every few feet, Conrad would look down to check his flare. He could tell he was slowly getting closer. Eventually, though, he was terrified to notice when he looked down that the flare had run out. He had no idea how close he was. He couldn't get his flashlight out either to check, as he needed both hands on the rope. Although he could look up and see the light, he had gone deep enough that it was no longer illuminating his path. He had no choice but to continue on blindly, and pray that his rope was long enough. 

By the time he reached stone he coukd stand on, Conrad's entire body was shaking, his breath was ragged, and his eyes were closed tightly shut. The impact of stone on his feet was so shocking that he didn't know what to think at first. He stood, feet planted on the ground, his hands still clenched tightly around the rope, until finally it ocurred to him that he had made it. His fingers peeled off of the rope one by one, and he shakingly pulled off his pack and grabbed his flashlight. His hands were shaking so badly he missed the switch for the light several times before finally managing to turn it on. As he swept the light around the cave, he was amazed at what he saw. 

His flare had slowly rolled into a puddle of water, which was why it had extinguished. Long stalactites surrounded him, dripping water all around the floor. The rocks were a shiny, almost glowing white with the light on them, with smooth and almost bubbly appearances. Formations on the walls looked stunningly like jellyfish, and seemed to continue on forever deeper into the cave. In the distance, he could hear a creak flowing, which he assumed was the original source of the cave.

"Wow."

Speed

I'm going to be spending today and the next few days traveling. This doesn't mean I'm taking a break from writing however. Screw that noise. Instead it means that I'm going to be writing these posts on my phone. This isn't the first time I've done this, so I'm already familiar with how to go about it, and what the disadvantages are. The biggest of which being that I have no way of checking how long these posts are, so if any of the next few days' writing seems short, that's why. 

But the other big disadvantage for me is that this means it will take me significantly longer to do my writing. Besides my being limited by the size of my phone's keyboard, I'm also much more likely to make typos, which means more going back to correct them, which is annoying on a phone. 

I've mentioned before that, for me, writing slowly is very frustrating. A good writing streak for me hits 75 words a minute or more, meaning I can theoretically finish my five hundred words in under ten minutes, which I have on multiple occasions. I know that's not exactly a normal thing, and I'm not one to pretend that it is. But that's just how it is for me. My writing is very much a flow thing. Very stream of consciousness, if you will. Slowing down, and especially stopping, are not conducive to me. Lots of people do that frequently while writing, and it's probably a good thing, to stop and think about where you're going and where you've come from. But for me, stopping means losing track or getting stuck. 

If you're a writer, chances are you've had your moments where you stop for long stretches of time, staring blankly at something else, thinking about where your story is going. And if someone interrupts while you're doing that, to ask if you're ok or what you're doing, you probably get mad at them for pulling you out of your writing bubble. Not me, though. The people who know me see me doing that and know that, chances are, I'm trying to think of a word I want. And sometimes they can help me, and it gets me going again.

Going slow makes it easier for me to get distracted, to lose my place. Unfortunately, that's just something I'm going to have to deal with for the next few days. Like many problems I've faced these last few months, however, it's probably a good thing. It's more practice with the hard things. Forcing myself to do things I'm not comfortable with so that I can better my writing.

Like I mentioned at the beginning, I have no way of knowing if this is long enough. I sure hope it is. I know it's a bit denser then a lot of my writing, so I have that going for me. But man, has this taken a while. Hopefully I can keep it up.