My Muse

 I get asked why I like to write, how do I go about the process of writing, how do you even begin to start writing a novel????!!!!???? Music is what helps me write. For me it's not about going from beginning to end, it's more about knowing certain scenes and moments and writing around that. Most often, a certain song will give me a certain emotion, and BAM I have a scene floating through my head like a movie on repeat. I see it over and over again as I listen to the song over and over again and I can't help but write it down.

Sometimes I see writing my novel as fun, sometimes its more of a need to get all of this story out of my head. It's quite intense to carry an entire trilogy in your head at all times. I see it over and over again, how I want it to go, what I want to happen next, what struggles and adversities the characters will conquer.

Music begins it for me...the very first scene that popped into my head when it came to this novel, before I even had a set story line in place, was actually the very last scene of the first novel. I was listening to Muse before one of their shows in 2010, I always love listening to an artist right before I go see them. Now I had been listening to Muse for quite a while, but for some reason this time when I listened to them I was practically slapped in the face with an idea. The song was Knights of Cydonia and it was the pinnacle climax moment of my future novel that suddenly began to play in my head.

It was amazing, wonderful, intense, and....I ran home and wrote it all down as best as I could before the idea disappeared. Then...I put it away.

It wasn't until I first moved to LA that I actually started to really think about taking this novel writing seriously. I remember sitting on my porch/balcony in my first apartment in Downtown and I was messing around on my laptop and that song came on my playlist, Muse. And suddenly I thought, "Where the hell did that scene go!" The idea came swiftly, and I just started to fill in the information around what I knew. The single novel quickly spilled over into a trilogy and before I knew it I had three books outlined.

None of this is to say I am close to done, this story has a long way to go. But for me, it all started with Muse and the rest of the story filled in with other songs that also pushed me towards the realization that I HAD to write this novel. I never went to school for writing, I went to school for 3D animation, but still...I suddenly owed it to myself to get this story out on paper. I hope one day I can share it with the world.

If you haven't seen the video to Knights of Cydonia by Muse you really should, it's awesome!!!
Muse Video: Knights of Cydonia

Side note: I think once I am actually done with the first novel I am going to write up a playlist of music to go with each chapter, it heavily influences everything that I have written. It's only fitting to call it My Muse...