Find the music in you

I think the biggest driving force behind any of the things I write is music. Song lyrics, instrumental pieces, epic scores, I'm always listening to music in one form or another. I've always had an eye (or I guess ear) for a good story told through music, planning out a scene in my mind as I listen to pieces over and over again.

The fic I wrote out last Sunday was one such piece. I started writing A Letter, Unsent on Friday, after i came across a great track by the legend that is Scroobius Pip. Now, if you don't know Pip, you need to clear the wax out of your ears. The man is a genius with words, turning beat poetry into rap and back again, talking about things which are uncomfortable and not quite right, but so fitting. I first started listening to him around a year ago, listening to his amazing piece The Struggle. If anyone is interested, have a listen to that one first.

But the inspiration of A Letter, Unsent came from another one of his pieces with Dan le Sac titled "You Will See Me". It's an attack, in short. A scream in the face of people who try to put you down, or stamp you out. About how someone can take a source of pain and turn it into a muse.

I listened to it in one of two minds. Either the speaker has over come this great achievement, and is ready to show the world just how stronger they are for the hardships, slapping down this destroyer. OR it's the pitiful cries of a defeated person, who has created this self persecution and is lashing out at those around them.

Both of these interpretations worked so well for Trixie, a character who has been taken down a peg multiple times. Now, she's actually won and doesn't need to fight against Twilight, but in order for that to happen, Twilight needed to intervene. It's the best and worst situation possible, and I think a character like Trixie would know that. She would reflect on it, internally, and recognise it. While she could identify this in herself, she would be mortified should anyone else every discover it.

So she writes a letter. And never sends it.

To quote RHCP, music, the great communicator, has opened up a lot of different ideas and styles of writing. I have a few pieces sat from my time at university which were directly influenced by the spoken word of beat poetry, and the thumping rhythms of drum and bass equally. Maybe I'll convert them and post them here, who knows. For now, keep an ear out for a new beat, a new voice. You'll be surprised what it can do.