You know, it’s interesting being a writer/musician/computer programmer/animator/etc. Basically, anything to do with the arts. There will be moments where I’ll be thinking on something that I want to write about–a story in my mind that stews for a bit, or a melody, or a visual picture of some movie shot I’d like to see. And what’s interesting is that most of the time when I do creative stuff, it exists in my mind in a very primative state.

Then out of the blue I get hit with inspiration.

A brief example will suffice I think. When I wrote The Outlaw (which I’ve no longer made available, BTW, since I’m going to work on a revision now that my writing is much more gooder), it took me a few weeks to do the first two “books” in it. Then, one Saturday in 1998, I sat down at around 11 AM and wrote non-stop until around 8 PM. During those 9 hours, I did the entire last book (which was approximately 30,000 words). Why? Because I knew exactly what I wanted, and it just shot out of me.

When I write music, it’s often the same way. I’m getting good enough to know chord structures in my mind before I even sit down to write music. I’ll be like, “I want to write something in E minor today.” And I’ll instantly think of Em - C- G - D (one of my favorite progressions) and suddenly there’s a melody there.

Today, it happened with both. I was sitting there minding my own business when a song leapt into my mind. While I currently lack the ability to record anything, I hammered it out on my guitar in about thirty minutes. The chords for this one are B5 - F#5 - A5 - E5 for the verse, and the chorus is B5* - A5* - E5* - B5* and the bridge section goes C#* - B5* - A5, which are tabbed:

Regular E-A-D-G-B-E tuning

 B5    F#5    A5   E5      B5*   A5*    E5*    C#*
----- ----- ----- -----  -----  -----  -----  -----
----- ----- ----- -----  -----  -----  -----  -----
--4-- ----- --2-- -----  -----  -----  --9--  -----
--4-- --4-- --2-- --2--  --9--  --7--  --9--  --11-
--2-- --4-- --0-- --2--  --9--  --7--  --7--  --11-
----- --2-- ----- --0--  --7--  --5--  -----  --9--

On this one I actually didn’t think up the chords first, but instead when the words popped into my mind they already had their melody and it took me about 30 seconds to figure out what chords went with that melody :-) And then the words instantly came out too (very little revision was required):

Woke up this morning at three AM
Thinking of the way my life has been
Wondering what happened to all of them
Those friends I had way back when.

Sat beneath the glow of an orange street light
Sheltered from the sounds of a haunted night
Thinking that I might’ve turned out all right
Still wondering how I got here tonight.

[Chorus]
And time marches on
Further into the past
Everything will soon be gone
Shoulda known it wouldn’t last.

Fell away for an hour or two
But I still ended here without you.
Remembered time, how it always flew
And all the chaos that would ensue

Oh, I remember waking ‘fore the crack of dawn
Never had to even stifle a yawn
Met with all of them out on the lawn
Raced toward trouble like we were drawn.

[Repeat chorus]
[Bridge]
These things I see will come again
In someone else’s day
When my memories grow dim
I’ll still know what to say.
[Repeat chorus]

Now don’t ask me what this necessarily means or why it came to me. That’s the funny thing about getting sudden inspiration….often you have no clue why it came out. Anyway, I wish I had some recording equipment so you could actually hear it. But maybe you’re glad you can’t :-)