Quantum Storytelling

The formative years of my ever-evolving musical taste were in high school, like so many other people. That was eons ago in a decade some people call the 1990s. I guess that pegs me as young or old depending on which side of the fence you stand.

In between marathon listening sessions of Smashing Pumpkins or The Cure, I began to discover an abstract among all the music I gravitated towards. That common ground was an appreciation for blissful soundscapes and ambient textures. It wasn’t much later that I delved into electronic music, and as often happens during such explorations, you go to the source. For the ambient genre that would be none other than the grandfather of ambient himself, Brian Eno.

I love ambient music, because it doesn’t distract me or steal the thunder from my writing sessions. A worthy student of his, and another favorite of mine is Cliff Martinez. I first discovered the music of Cliff Martinez when I saw the movie Traffic in the theaters. I sat there with the audience, lodging corn hulls in between my gums, bathing my teeth in high fructose corn syrup and phosophoric acid, I thought to myself, “This sounds like Brian Eno.” When the credits rolled, Cliffy’s name rolled across the screen and the rest is history.

I didn’t follow Mr. Martinez’s career very closely as it happened.

Then I saw the 2002 Solaris. Again the mournful soundscapes greeted me! By this time, I was gleeful that Mr. Martinez happened to show up in a lot of films I enjoyed. So when I popped in the NARC DVD one fateful day, lo and behold what greeted me but yet more Eno-esque bliss? “This must be that Cliff Martinez again.” By this time I had started collecting his albums, eager for the next.

The last Martinez soundtrack available is Wicker Park. Cliff Martinez has since done a few other film scores, which unfortunately aren’t available yet. When they are, you can be sure that I’ll snatch them up and fire the mp3 play button during some future writing session.

Give Eno or Cliff a listen, and tell me what you think. We all gravitate towards certain styles and music.

What helps you write? What is your favorite writing music?

Update: It’s just not right to write on a 19″ old school CRT, so I upgraded to a new Dell flatscreen. So much easier on the eyes! Now I can spend more time at my desk, writing of course.

Do you ever look at your workspace and wonder if it’s keeping you down? Do you ever look at your workspace and wonder if it’s keeping you down?

This last week I had a bit of an epiphany. I was going about my daily routine and it came time to clear of my Windows desktop of the usual stuff that gathers there over the course of a few months. As I was deleting things I thought to myself, “Maybe it’s my desktop? What if an entire new change of workflow could make life easier and inspire more productivity?”

As such coincidences often happen, it was one day last week a coworker and I were reading our favorite site LifeHacker, which featured posts about RocketDock and Launchy.

RocketDock is an app for Windows that gives you a program icon dock much like a Mac. I’m not a huge Mac fan, but after trying RocketDock I certainly have a newfound appreciation for their interface design. I cleaned off my desktop, hid all my icons including the RecycleBin using TweakUI, and then RocketDock all the way. Also made a visit to Caedes.net, my favorite place to get slick desktop backgrounds. You can see my new workspace above. I set up something similar at work.

The results? I’ve got a cleaner workspace, and more efficient setup for getting in the groove. Need a change? Maybe you need a few workspace wonders?

I found myself a concept artist to help visualize some of my scenes. It was an interesting process that started with posting a job ad on ConceptArt.org. After getting over fifty replies I narrowed it down to the ones I liked the best. That’s where it got difficult because what I originally wanted was a different style from the wide variety of artists who submitted, and different from even the final candidates.

So now that I have my artist, I have been scrambling to put together a style guide using reference photos along with a description of my sci-fi world and the scene. I haven’t had time to write because I’ve been too busy managing. I’m very curious to see what the final output will be.

Someone asked me, “What if you don’t like the final picture?” First, I don’t see how that is possible because I chose an artist I liked, but even if it were possible, then at least I would have my own conceptual reference for what I think works or doesn’t work. A final reason is that I’m learning to manage and produce my own project, deal with other people, network, communicate, and organize. This is something I wouldn’t get from just locking myself in a room and hammering at the keys. This is a situation where everyone wins.

The process of working with an artist is also forcing me to think about the graphic novel version of my story, which I’ve always wanted to do. I consider this a learning experience for when it is time to do that.

Sometimes there is more to being a writer than writing.

P.S. On the topic of plain old writing, somebody pointed me to DarkRoom today. For Mac users there is WriteRoom.