Inspiration

So I promised I would post here more often and update you on the progress I'm making.  And even though I haven't started writing (not even an outline or backbone of the story), I AM still thinking about it.  You see, one thing I'm constantly doing is searching for inspiration.  That search isn't always for a story to follow or a transformation method... sometimes it's searching for moods and characters (and sometimes just for character traits).

The 'character' search comes from movies, books and television while the 'mood' search is often related to music.  I don't actively search these out, they just come from what I happen to be reading, watching or listening to.

When I'm sitting at the computer (either as Caitlyn or as Calvin), I constantly have music playing.  My taste in music is fairly eclectic, and only one thing remains constant.... diversity.  I honestly can't stand to listen to the same band or even the same genre of music one song after another.  For example, while I've been doing my normal web crawl this morning, I've listened to 24 songs.  Here are the last 10:

1. AM Radio by Everclear
2. Do Right by Jimmie's Chicken Shack
3. Starfuckers, Inc. (Remix) by Nine Inch Nails
4. Flying High Again by Ozzy Osbourne
5. Concerto for 2 Harpsichords in C Minor, BWV 1062: III. Allegro Assai by Kenneth Gilbert, The English Concert & Trevor Pinnock
6. Bang the Drum All Day by Todd Rundgren
7. Special by Garbage
8. I Don't Like Mondays by Tori Amos
9. Sway by Rosemary Clooney
10. Float On by Modest Mouse

The music genre that I listen to (and gravitate towards) would broadly be called 'Alternative'. I don't really like the name of that genre as it seems to define it as something that it's not.  It's not regular 'Rock and Roll'.  That may have fit in the 80s and 90s when it became more prevelant, but normal Rock and Roll would be the more 'alternative' style in today's music.  

That being said, I do like Rock, I like Classical, I like singer/songwriter, I like classics and classic rock, I like jazz, I like hip hop, I like some rap (but not much), I like blues, I like R&B... I even like some country (but not a lot).  About the only thing that I don't like is 'pop'.  When I think of pop I think of N'sync and backstreet boys (to take some pop bands from when I was defining my musical palate), or One Direction and Justin Bieber (from today's charts).  That's not to say I don't like 'popular' music.  Looking at iTunes top 10 singles, I have Ho Hey by The Luminarees that I recently purchased and rally enjoy (although I like their more recent hit Stubborn Love).  

With all the music that I listen to, I rarely listen to the lyrics.  Quick funny story... I've always been a fan of Garbage.  One day while searching through their tracks that I didn't currently own I found a fun one called Cherry Lips (Go Baby Go).  It has a fun irreverant beat and is performed with a lot of passion.  I purchased it and went to immediatly playing it over and over.  In my apartment, in my car, and even at work.  I got a lot of strange looks as the lyrics are pretty clearly about a boy presenting himself as a female.  That may be ironically relevant now, but this was years before Caitlyn was revealed to me.  So there I was bopping around as a regular guy looking for a regular girl while listening to a song about a guy BEING a girl.  

Anyway, I don't listen to lyrics.  I rarely even look them up as I think of the singing voice as just another instrument.  I don't look up what the guitar is saying, so why should I care what the voice is saying?  Instead I get into the 'mood' that the song inspires in me.  Some songs are obvious... they're sad and they inspire a depressed reflective mood in me.  Some are fast and happy and they inspire happiness in me.  

Here is how I look at my two most recent musical purchases:

Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy by Queen

I picture skipping down the street bopping my head in time with music.  But under that there is an edge of sadness or longing.  It's happy, but wanting more.  I don't think I could picture myself capping to this song as the mood that it brings on doesn't line up with the darker feelings I am generally trying to convey.  

Read My Mind by The Killers

This one is sad.  It's longing and wanting and striving for something that is far away and hard to get.  Depending on the subject of a cap, I could use this song to set me in the right direction.  For example, I picture someone that has been transformed but is working hard to desperately transform back.  

I currently have just over 2200 songs in my music library.  All of them can shape my mood, and use that when capping.  But the funny thing is that the mood will carry on as the songs change.  For example, if I want that sad/wanting mood, I'll start capping while listening to Read My Mind.  But as the songs flip from one to the next, I'll hear that sad/wanting in other songs.  Only when a song that powerfully inspires a different mood (like the happy beat of Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy), do I snap out of that mood and have to skip to another song.  

Now for capping, this works fine.  But I'm not sure if it will work that well when writing.  It takes me between 20 minutes and a couple hours to make a cap and over that time I have to manually adjust the music three or four times to maintain my mood.  But I picture writing a story taking FAR longer.  I'm not even sure I CAN maintain a darker mood for that long without it affecting other parts of my life.  I'm already depressed about many things, and I don't want to shove myself down that hole for any longer than I need to.  

So that's going to be one of the hurdles to cross.  I don't think I could write without music in the background,  so I'll have to see how I write when the music is taking me outside of the mood I'm trying to convey.  Just another in the long list of differences between capping and writing. 

So music covers my mood, but since I don't pay attention to the lyrics I don't get anything character related out of it.  When I hear Read My Mind I don't picture a guy that is sad.  Or a woman.  Or a cross dresser.  Or a sissy.  The mood can be applied to any of those people.  To get character's or character traits I often look to movies and television   

A recent example of this is Amélie.  It's a french comedy (with subtitles) about a strange girl who decides to help the people around her while searching for love in her own life.   I first saw this movie about a decade ago and to this day it remains one of the only subtitled movies that I can watch.  I honestly hate 'Reading' a movie as opposed to 'Watching' it, and that's exactly what subtitles require me to do.  

Now while it would be easy to say that I get a comedic character from a comedy movie, I actually get something far different.  What I get is an internal struggle.  You see while Amélie is helping (and in one circumstance hurting) people, she's also struggling with her own self.  Of finding the happiness that she is trying to inspire others, inside of herself.  She's quiet and unassuming and on level is happy with that.  But she also strives to be with someone she loves.  When she finds someone she is attracted to, she struggles with accepting that she can have that very thing... that happiness... for herself.  

In a cap I can see that in the person being transformed.  I can picture that person struggling with acceptance and love of their new life.  They know that if they only swallowed that bitter pill of acceptance that their life would be better.... but they still struggle with it.  Both because it's not what they originally intended for their life, but also because they aren't sure that they deserve that level of happiness in their new form.  

Another example is the character of Harold Finch from the television show Person of Interest.  He is a brilliant computer programmer that is using a government program (that he designed) to help people that is in mortal danger.  It would be easy to see an inspiring helpful character from him, but what I get is a sense of him striving for redemption.  It hasn't been spelled out in the series yet, but I get the sense that somehow his work on this government project has hurt people.  Some very close to him.  Maybe even himself.   And what he's doing now is trying to make up for that.... trying to make good the evils that he's done in his past. 

In cap form I could see this in the person doing the transformation.  Maybe they've done some bad things (transforming people against their will, selling them into slavery...) but now they want to use their skills to help someone.  Maybe transforming someone to better their life.  To transform them against their will because he knows deep down they not only want that new life, but that they NEED that new life.  

Putting those two characters together would make a very compelling cap.  Not one that I generally make, but still a compelling cap.  

So while I'm not exactly writing the story or actively making the story arc, I AM getting pieces of character that I can add in as needed.  I AM getting music that can put me into a mood to write.  I AM working.