Welcome back, my fellow creatives!

It’s been a spell since we talked music, hasn’t it? I’m certainly not shy about sharing what inspires my writing, as forming a playlist has always played heavily into my prewriting process. The mischievous effect of music is that you never know where it will take your imagination—or, what music will grab your imagination in the first place. A song catches us and warps our vision from reality into our fantasy where the story-world is alive and well. Ideally this doesn’t happen when you’re driving…

…but it may happen at other “unique” moments.

Take a trip to the grocer, for instance. It looks a little weird to people when you’re standing in front of an open cooler door, hand out for the eggs, but you’re not grabbing anything because your imagination took off on a song at 8:03 in the morning.

Yes, this actually happened to me.

This little grocery store that typically played Christian rock music had a different music station on that morning. A classic rock station. And at 8:03 that morning, it was playing “Kashmir” by Led Zeppelin.

While I already had the music of my twin protagonists in Nina Simone’s “Ain’t Got No,” I had been struggling to find other themes of primary players. So much of Line the Stars had changed since its initial conception. No longer a mere race with trains in space, stakes were now far higher with young humans caught up in galactic conflict involving a de-throned empress on the run.

And then I heard the radio, and then the eggs no longer mattered…until someone else needed them and I had to move.

Oh, let the sun beat down upon my face
And stars fill my dream
I’m a traveler of both time and space
To be where I have been
To sit with elders of the gentle race
This world has seldom seen
They talk of days for which they sit and wait
All will be revealed

This. This sounded like my leader of The Gauges. In the original version of the story, they were merely a gang eager to win a race. Now The Gauges are a rebel family led by One who rides the lines from star to star, seeking the beginning. Seeking a way to stop the Ratchet Silence, seeking the truth of why he is what he is, what his family is. A traveler.

Even if it costs the galaxy, he. Must. Know.

Oh, father of the four winds fill my sails
Cross the sea of years
With no provision but an open face
Along the straits of fear
Oh, when I want, when I’m on my way, yeah
And my feet wear my fickle way to stay

Victory is great, but belief–not just belief, but zeal. Zeal ignites. Zeal bloodies. Zeal drives.

We come from the land of the ice and snow
From the midnight sun where the hot springs flow
The hammer of the gods
Will drive our ships to new lands
To fight the horde, sing and cry
Valhalla, I am coming

And so The Gauges ride, ready to decimate any who stand between them and The Victory, The Truth, The End Of The Line no one has found.

We come from the land of the ice and snow
From the midnight sun where the hot springs flow
How soft your fields so green
Can whisper tales of gore
Of how we calmed the tides of war
We are your overlords

Oddly enough, I have to thank Led Zeppelin for helping me find the theme for another primary player key to this conflict my twins find themselves in. As I explored Zeppelin on YouTube, Greta Van Fleet’s “The Archer” appeared, and once again, I found myself at a stand-still. (Well, sit-still. I was working at the time.)

The Gauges aren’t the only ones looking for the empress, you see. The Imperials are, too, as well as the Old Guard.

Vengeance is a bow
And arrows only justice when fired
I have loved, I have lost
I am the archer

Devil at the door
Standing with his right arm extended
On a hunt for the kill
I am the archer

As far as archetypes go, Firebox is the Old Guard: The Mentor, the Lone Warrior. It is he who must help the twins line the stars and return the empress to her throne, even though he’d much rather dump the humans and finish the damn job himself, for Duty is Life—there can be nothing else. Not since the Gauges. Not since the Coup.

My home is on the horse I ride
What emptiness without my bride
Such heaviness inside
This was the day the archer died

But the empress has taken a liking to the twins, and so he will follow her decree. That is the way of the Old Guard, until the End Of The Line.

On a sidenote, I just have to say I really enjoy how Greta Van Fleet opens their songs, even if Bo calls them “Led Zeppelin Light,” the goober. 🙂

There’s something about the defiant cries carried on guitar that makes me think Next Generation Peter Pan rooster crow: young, defiant, resilient. Firebox may no longer be young, but he will not succumb to the Ratchet Silence, nor will he rest while The Gauges ride free.

With themes in place, more of the saga unfolds. We cannot fail the empress, my friends, in spite of her efforts. Yes, her efforts. We’ll get there. 🙂

And what music has been inspiring your storytelling as of late? I’d love to hear!

Coming up, I’ve got an interview, another podcast, and a reflection upon the Autistic boy’s struggle to grow up.

Read on, share on, and write on, my friends!