Inspiration Through Music: Maynard James Keenan

At the end of last week’s Inspiration Through Music, I said that Maynard James Keenan was the musician that I had been waiting to do all year. The reason is that I find his songs so deeply inspiring. I’ve used several of his songs as inspirations for my Monstrum Chronicles series and other songs of his for my various mysteries, thrillers, and other dark fiction. There is a rawness and a depth to Keenan’s voice that really makes it easy for me to imagine my characters fighting their inner darkness’s. In the same way, I can also get into the heads of my antagonist’s better because I can empathize with them more. And the lyrics? They are some of the most fitting I’ve ever seen, holding descriptions of things that I’ve always found it hard to find words for.

Maynard James Keenan is an American rock singer who has formed and been a part of influential bands such as Tool, A Perfect Circle, and Puscifer. I first heard A Perfect Circle back in high school with the album “Thirteen” and was immediately a fan. More recently, I re-found Puscifer (earlier this year) and fell in love again. The new album, “Conditions of My Parole” was really quite spectacular and held a bevy of songs that I’ve now listened to many times over for inspiration. Today, I’ll be sharing 7 of Keenan’s songs with you and how they’ve inspired me.

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Inspiration for “Home”

Good morning, folks!

Hoping everyone had a wonderful and safe Christmas! It actually snowed here… quite a bit. I ended up staying at my parent’s house and was without my computer for a full 24 hours… (which almost never happens!) Still, it was a pleasant day unwrapping gifts and spending time with my family. Among many fantastic gifts, I received some new video editing software for my laptop. Hopefully now, I’ll be able to experiment more with making some more professional looking book trailers! I’ll take a look at everything this Thursday when I have more time!

Since I am once again pressed for time this morning, I would just quickly like to thank those people who read “Home” and enjoyed it. The idea for the story had been trapped in my head for several days and that morning I literally dumped it from my noggin onto the blog. I wrote it in an hour, so any mistakes I made I apologize for. I was trying to get ready for work, too!

If any of you wondered what my inspiration was behind this story, I’ll say right now that it was a combination of a couple things. One is a unique book trailer that someone posted for the novel, “Going West” by Maurice Gee. The trailer is a stop-motion animated piece which runs for about one and a half to two minutes. The narrator brings life to Gee’s stunning imagery through the course of the video. You can find that video here.

The second inspiration is a new song released by Puscifer this year (fueling my James Maynard Keenan obsession), which is called “Tumbleweed.” I listened to that song while I wrote “Home”. You can find that song here.

This week, I’ll be posting some interesting factoids about “Vox” and “Aequitas”, specifically where I get my inspiration from while writing those books. I’ll also be posting more writing tips in general!

Til then, enjoy the day!

KSilva