This story was gestating in my brain for at least four years before I ever thought about touching a keyboard. It wasn't really a story before that, just a bunch of scenes. Whenever I listen to music, especially something that strikes an emotional chord with me, I see little movies or music videos in my head. For instance, every time I hear the song Hot Rod Lincoln, I think about a fast car but not just any fast car.
If I was directing a short film/music video for the song I'd have it open up on a middle school science fair. Some nerdy-looking kid has an audience assembled behind him of peers, teachers and parents. His demonstration is taking place outside. In front of him is essentially a greatly modified RC car which is many times faster than ordinary RC cars. He kneels down to carefully place a rat in the driver's seat. You see he has successfully trained this rat to drive a small car through an obstacle course. The kid places a pair of tiny driving goggles on the rat and shuts the cockpit. Before he can collect himself and start the demo, the rat floors it. All eyes are on the car as it shoots straight through the first turn, out of the school parking lot and out of sight. The kid doesn't even try to run after it because he's in shock and the car is going much too fast anyway. He begins to cast nervous glances to the audience. Well, this is awkward. I knew I shouldn't have put the nitro in.
Cut back to the rat who's jamming down the sidewalk, nearly knocking confused pedestrians into the street. A barking dog on a leash lunges at the car but the rat swerves out of the way and into a grocery store where it causes more havoc in the produce section. The majority of the video would be this rat-driven car instigating chaos wherever it goes. It gets hang time off of someone's home made bike jump and destroys important paperwork in a government office building- no no, THE DMV!
The car rockets past two Latinos in a lowrider who are stopped at a red light. The one driving lifts up his shades and then the two just look at each other, both confused about the RC car doing 50 on surface streets and amazed by the fact that it just narrowly avoided being crushed by two vehicles in a busy intersection. The rat makes it to an onramp and onto the freeway where it really puts the pedal down. The car is now going underneath speeding vehicles and weaving wildly in and out of traffic. A highway patrol cop looks up from writing a citation to see the car zip by. He radios ahead to the next cop down the road. Soon after, the rat looks in its mirror, (yes there are mirrors,) to see flashing lights.
The rat speeds up but by this time the tiny tires, not made such speed, have become hot and burst into flames. The RC car swerves to the shoulder and slows to a stop. A highway patrol car pulls up behind and a state trooper steps out to investigate the car. He's astounded to discover that it was being driven by a rat wearing tiny goggles as the animal emerges from the cockpit to waddle around on the ground. The trooper turns back to the car as he pokes one of the smoking melted tires. He flips the vehicle over to look underneath and sees a name and address scribbled there in permanent marker.
Cut to the kid from the science fair who is now at home basking in shame and lament for an award that he would have won easily if everything had gone to plan. The doorbell rings and his mom opens the door. The trooper is standing there with a melted RC car in one hand and a shoebox containing the goggle-wearing rat in the other.
That's just one example but most of the time when it happens, I see a fight scene. Originally when I envisioned Soulbond, it was an action movie with heavily choreographed fight scenes set to music. Like if Dragon Ball Z was more like Disney's Fantasia. Not that they really fight in Dragon Ball Z because they're usually too busy talking, having flashbacks or powering up but you get my point.
I knew I could never make a movie so I just resigned it to a fantasy which I could drag out and play with on long train rides in and out of the city. Then one day for whatever reason i realized something that now seems so obvious. Microsoft Wordpad! Writing! It's an artistic outlet accessible to everyone. I could still create it in some form... just with no music. Though apprehensive at first about my own abilities and undertaking an entire book which I had never done before, I knew that writing was still my most effective medium of expression. The problem with creative inspiration is that once it crosses a certain threshold of development, it doesn't go away. It doesn't even take a break. It consumes you. It makes it impossible to sleep. Really what prompted me to start writing the story was so I could finally stop thinking about it.
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