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Writing What You Know

Writing From What You Know

Writers often get the advice to 'write what you know.' It's kind of humorous advice, if you mainly write science fiction. I'm a composer of alternative rock music and you can find my music here on my Official Artist Website 
Occasionally, however, I will write an album of program music that is most often descriptive of a science fiction theme. Most notable is the 'Tea With The Alien' album. This album has numerous short stories and books associated with it. The track 'The Dimensional Badinage, for example, has a short story associated with it called 'Just Sign On The Dotted Line.' For this short story, I took the 'write what you know' advice to heart. 
The first part of this story is based on a true event. I really did see something unexplainable in the sky from my porch in Chino on the fourth of July. The guard who walks by in the story was really there and he saw it too. He also really said "oh, I don't want to deal with that."  
I actually chased him down later to confirm what he saw and make sure we were both seeing the same thing, and we were.
This was such a startling event to me that it changed my life and was the beginning of my 'long search.' The search took me through mediums and channels and a stint as music minister for the Spiritualist Church Of The Revelation and this is where the material for 'Tea With The Alien' originated. I was told by a medium that I should start experimenting with the way I was making music and just turn on a recording machine and start playing. This led to a concert where I improvised on the violin to a tape I had made with the above stated method. 
Later, I polished up the tracks and developed them and this became the 'Tea With The Alien' album.
Anyway, only the first part of 'Just Sign On The Dotted Line' is based on actual fact. From there I needed to invent an interesting story, so I had my roommate Rob step into the bathroom at three in the morning and disappear into an inter-stellar corridor. 
My friend Fuji and I finally go looking for him in the morning as we had planned a hike. When we find Rob, five Earth years have passed for him and he has a new job working for The Corridor.  
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