I can't imagine writing without music playing in the background. When I'm writing--and I mean really writing, where I lose myself in the narrative and forget who I really am--I always have some kind of music going. And I don't mean pleasant, boppy music. I'm talking deep, dark moody music that drowns out the nonsense of the real world and rips your heart out through your throat. I'm talking Tool, Nine Inch Nails, Metallica, Marilyn Manson, or Korn. I'm talking the Queen of the Damned soundtrack, or any Deftones album ever created. (Yeah. I write about merfolk to metal.)

In pursuit of inspiration, I went to see my all-time favorite band, the Deftones, a few months ago. They performed at the Berkeley amphitheater, and it was one hell of a show. And what made it great wasn't the lights or the stars overhead or any measured, choreographed routines like you see all the popstars doing now. It was all about the shared experience of the music. The lead singer lost himself in it, like he was putting himself up on a pedestal in front of God and everyone, turning his face to the sky and closing his eyes, then doubling over with the beat as it rocked through his body. Everyone watching became a part of it, crooning along with him as he belted the lyrics we've all lost, and then found ourselves in.

There's something surreal about sharing that experience with a stadium full of strangers. It strips us down to what we really are, just a group of animals that crave connection and search for meaning in the ordinary. I think about what it must've taken for him to write the music. How much of his deepest longings went into the lyrics? How much pain, how much joy? We forget how much of artists are in their creations because we put ourselves in it instead. And I suppose that's part of what our motivation is to write. Even if it's not perfect or planned or polished, we want to be able to lose ourselves in our own creation. And we want to provide others with a space in which they might be able to find themselves.