Musical Equation

The problem with writing on multiple legal pads at the same time is that I lose stories. Well, I do not lose them, per se. They are in the apartment somewhere, but I forget to type them up, and so the stories lay dormant for weeks, months, as I work on other things.

I've hung a white board in my room, and write ideas on it. In one corner, in scrawled blue ink, is the following:

music v. math
science v. religion
legitimized
science/math?

This story had potential (though, really, all stories do, and it falls to the writer to imbue the story with purpose, meaning.). The basic conceit was a world where music was the key to both magic and technology. Though a middle-ages level of technology, being able to sing lent to metalworkers the capability to work the metal, for example. The more melodious your song, the more you could achieve.

The protagonist was an apprentice executioner, recently elevated to head (only) executioner at a most tender age. He would have one of the most beautiful voices in the land, and it would be directed towards singing the life songs of criminals, forcing them to relive their many sins before the song swept to a close, as did their lives.

I saw the first half of the story as a bildungsroman complicated by his duties as official executioner. The first vomit upon a criminal, the first full day of executions, dealing with how the rest of society saw him, even as they acknowledged they needed him.

The second half would revolve around him discovering that many of the people he was executing in the name of justice was because they were versing themselves in mathematics to perform miracles, rather than using magic. This would constitute heresy and endanger their way of life, much as the advent of science threatened the old religious orders. He would've had to come to grips with the fact that he wasn't as special as he thought, then worked out whether or not to keep supporting the musical regime, or join the mathemagicians (wow, yes, I made that pun. I went there.)

There are too many damn stories I need to tell, and not enough time to tell all of them.