December, 2014

Not Writing

by Webmaster

It gets harder each month to come up with something to write about. And, honestly, I haven't been doing much writing. I have a lot of partially written poems and songs, and I just wrote and submitted an article for a magazine. The deadline for that is tomorrow. I seem to work well under pressure.

But that article was non-fiction. I'd done the interview and just needed to write up the results. I'd like to use it here for the December column, but it's been submitted to a magazine.

Somehow, writing an article like that is not the same as writing song lyrics or a poem. I need to be inspired to write creatively.

"My sole inspiration is a telephone call from a producer." — Cole Porter

But, I'm not inspired. I find my self curiously without passion these days.

I'm happy and thankful and busy. But I'm not passionate about anything. I have inspiring thoughts. Those phrases or a line or two that skip through my mind. That usually happens when I'm late for something and in the shower or driving. I'm afraid I'm letting ideas go and I don't seem to care.

"Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work." — Stephen King

Whatever creativity I have seems to be going into web sites right now.

"For poet Dan Beachy-Quick ... inspiration can hit at any time: while researching the 19th century in America, reading Moby Dick for the 10th time, taking a walk or watching his newborn daughter." — Kathryn Mayer

I think of creativity as field. There is a gestational season, a growing season, a harvest, and a time in which the field lies fallow. My creative field has been fallow the fall, but ideas are coming to me. They haven't grown into songs verses or choruses yet, but I seem to have moved from the fallow stage to the gestational stage. I'll grab an idea or two the next time they come by, and perhaps they will grow into songs. Then I can prune and shape them as the grow, and one day, I'll harvest another song.

"I am the source of my own musical inspiration. It comes from my life experiences, observations, trials, hopes, and dreams." — Cheryl B. Engelhardt

There is a visual side to my creativity, a tactile side, a melodic side, and a side that includes word play. I don't feel playful, so word play is not high on my list of things to do.

This fallow or gestational period is not a lack of ideas. I have plenty of them. It is truly a lack of desire to write.

"Don't wait until you're 'in the mood.' Get into the mood by writing." — Dale Page

I'm not a performer. I would rather sit in the audience and listen to someone else perform my song. I've been lucky that I've gotten to do that. Three times in the last two weeks, I've heard a performer on stage say, "I co-wrote this next song with Sandy Reay." What a thrill! Today a friend and co-writer wrote on Facebook that he performed one of my songs last night, not one we'd co-written.

I have discovered the joy of co-writing. And even though I'm not writing right now, I've been picking through some songs that didn't make it to the A-list for some reason. I have co-writers, and they're looking for inspiration. If there's something in a song that touches me but the execution isn't good, perhaps it will touch my co-writer and he or she will grow that sprouting idea into a full-fledged song.

For now, that's enough. It frees me to finish some projects so I won't disappoint people who are counting on me. And then I can get back to writing again. Perhaps I'll start with polishing a good song or finishing one I've started. Or, perhaps an idea will grab me and I'll be passionate about it.

I have faith that like the seasons of the year follow one another, my songwriting will start again.

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We played there and rocked! We were great! Not as great as we would have been if we'd had our regular drummer. And bass player. But we still rocked!

And they didn't call us back for another gig. Why?

I guess I forgot to get them the promo material and info they wanted ahead of time. Hey, I was busy working and rehearsing and playing other gigs.

Well, yeah, not too many of our fans were there, but it was a long way for our fans to go. The club is supposed to have their regulars there. They'll become our fans.

OK. So the folks who were there didn't get into our music. They just haven't come on board yet. They will, if we play there enough.

Alright. They told us to turn down the volume. Three times. But that's the way we play. The management is just a bunch of old fogeys who don't like music.

Oh, right. There was a lot of hassle with the date. We had it booked then had to change it because we got a better gig. But it only happened twice.

So we were late. It was no big deal. We have day jobs and had to load up and race down there and traffic was really bad and we got lost once. You see, it really wasn't our fault we were late.

Do you believe they wouldn't feed us? Or give us more than 1 drink per set? Do they think we can live on air? It takes energy to perform like we do. And we came there straight from work, so how do they expect us to play on an empty stomach. It wouldn't have cost them anything to feed us.

And they expected us to keep our breaks to 15 minutes. How can we go out and buy food and eat it in only 15 minutes?

And back to the regulars. They expected us to take requests. We don't do requests. We have set lists. We like to do our originals, not those old songs that everyone's heard forever.

So we spent our breaks in the green room. No point in going out and talking to those losers. Plus we had to teach the bass player the chords for some of our songs.

We set out a tip jar and mentioned it between every song, but we didn't get tips. So we told the manager that we needed to get more money than we agreed to because there were no tips. And, I wasn't yelling. I just project my voice really well.

We kinda left a mess on the stage and in the green room when they wouldn't cough up more money. We're not going to play for peanuts then clean the place for them. It's okay. They've got people there who get paid to clean up.

I just don't understand why they didn't call us back for another gig. We rocked!

Any questions?

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