Today's #NaBloPoMo prompt: "Can you listen to music and write? What song did you hear today?"
Often I listen to music and write, or type, I suppose. I shuffle my iTunes library or hit Genius and listen to the same songs over and over again. At first Genius's response was pretty limited; I thought it more appropriately should have been named "Nimrod." Nevertheless, Apple has consistently improved the product.
But right now I'm not listening to anything except the revolving soundtrack in my head. Something's always playing there. Right now it is the last strains of John Fahey's instrumental "Orinda-Moraga." Before that it was Sonic Youth singing a chorus "you better not waste away." Most of the time there's no particular reason for the song. Other times, however, it would be good to keep silent. Why do I have such a hard time being with myself? The iPhone cranks for the duration of the car ride. Wouldn't it be good to listen to a conversation such as in a Podcast? Or nothing? What is a song, anyway, or notes, or sound? (Or silence, thinking of Cage's 4'33 or the prisoner who made a wooden piano and played the silent music on the keys.)
And at the same time, I agree with Jessica, who writes "Music is so important in all of our creative journeys as well as in our own personal soundtrack of life," and she shares a song every Lyrical Friday.
Showing posts with label #NaBloPoMo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #NaBloPoMo. Show all posts
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
The best thing about writing?
Inspired by my friend Rachael, I decided to give the #NaBloPoMo a bash. What is my favorite thing about writing? I love and I hate to write. Maybe my favorite thing is stopping. And then the distance and time, or in the form of time, make what I've written more palatable and even afford me some discovery. What was I thinking? What was I doing? Because lately I've taken scarcely any time for reflection. Twenty years or so ago I kept a journal for a brief time. Some time later, reviewing what I'd written, I was surprised to discover what I'd said, which I don't remember and the book is long gone or packed away.
Thoughts come and go. I can scarcely remember what I was thinking about this morning, although, recalling a dream where I'd put my name to a book that I had not, in actuality, written. A prompt such as this is a gift. I have learned recently or had to learn again that once I have stopped writing, it is hard to begin again. Jacques Barzun in the Modern Researcher remarked that it required the strength of Samson. He also said that unlike the alcoholic who cannot touch a drink again the writer cannot stop for a day.
I have been asked why do I want to write, and I don't have a very good reason. Certainly there is a desire, but I lack compulsion, practice, structure, technique, knowledge of rhetoric, I don't know what I'm doing and I find it hard to answer a simple question. Yet I know that when I don't write, something is missing from my life, there's a longing. It was simple at the age of 6, writing and drawing, about a neighborhood like mine, about events in my life, like the woman I thought was a witch, though maybe that's what an older boy told me. "She's not a witch," my grandfather said, "she just doesn't like people trespassing on her property." I don't remember if it was after or before then I made "No trespassing" signs of my own.
And maybe none of it matters. And maybe it matters to me. I don't know. I do know that by writing it, it is something, whether it is what I thought I was thinking or not.
Thoughts come and go. I can scarcely remember what I was thinking about this morning, although, recalling a dream where I'd put my name to a book that I had not, in actuality, written. A prompt such as this is a gift. I have learned recently or had to learn again that once I have stopped writing, it is hard to begin again. Jacques Barzun in the Modern Researcher remarked that it required the strength of Samson. He also said that unlike the alcoholic who cannot touch a drink again the writer cannot stop for a day.
I have been asked why do I want to write, and I don't have a very good reason. Certainly there is a desire, but I lack compulsion, practice, structure, technique, knowledge of rhetoric, I don't know what I'm doing and I find it hard to answer a simple question. Yet I know that when I don't write, something is missing from my life, there's a longing. It was simple at the age of 6, writing and drawing, about a neighborhood like mine, about events in my life, like the woman I thought was a witch, though maybe that's what an older boy told me. "She's not a witch," my grandfather said, "she just doesn't like people trespassing on her property." I don't remember if it was after or before then I made "No trespassing" signs of my own.
And maybe none of it matters. And maybe it matters to me. I don't know. I do know that by writing it, it is something, whether it is what I thought I was thinking or not.
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