Mike Farris
Write Your Music
Peter Abelard wrote, “Against the disease of writing one must make special precautions, since it is a dangerous and contagious disease.”
Dangerous? Writing? Surely you jest. Heck, it’s not even hard, much less dangerous. You just pick up a pen or pencil, or sit at the computer, and put words down on paper or screen. That’s all there is to it, isn’t there? See? Easy.
Do you ever get that from your friends or family? You know, the ones who just don’t want to hear it when you talk about how hard it is to write, or how much trouble you’re having with your latest project. After all, it’s not like it’s really work, is it? They would probably agree with Russell Baker in his autobiographical work Growing Up, where he wrote: “The only thing I was fit for was to be a writer, and this notion rested solely on my suspicion that I would never be fit for real work, and that writing didn’t require any.”
I suspect Russell Baker, himself, was quickly disabused of that notion the first time he actually wrote, instead of just thought about writing. No, we more likely share the notion that Gene Fowler was talking about when he said, “Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.”
Or that of F. Scott Fitzgerald, who wrote that “All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.”
“Ohhh,” your friends say. “You’re talking about good writing, not just writing.”
Well, duh! And that’s one of the things that separates us as writers from the great unwashed masses – when we say “writing,” it’s synonymous with good writing. We don’t really need the qualifier.
And we all know that good writing doesn’t come easy. It may come easier to some than to others, but that’s not the same thing as coming easy. As Alexander Pope said, “The ease in writing comes from art, not chance.” Along those same lines, John Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, wrote, “Of all those arts in which the wise excel, nature’s chief masterpiece is writing well.”
Yeah, writing – good writing, is hard. It’s part storytelling, part putting words on paper. I’m not sure which is the hardest – coming up with the storyline, the characters, the dialogue, and the plot twists, or manipulating the English language to create a sensory experience for your reader. But I do know this: Both are essential. Because what’s your end goal?
Anthony Trollope said, “Of all the needs a book has, the chief need is that it be readable.”
But I like this from Hemingway better: All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one, you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you: the good, the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and places and how the weather was. If you can get so that you can give that to people, then you are a writer.”
I guess what it really all boils down to is this simple question: Why do you write in the first place? Good question, huh? After all, there are not many things in life that are more frustrating. Trying to find just the right words to give your sentences a punch. Trying to find just the right traits to give your characters depth and make them jump off the page. Trying to shape the right attitudes to make your dialogue crackle.
It can’t merely be to indulge your ego. Before it’s all over, you’ll find that your ego has never taken such a pummeling. And it can’t be for fame and fortune – those elude most writers.
So why do you write? I heard one writer – a screenwriter – once answer the question this way: “I think we write because we’re all damaged in some way.”
Maybe there’s something to that – I don’t know. Maybe there’s something deep down inside of us that we need to expunge. As Hemingway described one of his characters in Winner Take Nothing, “If he wrote it, he could get rid of it. He had gotten rid of many things by writing them.”
But I like to think it’s more than that. Maybe it’s a need to immortalize one’s self. Listen to this from Benjamin Franklin:
If you would not be forgotten,
As soon as you are dead and rotten,
Either write things worth reading,
Or do things worth the writing.
Or maybe you write simply because you have something to say. Because make no mistake about it, when you write, you are saying something, even though it may be in a make-believe world from the lips of a make believe character. When you write, you leave a little of yourself behind. Thomas Carlyle said, “In every man’s writings, the character of the writer must lie recorded.”
Now that’s something worth thinking about. So maybe the answer to the question of why you write lies in what you write.
Here’s my advice to you: WRITE YOUR MUSIC.
Emerson said, “Most people die with their music still inside them.” If that’s true, then how sad.
A number of years ago, I attended the funeral of a family friend for whom Emerson’s statement was decidedly not true. Only sixty-one years young, for her the music had been literal. A beautiful woman, she had been first runner-up for Miss Texas in the early 1960s. She was an incredibly talented musician, both in voice and piano. Her music will be missed – but remembered. As her daughter said, “The angels in heaven had to step aside anytime my mother opened her mouth to sing.”
How about you? Is your music still inside? Have you even found your music? It’s there, you know. Inside each one of us, our own unique, special music. Some distinctive chord that not only stirs our souls, but that has the power to touch other lives.
What is your music?
What is it that makes you laugh –
Makes you cry –
Swells your heart with pride –
Humbles your heart with compassion?
What moves you?
What causes the angels in heaven to step aside for you?
Whatever it is, that’s your music. It’s inside all of us. Buried a little deeper in some, perhaps, but there nonetheless.
So why is it that, for so many of us, the music remains inside? Many, I’m sure, have not yet discovered their music. And for many others fortunate enough to have discovered it, the tragedy lies in their not knowing how to express it.
Or, worse yet, fearing to express it. Afraid of ridicule, or embarrassment. Afraid of offending someone. Afraid of not being politically correct. No wonder Thoreau said, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”
As writers, you have the gift by which to share your music – you write! You tell stories imbued with your music. Stories that fill others with meaning and hope in their lives of quiet desperation.
Think about it: Every time you put words on a page, you have a chance to let your music out. There’s nothing wrong with writing good, commercial material, but don’t do so at the expense of what really means something to you. Don’t waste your talents on the meaningless. As Robert Frost said, “No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.”
I am reminded of the words of the old gospel song; some might say it’s a children’s song: “This little light of mine; I’m gonna let it shine.”
Your music is your light – let it shine. Never let it be said that you died with your music still inside.
To quote Sir Philip Sidney, “Fool!” said my muse to me. “Look in thy heart and write.”
