I know some people may draw a line between their “good writing” and “just writing”. I know I have openly questioned the merits of some things as not being good enough. I know when working on song lyrics and form letters I have a different mindset than when writing here and the job of coming up with a compelling story in that space is hard. I’ve learned to not apply more value to one of the other. They are both worth it and serve different purposes. I’ve also been lucky in that though the words sometimes need more shaping, my mind’s never blank and words are almost always there. Sometimes, though, what comes out is just boring.
Boring may be an over simplified explanation as I know I am apt to say that everything holds value, and just like reading a scientific study, one man’s boredom lights up another’s brain with the thought of what’s possible. I guess boring to me is how it feels while producing it. The harder days, while the words still come, it’s like I’m forcing them to fit. Not unlike singing, when you can’t think of how you want to form the words, they seemed to be shoved into a space, ill suited to contain the syllables.
What’s not boring are the stories bouncing around inside my brains. Some, recounting slices of life, others made up. I’ve been writing more music lately and in turn, writing lyrics to songs. It’s challenging to say the least. You can write a whole story/song and then try and fit the words around chords and hooks. This is way easier than it sounds as you are then tasked with working around fitting those words to a melody that doesn’t suck. While playing the guitar. It’s 4 puzzles wrapped into 4 mins, and I also want it to emote or make you think. When you hear a song you love. Stop and appreciate it. While some are naturally gifted, most sweat the choice of every syllable.
Songs, blogs, press releases, and the like all improve with flexing the muscles. Stops flexing and atrophy sets in. That’s why this is better when I write daily. The big picture stuff may not happen daily, but through deliberation comes volume. Volume yields more ideas. With more ideas you’re bound to have more good ones. That’s the goal of just about everything. More at bats give more opportunities for home runs....insert more sports cliches here.
Really I just proved an unintended point by doing the very thing I was talking about. It’s a point I harp on so it’s easy to end up here, but here it is again.
It’s the idea that consistency and sticking with it yields positive outcomes.
It’s that even on a day where you spend 7/8ths of it producing what you consider to be mundane, the last 1/8th can be magic.
It’s that the act matters more than the daily scoreboard because there a weekly, monthly, yearly, lifelong scoreboard that’s constantly tallying wins and losses.
Something about sixty minutes of football and fat ladies singing is needed here. So there it is.
Hope this didn’t bore you.
#hugsandhi5s
