Back in 2009 I heard a song on the radio that not only changed my views of life at that moment, a confused sophomore in college but also of my writing in general. I’ve always had a special relationship with music that goes back to the time I was a kid, just ask my family. I love to sing and write my own music, guess that’s where my love for novel writing came from. I didn't grow up dreaming of being a writer. I grew up dreaming of becoming a famous singer, though stage fright always got the best of me.
Well, the song I heard on that Florida summer heated day was Fireflies, by Owl City, aka Adam Young. Instantly I felt like I’d found a long lost friend who got me, understood my sleepless nights and candy coated daydreams. It truly was a magical meeting of the minds.
In that same year, I decided that I wanted, needed to be a writer and hearing any one song from Adam just spurred me on, still does to this day. Hearing his lyrics and wonderfully arraigned music puts the M in motivation for me. Nearly a hundred song and 3 concerts later, I still get chills when I hear a chord of the song that is to come. His lyrics lets me daydream of the possibilities of knowing that simple dreams don’t turn to dust or that sometimes walking amongst the greenery of the forest, it’s better to waltz then to just simply walk on by, ignoring the simple beauties my generation takes for granted. So next time a new pop hit comes on the radio and you start to bop to the beats, listen to those lyrics. Do they inspire you? Make you want to be the best you? Settle in your soul like a long lost friend? Chances are, most properly won’t.
Music in the 21st century seems to be losing the charm our grandparents and even our own parents use to hold like their own breaths. Sure, music changes over time as do people, but only true musicians and lyrics can stand the true test of time.
Sometimes when life gets a little to difficult to handle, most turn towards an outlet, a way out of life’s craziness. Maybe a short trip to paradise in some far away island in the Caribbean?
Well, I myself turn to writing, sometimes jolting ideas down on paper, my iPhone, iPad, or laptop, the last three all beautiful technology thanks to the 21st century I would never take for granted. But if any of those weren’t around, could I just sit back and chew on it for a bit? Figure out what I really wanted to bring across to my future readers by choosing my next words like one would answer a question on the SAT’s?
Sometimes.
But then again, sometimes things just need to be written down, fear of it disappearing and never coming back to me a constant battle and itch millions upon millions of people in a creative driven life deal with all too constantly. I’ve had those moments when I just need to write it down, capture that thought in a voice recording while my baby sister gave me a weird glare or seek a single scrap of paper at work to jolt down a quick note.
So to fill my most undying itch of all, for a book idea that was on the back burner since the summer of 2009, I decided that in order to fully grasp the location of where I wanted this book to take setting in, I decided to move there. Itch crazy times ten. Three hundred miles away from my family, I suddenly found myself in the sea side town my characters resided in. At first I was thrilled. I was here. The 25% of the book that had yet to be written would just come screaming out of me to be written and so would everything else that followed, right?
Nope, because life got in the way as did my insecurities of my once pretty awesome book idea.
What if I fail?
What if no one wanted to read it?
What if I ruin all the good this town was doing in prep for the upcoming 450th anniversary of the cities founding with this book?
The closer I got to being finish with it, the more I seemed to ignore it, hated it like it was cursed. For weeks I wouldn’t read a single word. But then something changed one day as I was sitting typing away in my full time desk job. I was overcome was a sense to read it like I’d never read it before. And you know what? I discovered again why I thought this idea was great before I let doubt sink in. Felt that someone out there, just one person alone, would fall in love with these characters one day, just like I had when I first envisioned them in 2009, though through many revisions they have drastically changed forms for the better. I had found a happy median somehow for myself in this fast paced world where my daily life was always constantly evolving into complex agendas of just putting one foot in front of the other. I knew that the only way to be happy with what I had written was to finish the darn thing once and for all. To be gleeful when I thought of it instead of making me cringe at the idea of mustering up the courage to just read one more word.
Writers, in every vein of the worlds vastly developing genres, are unique. We are each our own aged wine and we all need time to mature, though sometimes we think that delaying the process will help the end result, when in fact a writer never stops dreaming of what’s to come. A writer never stops living life for their lives are a book in and of themselves. Though one can’t predict what will happen next like one does a books plot twist that will just wow the audience, writers need to find and listen to that little voice inside of themselves telling them that it will get better and happier time will soon find their way to us in due time.
Because when you do listen for it, hidden behind all your self-doubts and misguided thoughts, just a still small voice in the vast darkness of one’s sometimes irrational lives, can a writer produce a masterpiece, the ones that are so often a part of our daydreams.
