I love Nicole Nordeman’s forward to Walking on Water, by Madeleine L’Engle. She says, “I remembered how to write from a place that was real.” Why did she forget how to write? The same reason we forget how to color, or lose patience and fascination with it anyway…some grown-up made us trade in our box of Crayolas for a mountain of responsibilities; time consuming, stress making, creativity stifling responsibilities. That’s why we forget how to write.
I wonder why we find the magic in the real places, the "dark moments and painful ironies"? Maybe because writing, especially songwriting, finds something of the poetry of life and makes it bearable. Writing that caters to the “market” becomes watered down and apologetic.
L’Engle says, “In art, either as creators or as participators, we are helped to remember some of the glorious things we have forgotten, and some of the terrible things we are asked to endure…"
Writing should be brave. Go ahead. Say it. Speak your heart. Tell your truth. REMEMBER.
And you know what the bravest part is? To keep writing at all. It’s terrifying.
That’s why I love it.
“We must work every day, whether we feel like it or not.” -L’Engle.
11 comments:
Sammie Moore: BE BRAVE!
I have heard that school can be a BIG creativity killer. In fact there have been statistics that say the longer children stay in school, the more their creative gifts and talents are squished. We literally become less creative. This seems wrong. Public schools focus on training students to work hard, to do things right without failing, all to create a "successful" person in the working world. These standards are just too cut and dry. Working hard is really important, but there are different places where that work is needed. Not everyone needs to be a straight A book student, but that is what the world tells us. Schools make us afraid to fail because failure means you are worth less. In songwriting it is important to work hard, but most of all it is important to be creative and try new things! Be brave and fail! It is much better to fail while doing something daring, instead of sticking with mediocracy. I'll be honest, sometimes I am afraid when I write songs. I feel like they won't be good enough. It is something that I must work through!
I think what makes music so amazing is it's connection to mood. If you are angry, there is a song for that, whether you want the song to lift you up or to capture that anger and give it words and sound and feeling outside your own self. I think that is the bravest of music, those songs that are not intended to be easy to listen to, that don't apply to everyone and that sort of piss you off when you hear them. Those are the songs that capture us at our lowest and show us who we really are whether we want to see it or not. That is real bravery and that is what I love.
I love how in chapter one, she states that in writing we have to be willing to lose ourselves. And I love how she says "each work of art comes to the artist and says Enflesh me, here I am, give birth to me" And that is a form of obedience. Songwriting, for the right reasons, is purity, selflessness, and finding answers through the song, or through the creator moving through the song. As artists and writers we also have to remember that not everyone will like what we do or sing or write, but dark dispels darkness.
Often when I write and after finishing a song, I feel like I’m discovering a new song and uncovering a new part of me that never existed before. It is brave to write songs because that part of me or you may have been dangerous to express. I may have just expressed my feelings about a particular person or politic or social issue or you name it. Writing is hard and trying to find just the right words to say is even harder. Emotions are personal no matter who we are, and revealing them in a song can be difficult. Writing from a real place is what makes a song so amazing.
Awesome, Sammie. Thanks.
Good thoughts. Appreciate your honesty.
What an insight!
The incarnation of a song - I loved that thought in the L'Engle book, too.
"Dark dispels darkness" - interesting thought.
I love the self-discovery of songwriting, too.
All songs are about emotion, and all "emotions are personal" which makes it tricky to write for mainstream sometimes. We find that universal voice that expresses feeling that are human, so everyone experiences them. Yet, if we don't keep our own true feelings in it, the song won't matter, or, as you say, be amazing.
The idea of forgetting how to write reminded me of a quote of Steven Pressfield's from "Do the Work." He says "A child has no trouble believing the unbelievable, nor does the genius or the madman." I think as writers it's what we try to do, believe the unbelievable, or at least paint some picture of it, allude to it. When we were younger that was easy. What do you mean the colors have to stay inside the lines? Why does it have to be the color it is in real life? I'm sorry, I thought the picture looked better on the wall. Coloring or drawing as a kid is such a memorable destruction of our creativity, I think we all remember being taught how to do it correctly, how to make our art believable. But sometimes the believable doesn't cut it, and if our art is to remember some glorious or terrible thing (L'Engle) I think the unbelievable things do a better job of that.
For me, writing hasn't come easy. Throughout my early education I could not stand to write because it felt like a chore. When my teachers would require me to write, I would lose my creativity and imagination and my checklist brain would kick in and I would begin to check off another to do item. I was never truly WRITING, I was just typing words onto a screen for credit. It wasn't until my sophomore year in high school that I found my hidden passion for writing. I was given an assignment to write a creative story. I could write anything I wanted to. Out of nowhere, I had the urge to write. I had written the longest paper ever and felt like I was just simply telling a story. It's amazing what difference that writing as a chore and writing for fun can be.
Sean Kilpatrick-
“KEEP IT REAL”
"Remembering how to write from a place that was real" is something I have rarely done before.
In fact, most of my songs are written about experiences and relationships I witness from other
people. Of course, I put myself into the character's shoes and write with genuine emotion, but
most of the time, the story I'm portraying never happened to me. I think that's okay, If I can
relate to it, then a lot of other people probably can too. When I'm not in a "real place"
experiencing dark moments or painful ironies, what helps me is to write outward, not to cater to
the market, but to reach people I never could have otherwise when writing from my own
personal experience with my own emotional capacity.
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