Writers' Bloc

I use to like the pre-writing daydreaming phase the most. Now, it less of a struggle to write, but I'd say having written something feels the best. I am currently revising a 20+ page short story, and finishing the first draft of it was very liberating. I've written a good bit of poetry this year, but this was the first piece of fiction I was able to finish in a couple years.

It's the exact opposite for me.  I thoroughly enjoy the process of writing.  Yes, too much at a stretch can get tiresome so I maintain a discipline.  When I was working on a novel last year, I would write intensely for an hour maybe two hours tops everyday, thus both staying fresh and also maintaining the momentum.  But once I am done, I get very critical of my work and start to doubt its quality.  Maybe it's just that I am yet to completely find myself as a writer because the problem is that everything about the story that's in my head doesn't get onto the paper (or word processor to be precise) and that's frustrating.  

Atavachron wrote: ^ Well yes, lyrics are just another wordform, but when I would actually try to match it all, it wasn't just the rhythmic metres that gave trouble, it was the melodies and, as Angie points out, the theme or imagery of the words.   Not so easy unless one is a natural songsmith like McCartney or Stevie Wonder.

It definitely invites some interesting Freudian readings. 

Edited by Polymorphia - January 14 2016 at 02:33

The pump don't work because the vandals took the handle.


Discuss

Atavachron wrote: With the very sad death of Mr. Bowie, I am reminded of how difficult good lyrics are to write.   At least for me they are, and, as more of an instrumentalist, have always been my Achilles heel in music creation.   It seems songwriting as a craft, which is to say when words are part & parcel of music composition, is a particular skill that is separate from instrumental expression.   What Bob Dylan did was quite a different animal than what Leo Kottke did though they both have a Folk background.   What do our musicians here think about lyric writing?

Lyrics are difficult, namely because there is a great deal of compromise going on. I can write a somewhat satisfactory free verse poem, not easily, but without an unusual amount of trouble. However, when restricted to a certain meter, a certain set of sounds that sound good over a certain section, working with the overall mood of the song as well as singular moments, having to condense or expand information, I often find myself flailing about for a while. I'll write down all my ideas whether they're just words that sound good, images that work, straightforward emotional statements, or stream of consciousness gibberish I write while listening to a demo recording for a song, and almost always I get to double digits in terms of number of drafts. The final draft is like the Constitution of the song– compromising until the each quality is satisfied. The actual topic of the song is discovered through that process for me.

Dean wrote: Gah, you always prefix everything with the adjective "good" and I don't think I'm good enough a writer to recognise good or bad in my own writing . [in '21st Century Goth' Mick Mercer described my first online novel as "...and not necessarily very good, but if you fancy something to read you will find it quite involving" ... at the time I was relieved he used "very" there ] I don't write much poetry and I've only written ten lyrics in my whole life. I can't say that I found the lyrics particularly difficult to write and I think that is because I wrote them to the music so the meter and rhythm of music dictated the scan of each line and verse (from scanison : the analysis of the metrical structure of a verse). For me it was certainly easier to write a lyric than an iambic pentameter poem for example. I wrote in my online Blog at the time: "As I had never written a lyric before and have only ever written a couple of poems in my entire life, the prospect of adding words to this first song ['Staring Into The Sun'] and any subsequent songs was, needless to say, daunting. However, fired-up by my enthusiasm for the project and encouraged by the music composed thus far, the words came very easily. After a small amount of editing to remove 'night & light' clichés, I soon had enough words for the CD." As to whether the results were good or not is for others to judge, I liked the finished songs even though in the end I didn't use them on the album they were intended for.

Sometimes 'good' is the 'best' phase I can think of.  

But you raise a, you'll forgive me, "good" point.   Matching words to music is hard but matching music to words
is almost impossible unless one does a sort of freeform composition.   But I didn't realize that until I tried putting music to lyrics or poetry that already exist.

Gah, you always prefix everything with the adjective "good" and I don't think I'm good enough a writer to recognise good or bad in my own writing . [in '21st Century Goth' Mick Mercer described my first online novel as "...and not necessarily very good, but if you fancy something to read you will find it quite involving" ... at the time I was relieved he used "very" there ]

^ Ah, that makes sense.  I figured he must've either been or known detectives in his life.