I write. It's what I do. And sometimes I think that means I should be able to write anything I set my mind to. Granted, I'm not talking treatises on the mating habits of the East African Crested Crane or a do-it-yourself manual for building your own spaceship out of tin cans and homemade rocket fuel. But when it comes to creative writing, it should all be pretty much the same, shouldn't it?
Well of course it isn't. We find this out when we try to write in another genre and can't get the voice right, or when we realize that the structure and rules of drafting documents or essays for the business world don't follow the same guidelines as the ones we have learned to apply in our novels.
I recently had this reality pounded home to me (and not for the first time) when I tried to write some song lyrics. I needed to put together a short little lullabye--and even though it was to be used in my WIP, I couldn't for the life of me come up with anything that I was happy with.
Here are the circumstances: I need a song that would be appropriate coming from a brother to his baby sister; I need for it to be soft and a little melancholy but not dark; and since it is supposed to have been written by a teenage boy it definitely can't be too sappy.
What genres or other writing tasks have you taken on and realized you're just not cut out for? Or are you of the view that we CAN write anything, it's just a matter of putting on a different hat and being determined?
PS: Since I still haven't figured this song out, any suggestions are more than welcome.
Oh, and today is my little guy's 7th birthday! I can't believe he's getting so BIG :) (By the way, in honour of his birthday, the title of this blog comes from one of my son's favourite children's books.)
Well of course it isn't. We find this out when we try to write in another genre and can't get the voice right, or when we realize that the structure and rules of drafting documents or essays for the business world don't follow the same guidelines as the ones we have learned to apply in our novels.
I recently had this reality pounded home to me (and not for the first time) when I tried to write some song lyrics. I needed to put together a short little lullabye--and even though it was to be used in my WIP, I couldn't for the life of me come up with anything that I was happy with.
Here are the circumstances: I need a song that would be appropriate coming from a brother to his baby sister; I need for it to be soft and a little melancholy but not dark; and since it is supposed to have been written by a teenage boy it definitely can't be too sappy.
What genres or other writing tasks have you taken on and realized you're just not cut out for? Or are you of the view that we CAN write anything, it's just a matter of putting on a different hat and being determined?
PS: Since I still haven't figured this song out, any suggestions are more than welcome.
Oh, and today is my little guy's 7th birthday! I can't believe he's getting so BIG :) (By the way, in honour of his birthday, the title of this blog comes from one of my son's favourite children's books.)
16 comments:
Have fun with that. I get to come up with new songs for the books, and eh, more than often I want to pull out my hair. I don't think I did more than three verses with eah of the songs---there's more songs in BYM, so yay, fun. (Not.)
And that should be each not eah, sigh.
No words of advice. This is not something I would attempt. You is brave, darling, brave.
I've written in other genres.I didn't focus on them long enough to know if I was any good at them....
Happy Birthday to YOU who did a fantastic thing 7 years ago! It's my middle daughter's birthday today too...and getting very close to my new grandson's. Ah, it was just yesterday I had Jessie, who weighed more than the turkey we had that year. :) Now she's about to become a mom herself.
I'm pretty much crap at poetry, altho I've written it. I know I couldn't plot a mystery. Altho I change lyrics in my head when I don't think the originals are right, I'm pretty sure I could not write a song from scratch. I tend to stick to one thing, now that I got Third-Rate Romance out of my system. :)
Happy birthday to your little guy!
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I'm not much at writing songs, but sometimes I get inspiration from hearing them.
In Hocus Pocus, Sara (the witch) sings this haunting melody to lure children out. It always sticks with me. Good luck!
"Come little children,
I'll take thee away;
Into a land of enchantment...
Come little children,
the time's come to play;
Here, in my garden of magic."
Ely and Tiff and Maggie, you guys are all no help at all -- which means you're going to have to listen to me sing this song when I finally get it done and that will be TORTURE :)
Maria, thanks for stopping by. That sounds like a sweet little lullabye. I’m going to have to sit down and just do this. I write enough poetry a song really shouldn’t be that difficult, but for some reason it’s created a block in my head.
A few weeks ago---at least three or four---kiddo and I were out shopping and I saw a package of socks with Star Wars all over them. I could tell he really wanted them, and I thought I was being so sneaky, slipping them in with some things I was buying my nephew for Christmas. I figured I would be able to give them to Derek for Christmas in his stocking or something and that even if he'd seen a glimpse of them in the cart he would forget by then. (I thought maybe he might have seen, but he didn't say anything so I couldn't be sure--and if you know my son, you know that if he did see them but didn't say anything that would have been a miracle in and of itself)
Anyway, so a few weeks have gone by and my amazing child wakes up on this day of days. He knows that he has to go to school, and that tonight he'll have to go to the doctor for his flu shot, so as far as birthdays go maybe it's just better if he focuses on his party for the weekend. No worries. Smiling, he goes about getting breakfast and helping us pack his lunch. We wish him happy birthday and give him big hugs.
Then when it's time to get dressed he whispers in my ear:
"Does this mean I can have those socks?"
LOL! Kids don't miss a thing! Happy Birthday to your little one. Mine hit double digits this year and already looks at least 2 years older than she is. Oh joy.
I've written songs in the past and I love doing it. Much easier to me than writing books, actually. I'd be happy to help. You know where to find me.
And though I can usually to anything I set my mind to passably well, I'm finding that passably well isn't always enough. And it's depressing me. *sigh*
Oh Ter, you're so going to regret saying that because I AM going to hit you up for help. This thing is killing me.
It totally scares me that my son will be a teenager that much sooner.
Happy Birthday to your little one. JK, and to Jessie, Maggie. November is one of the few months of the year that we don't have a family birthday. I'm still in recovery from the eight-year-old's party at the end of October. :)
The hero of my first book is a singer/songwriter, and I had fun writing song lyrics for him. One is a lullaby he wrote when his daughter was a baby, and I found it the hardest to write. It was the feeling that it needed both simplicity and profundity that made it so difficult. LOL!
I ended up cheating and adapting one that I made up to sing to the grands.
If I can help, JK, let me know.
When trying to construct a story in a new genre I would suggest using a favourite author for a plot template and then distorting to match your own tastes. For example if aiming for medical suspense, i would use Michael Palmer eg 'The Patient' as my starting template.
For the immediate problem of writing a song you could adopt the same strategy. For example take a song from 'Gigi':
Thank heaven for little girls
for little girls get bigger every day!
Thank heaven for little girls
they grow up in the most delightful way!
Those little eyes so helpless and appealing
one day will flash and send you crashin' thru the ceilin'
Thank heaven for little girls
thank heaven for them all,
no matter where no matter who
for without them, what would little boys do?
Following Hellion's approach in her immortal parodies you could substitute the young ladies name for 'little girls', Mary Jane would go nicely. *grin*
Make sure you don't forget the credits though! LOL
Janga, thanks so much for the offer! I’m going to try to start it myself and then you’ll get an email from me :)
Q, you’re always a fount of knowledge of all kinds! I’m so glad I did this blog now because the juices seem to be flowing and I’ve got nuggets of ideas starting to materialize. I’m hoping it means I can at least begin the process of writing this song and then turn it over to all of you for a little more help in making it shine. And of course, everyone gets credit!
My immortal parodies...*grins* Q, you make me blush.
JK, we'll probably be a lot more helpful if we can tweak rather than produce the whole thing. Glad the juices are flowing though!
Oh and happy birthday to your baby boy!
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