Inspiration: It's the Little Things (Also some little things)

Sometimes you have to just crank up Danny Elfman, and imagine that curving bullets is totally a thing.

I can't really do songs with lyrics WHILE I'm writing. The words in the song tend to interfere with whatever I'm writing. Songs in languages I can't understand are fine, and some artists are hard to understand or just sort of croon out their lines (I can't really understand Enya even when she's singing in English), but the less the words kind of flow over me, the more they are likely to side track whatever word I'm reaching for in my own linguistic efforts. (It was a tough couple of months when I was ga-ga for Hamilton, but it kept making my writing sound like hip hop.)

But lots of songs really get me ready to go, many of which I've posted here, and this one REALLY gets the blood flowing. It's GREAT for starting a session, especially when I want to feel like a bad ass who is ready to take on writing and the world.

Bad things come in twos.

Double points when you actually have a day of knocking out the little things.

I have to make a single entry to Facebook's FAQ about our new practice of transcribing posts on our FB page.

It's long overdue to sit down for a few hours and go back fixing entries I never placed into their proper menus.

It's already June. (HOLY SHITSNACKS!!) So it's time to do end of the month stuff for May and also to gear up for summer school.

If you've never been here at Writing About Writing, there's a tough six weeks every year where I get paid phenomenally to teach middle school students. It's probably going to be one of the last side gig/non-writing jobs I quit since it's so well paid and only four hours a day and three days a week. However, those six weeks are a very difficult time for me doing a schedule that is already too damned busy on the best of days, so my posting update schedule usually falls behind.

If you weren't here LAST year, then you don't know that this has a particular meaning since I got my Patreon. (And while you can always sign up to be a patron, this is not my monthly appeals post. I'm going to hold off on that because of what I'm about to tell you.) For those six weeks I replace one of my posts per week with an appeals post. That means six of them in six weeks. It's kind of like a pledge drive for this blog.

It ALSO also means that I need to get some writing done ahead of time or I spend five out of the six weeks writing posts that are like "I'm dying. Send help. Need Twinkies. Aaaaarrrrgh."

So today I give you some inspiration, and I take care of....The Little Things.

Beatles--Paperback Writer

Ever a reminder what NOT to be.

I love the Beatles, but I love their later stuff more when they were way to famous for a record label to force them to be bubble-gummy.  Plus their production values went up and they had more complex instrumentation.  Much like their critics, I really start paying attention at Elenor Rigby.

And oh my word do I ever have an unhealthy love for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.  That's probably one of my all time most played albums.  (Even more than Ke$ha if you can believe it!)

But I love Paperback Writer.  It is forever, for me, a reminder of the pitfalls that surround writing, and that many of the themes of writers wanting to break into the industry were already tired and worn out cliches worth poking a bit of fun at....even forty-five years ago.

I also think the "controversy" of Lear is easily solved if you consider how many pretentious writers claim to be reproducing a style when they so obviously know nothing about it.  ("This is chick lit crossed with superhero fiction crossed with gritty western all set in steampunk....but literary") You can't get much further apart than a nonsense poet and popular commercial novels.  Not without adding complex lit analysis into your pop song.

It is ever a reminder to me to keep working, keep working hard, and keep working to improve the quality of my writing (not just to write more words).


Paperback writer

Paper back writer (paperback writer)
Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book?
It took me years to write, will you take a look?
It's based on a novel by a man named Lear
And I need a job, so I want to be a paperback writer,
Paperback writer.

It's a dirty story of a dirty man
And his clinging wife doesn't understand.
Their son is working for the Daily Mail,
It's a steady job but he wants to be a paperback writer,
Paperback writer.

Paperback writer (paperback writer)

It's a thousand pages, give or take a few,
I'll be writing more in a week or two.
I can make it longer if you like the style,
I can change it round and I want to be a paperback writer,
Paperback writer.

If you really like it you can have the rights,
It could make a million for you overnight.
If you must return it, you can send it here
But I need a break and I want to be a paperback writer,
Paperback writer.

Paperback writer (paperback writer)

Paperback writer - paperback writer
Paperback writer - paperback writer

Vater Unser: The Rhythm of the Words

I really love this song, and I'm quite despondent that even nearly a decade after I first heard it, I can't get it on iTunes--well, not in the US anyway.  In fact, iTunes doesn't really carry anything from E Nomine....because they're horrible monsters.

It always makes me want to write about a very specific character--unsurprisingly, a sort of kick ass priest type.  At the time I heard it, it became the theme song for my priest-mage-psionicist in a friend's "one-of-the-best-I've-ever-been-in" Dungeons and Dragons game.  But even after that game found the limits of the Dungeon Master's enthusiasm to continue running it, I continue to want to bring a character like that to the page whenever I hear this.

Mostly though, I remember how characters need to be competent (and oh, he was) to be good characters, but also have their glaring weaknesses (and oh, he did).

I can't even hear the intro prayer part without starting to feel my fingers twitch for a keyboard.  I love the thumpy rhythm and the way the words cascade over them (even though I can't understand them).  Music has always been a very important part of my writing process, and this is like pure intravenous inspiration.

Except, you know...in song form.

Hopefully someday iTunes will fix their licensing bullshit.  I'm really not into stealing music because I'm basically an artist in exactly the same position and I wouldn't appreciate very much being stolen from or having my work pirated.  But DAMN I want this song on my iPod.

Putting it Together

My parents used to blast this around the house when I was growing up, and it got under my skin. It always reminds me of how difficult all the technical stuff can be.


But it occurs to me that this is one of the most inspirational songs I've ever seen on an artistic level.  It reminds me of the work and toil and how it's not all farts and rainbows and muses and shit, but how awesome the final product can be.

Looks like the audio on this clip might be off, but you can get the idea.  Yeah it's Barbra Streisand--which some people just shorten to B.S. (if they can get past the blinding rage at all), but I always liked it.

The audio on this video isn't in sync with the video, unfortunately, but it's the song that I really like.