Connecting

One might wonder whats wrong with a person who willingly writes things down and sends them off into the world with no concern over whether or not anyone is interested in reading those things. Many bloggers, like myself, simply don't reach very many people, if any, with their random thoughts. So what's the point of it? Why not just think about it and let it be?

I'll tell you why.

Because the brain, or at least MY brain, is an echo chamber that rings and rings with the sounds of so many virtual realities that there's a genuine sense of non reality created by everything that goes on in there. Ultimately, for me, what's IN the brain doesn't add up to very much, if anything. It's what I get OUT of my brain, in one way or another, that manages to do anything of any worth. My brain does nothing more than mix the paint. All the things I do to get things out of my brain and into the world, those things are the act of painting. I don't actually paint. This is a metaphor. But I enjoy looking at the paintings (or the songs or the words on a page or whatever). They make life feel more real for me. They make me feel connected to the universe I happen to be planted in. They help my feet to feel like they're touching the ground. And who knows, the Creator might want to do something with this stuff. You never know.

Sometimes I do create things that seem to matter to people in different ways. And I really like that. I feel like I have, hopefully, made life a little less dark for people sometimes. But if I was the only person left in the world, I would still create. I'm created to create.

So this is just me again, taking one small step onto terra firma. The ground feels good.

© LW Publishing 2018

Book of Life

I can't believe it's been, like, 5 months since I've posted on this blog. That seems crazy to me. I won't say that I've been too busy. I've just been focused on other things - and there are times when I just don't seem to have that much to say.

I have been taking a lot of things in over the past year; trying to listen and learn and assess things. A big part of that has been a kind of reading frenzy. I don't even know why, but I have read more books over the past several months than I have in a long time. I've read them very fast, like I used to back in the day, including a lot of novels, which I thought I was done with. Prior to this, I went over a year without reading a single novel. It was all biography and history and technical reading and such.

Why?

I don't know.

I've also been rereading a few things that I read over twenty years ago. Things I read and really liked. I liked them so much I kept them on shelves. I'm not sure if I ever intended to read them again, or if I was saving them for someone. When you read a great book, it becomes a part of you and it's hard to let it go. But I've been rereading some of those and putting them in the box to give to the library. I won't be reading them again. I'm saying goodbye. Moving on.

To what?

I don't know.

I wonder some times about the afterlife. I wonder if we'll write and read novels and do other artistic things for all of eternity. I like to think so. I like to imagine that all of the art we produce in this life will be like the crayon drawings of two years olds compared to what we'll produce with the wisdom of eternity. Even Mozart and Bach will be like kids stuff, which is hard to imagine. What they did seems so sublime and perfect. And yet, I can't help thinking that, as a race, we've only scratched the surface, and scratching is all we get to do until the blinders are taken off.

I like to think I have a book in me. I'm not sure. A novel, maybe. Or some kind of historical thing. I have lots and lots of ideas. The ideas I'm brave enough to even start writing are the ones that are the least interesting. I know, call me "chicken." I guess the idea is that swimming in the kiddie pool is safer than jumping into the deep end. At least to start. The other problem is that the patience required may not be in my bag of tricks.

We'll see.

For now I'll just have to continue to feast on the hearts and minds of others.

Yeah, I know that sounds kind of zombie. But it really is a feast.



Peace to you.


© LW Publishing 2013

Dry

I write songs and stories. I’ve written a lot of them over the years. But, occasionally, I get what is commonly called “writer’s block.” The ideas just don’t materialize, and it can be a long time between. If I wrote these things for a living this could be unnerving. But I don’t really let it bother me too much.

But I still wonder why it happens. What causes the creative juices to dry up? What causes them to flow? You think you know sometimes, but it’s really hard to say.

I recently had a long stretch of no songs. Six or seven months. Don’t know why. Wasn’t sure what to do about it. Would I ever write another one? But there were no ideas, no sounds ringing in my head, no nothing. Then, last week, I had a vague idea. I could hear something going on. Think of it like this: you hear a song off in the distance, not clearly, but you think you might recognize it, so you try to move closer to it to figure out what it is. That’s what it’s like, except it’s in your head. And this is where learning the craft of song writing helps. If you have some tools, some skill with chord progressions and melodic structure, you can use those things to trace a path and get where you need to go.

I put a few things down on the recorder. They were very clunky and forced. Horrible really. And then I gave up because it just wasn’t working. I went to work on some other things. Checking emails. Making some calls. Reading the Bible and another book I’ve been reading about leadership. Working on some ideas for teaching. And then, boom, I had a song, almost complete, words and music. I had to trim it a bit and hammer it out a bit, but it came together really fast and seems to work. We played it last Sunday and it clicked pretty well.

Now, I know I must have set my brain in the right direction by hammering on some things ahead of time. But this shift from no ideas at all, to writing things that aren’t working, and then having something that does seem to work just rising up like a bubble out of the water: it’s something I can’t explain. It’s like gears falling into place. It makes me think of one of those games where you set it up and the marble rolls through the thing, around the curves and such, and how you have to set it up right or the marble doesn’t make it all the way to the end. So you keep at it until you finally have a flow that works.

It’s kind of weird and inscrutable, but wonderful. It happens to me, I experience it, but I find it really hard to articulate. As you have just seen.

Peace to you.


© LW Publishing 2011

LW Christmas Vol. 01

I know, I haven't been very vigilant with the blog. I haven't lost interest, I've just been otherwise occupied.

I've been doing my first full production job for a Christmas recording. Using my small studio set up, I and a group of intrepid ar teests have been producing a set of songs to help raise money for our church. And it's finally FINISHED!! It is a grass roots production, but not as grass roots as you might think. We've got CD's and there is a download option at our church website. It's a ten dollar donation thing.

In case you don't realize it yet, today's blog is the first of many shameless promotions that I'm going to be involved with over the next few weeks.

Hundreds of hours of time and labor and kindness have been poured into this thing at zero cost for our church (dollar wise) and every single penny we manage to gather is going to the church to help get a decent building fund up and running. An artist/art teacher at the church did the cover art for us. Some of our musicians helped me get the mastering done. A bunch of people put their voices and musical ability on it, and we even have the kids from church singing on it. If we do another one, we're going to get more people on it next time. We just ran out of time this year.


Like I said, it's to help raise much needed funds. If you want a copy on CD you'll have to contact me, or better yet, show up at church and get one there. The easiest thing would be to get the download, which you will find at the following link on our church website:

LIVINGWATER CHRISTMAS V1

I thank you in advance for your support, and I hope you enjoy the songs. Peace to you.

© LW Publishing 2011

Monsters

I really, really, really like monsters. Really.

More than anything else, I like the design and the creativity of them. Someone had to come up with that thing, whatever the monster is. Some prefer to call them “creatures” these days, but I like the word “monster.” Monsters literally have to be created by an artist of some kind. An author, a graphic artist, a film maker. It’s really amazing when you stop and think about it. If you think it’s easy to do, step away from the computer right now and go draw an original, cool monster. I dare you.

Trust me, it’s not easy. Especially the “original” part.

I like how creepy some of the monsters are, but only if there is some kind of fun through line in the story surrounding them. I don’t much like movies that only scare. GOTCHA. They’re fine, but that’s not really my cup of ectoplasm.

I like the idea of monsters, the notion, mostly because I know they aren’t real. The more real something is, the less you actually want to be scared by it. That’s my hypothesis anyway. If you think that death in a movie is anything like the real thing, then you are deceived. And monsters are the same way. Real monsters, which are almost always human (or, perhaps, an illness), are not something we really want to toy with. Some human beings are much more genuinely frightening than anything anyone has ever managed to put on a movie screen. Trust you me.

Much better, or at least much more fun, are the monsters we create with our imaginations. The ones who say something about the nature of being human. The ones that creatively reflect the things we feel inside, good and bad, but have a hard time expressing. I think the pretend monsters help us, in a small way, to cope with the threat of the real ones.

And, even if they don’t, they’re fun, plain and simple.


© LW Publishing 2011

How To Avoid Exploding

Suddenly I’m feeling creative. Not that I have time for it. The reality is that you make time, or your head might explode.

I’ve been writing some new songs, and I’ve got some story ideas. I’ve had an idea for a screenplay for quite a while that I’ll probably never get done. Who knows. I have a friend who has written a screenplay. I told him about the idea and he seems to think it’s a good one.

There is this weird energy that I feel when I’ve got the creative going on. My head buzzes with thoughts which it always does, but instead of having it all bottled up inside, causing distress, it’s like someone turns on the faucet, and you get to fill those glasses with nice, cool, clean water.

I realize that when I start to use these similies and metaphors, it can make some people scratch their heads in wonder. One time I was at a pastors meeting and I was trying to describe the process of getting ideas down on paper and I remember describing it as being like “bees buzzing around your head, and you’re trying to grab one.” That, to me, is actually a perfect image, but they just stared at me like I was crazy, and I get that. If I wasn’t me, I’d think I was a little nuts.

But what is creativity if it isn’t going a little nuts?

I’m a firm believer that everyone is creative. Some people have had it beaten down so they suppress it. Some people decided that someone else was better at something they liked to do, so they gave up on it. You see that a lot. Some kid decides that they like to draw. They draw everything in sight. Their parents and family notice and tell them how good they can draw. But then they get to school and some kid in their class can draw “better,” so they give up the idea of drawing because someone else is “better.” Which is extremely sad in every way.

There is competition in life, but life is not a competition.

Most people who say they “can’t” draw or paint or sing or write, simply won’t. It's not that they "can't." They spend too much time judging themselves, condemning their own efforts. Somewhere along the line someone made fun of them or they realized they weren’t the “best” singer in the room and they gave up on it altogether. Some people sing out of key, so they don't sing. Not even in the car by themselves. And that’s just sad. I’m not saying you should do it professionally, whatever it is, singing, dancing, drawing, basket weaving. Whatever. But why abandon it completely? Why not just enjoy your own experience. Stop worrying about how “good” it is and just enjoy the experience of doing that thing.

If you don’t your head might explode. And you’ll never catch one of those bees.


Peace to you.


© LW Publishing 2011

Squishing Out Songs

Late last night I was in the basement mixing a song that I’ve been working on. It’s a painful process in some ways. Some people compare it to giving birth, but that’s stupid. I have watched my wife give birth and suggesting that writing a song is comparable to that effort is the height of ignorance. But there is a kind of squishing, pushing, shoving, working to get this thing out of your mind and have it “work.” That’s my word for it. Some things “work” and some don’t. They fit, they click, they fill in the missing pieces: however you want to put it. There is this element of craft that is built on discipline, but it really blooms with the heart.

As I work on my songs, I have to compensate a lot for my weaknesses, and that can take up a lot of time. But things still come together. And when I hear them coming together, it makes me weep. I’m not kidding. I know it’s pathetic, but I have been a long time getting to this place.

Crafting songs is a challenge. I don’t think I would ever be totally satisfied, no matter what. I suppose I could have a world class producer, a multimillion dollar studio and a lot more ability than I have, and I’d still find things that just aren’t what they need to be. It’s kind of a curse. But I’m trying hard to learn to be satisfied, especially with my radically low end set up.

So far, I have three church songs that are basically finished. They need to be mastered, which I don’t know how to do. I also have a country song that’s been done for a while, but I frankly am not sure what to do with it. People I play it for like it, but I know nothing about the country market. And I have about 6 songs in the pipe, being developed and chipped away at, along with about 30 demos and some other pieces of things that aren’t whole yet. And then there's the backlog of probably 40 or 50 more songs that I haven't even started getting organized. Interestingly, so far they are all very different in a lot of ways. I don’t have a “sound” but I don’t especially want one. I’m not particularly looking to perform these myself. I’m hoping to have others do that.

When I say “craft” I really mean it. Not in the Harry Potter sense, but in the skilled trades sense. Like a carpenter. Like an artist who carves statues. Like a teacher trying to shape the mind of a student. Music and writing and a lot of other arts are, at their core, a craft that has to be developed and nurtured. Which takes time and patience and massive amounts of commitment.

Even the most absolutely pathetic pop stars are usually surrounded by excellent craftspeople. They wouldn’t ever release any music if they weren’t. I’ve got some people helping me that are way more than I deserve. Very gifted and willing to be there to get things done. Without them I’d probably only have one song up by now. And even with the great musicians, few of them have it all in themselves to get great things done.

Squishing out songs is a team effort.



Peace to you.
© LW Publishing 2011

Autonomic Art

I’ve been involved in music since I was a kid. I tried to write songs at a very early age, and I started instrumental music with piano lessons when I was 6 or 7. The piano teacher told my parents I just didn’t have the talent to play because I struggled with it so much, but what was really going on is that my eyes were bad and I couldn’t see the music. No one knew it at the time, but after I got my first pair of glasses, it all went clear. Yet, I didn’t go back to the piano because it cost a lot and too much time had passed, which is a very sad thing for me.

But no one could keep me out of music. I kept trying to write songs. I listened to music like people drink water to stay alive. Then, in fifth grade, they put some of us on recorder flutes and started to teach us melodic notation and, as we prepared for sixth grade, our band teacher asked us what instrument we’d like to play. I said “trombone.” I was very enamored of the trombone. Who wouldn’t be? But she looked at me and said, “You look like a drummer.”

So I was a drummer.

I went on to play drums with school band, drum and bugle corps, a local symphony, rock bands, a country band, a rockabilly band, church bands, so on and so forth. With drums and percussion, I was better at the symphonic and drum corp stuff than playing on the set, but I did okay. I always liked to sing, so I tried my hand at that and did okay. I eventually took guitar lessons and a few piano lessons to get the theory down, and kept writing songs which, for me, was and still is an autonomic response to life.

But I’ve known some musicians and other artists who quit. They just quit playing, quit singing, quit painting, quit their crafting, quit making quilts or building cars and whatnot. They quit producing their art pretty much completely. Which has always been strange to me. I honestly don’t understand it. It makes me wonder why they were doing the thing in the first place. I mean, there are all kinds of petty reasons we might cling to in order to justify our expression of art or craft or skill, when we shouldn’t be trying to justify it at all.

I like this quote from Stephen King. He said,”"Life isn't a support system for art. It's the other way around."

I’m with that.



Peace to you.



© LW Publishing 2011

The Work of Art

There are at least two basic theories about creativity that you hear articulated in different ways by different people.

Theory #1: One theory is that a person creates something out of nothing. Sort of – poof – and they have some new idea or some new song or some new thing. They feel that what they have come up with came out of nowhere.

Theory #2: And then there is the theory that a person creates something out of a kajillion things that they can’t even necessarily understand. The mind is full of puzzle pieces that life has tossed in there, and somehow the mind or the spirit or both begin putting the pieces together until the picture starts to make sense.

I am a theory #2 person. To my way of thinking, only God is a theory #1 person. So I go with #2, and the reason is that I can sense the puzzle pieces floating around within me and in the world. I can sense when they are starting to connect. My job is to do things to help them connect. In my mind, that is the “work” of an artist. To develop the skills that enable you to bring about these connections.

If I’m right about this, it suggests that if you want to be “creative” and you’re waiting for some sudden flash of insight from out of nowhere, you’re not likely to create very much. And if you want to be creative, but you don’t train yourself to do the work necessary to put the pieces together, then I don’t think you’ll produce much either.

Art is not for sissies.

Being creative means developing skills. It’s about craft. Songs, poems, stories, needlepoint, paintings, relationships, cars – whatever – the created thing has to be crafted in one way or another. Albert Einstein did not wake up one morning with the theory of Relativity bouncing around in his head. He agonized over it for a long, long time. He found pieces of the puzzle in the work of other scientists, which he added to other pieces he observed in everyday life. He had to develop his math skills because it wasn’t his strong suit, and he knew he’d need to get the math right to present the theory. He pressed pieces thinking they would fit, but they didn’t, so he had to keep looking. Finally, he managed to put it together. He didn’t create a law of nature. He painted it into his mind and into the minds of other people. Well. A few people. The rest of us just scratch our heads.

But the point is the same. Every work of art takes work. You have to do the work. To my way of thinking, that includes your stories, your paintings, your children, your spouse, your church, your songs, your movies, your theories on life and death, your work, your play . . . everything.

Life is an art.



Colossians 3:23-24

Peace to you.

© LW Publishing 2010

Purge

I write songs. Pretty much always have. Hundreds of 'em. It's what I do. And I was really young when I started. Somewhere around the 4th or 5th grade. I’d come up with ideas and I kept a notebook full of lyrics that I was working on. I would take two cassette recorders and record tracks by dubbing back and forth. I’d sing a melody line into one recorder, then play it back and record it on the second recorder while adding a harmony. Then I’d play that back and record again adding another harmony. Ad infinitum.

High tech. That’s how we rolled.

When asked why I write songs, I find it hard to explain. I’m tempted to say, “Why do you vomit?” It’s not very elegant, but it does make some sense. When you’re sick and your body wants to get it out, it gets it out. Just try and stop it. Well. That’s sort of what it’s like. Ideas and sounds start buzzing around the grey matter. They start to take over, falling like puzzle pieces into place. It’s like sporadic OCD. I can’t concentrate on other things while it’s in there, taking up space. I feel like, if I don’t get it out, my head might explode.

You could call this the George Romero philosophy of creativity.

Sometimes I think it’s a way of avoiding madness. Life crams so much into us all the time, if we don’t pour something back out, I think it can be crippling. In order to relieve the pressure we have to purge. For some people, tears are enough. Or laughter. For me it’s mostly songs and stories and good conversations about what makes for great coffee. For you it might be something else. At least I hope you have some form of expression. Working on cars. Painting. Needlepoint. Singing in the car while driving to work. Whatever. Everyone is different. Trust me, finding a way to express yourself in healthy ways is a lot better than exploding with anger or being addicted to drugs. Some forms of expression can kill you. Like Freddie Mercury said, given certain circumstances, even “too much love will kill you in the end.”

There's a man in the Bible who was hit with practically every bad thing that could happen to a person. His children died in a storm when the house they were in collapsed. He lost most of his possessions. His wife had given up on him. And so we get page after page of Job, expressing himself. He says, "So I won’t keep silent. I’ll speak out in the anguish of my soul. I’ll complain in the bitterness of my soul.”

He had to say something. I think he was just trying to stay alive.




Peace to you.

© LW Publishing 2010