My Writing Practice

"She's not... She's not the love... not the love... you'd ever leave..."

I paced the room several times last night, feeling this burning anxiety running through my body. Like I was about to jump out of my own skin. Like my mind didn't want be in here anymore. And maybe if I kept moving, I could out run it, or shake it out of my system, or something. Change. And wrapped in that feeling were the words. A story that was starting. Maybe a song? This is how it begins.

Disjointed. 

Angular. 

The sounds falling against each other and pushing away. It's like trying to find the matching pieces to a puzzle. There is something here. Something that is trying to define itself. Fragments of rhythms.

"She's not... She's not the love... not the love... you'd ever leave?"

"What?" Rachel called to me softly from the bedroom, barely making it to the living room,"Sounded like you said something."

"No," I muttered, "Just... thinking..." my voice dropping off as I kept circling a track around the sofa.

"not the love... you'd ever leave. You can't da-da-dum, good memories..."

Just ideas that aren't growing. 

What is she? What is she to herself? What does she want? 

I lay down on the couch with these elusive ideas on me. This is all nothing. A Meditation for writing. My practice. Writing is raising the dead. Putting form to ghosts and vapors of ideas. Trying to fill them with weight. Trying to fill them with life. If they can't live and fell and act, in my mind, they will never survive in the world. 

Maybe that's why sometimes it feels like magic. A series of synapses firing in unison. Ideas from disparate lobes pushing together to make something. A color and a word. A feeling and texture. A taste and a sound. And they need to make her real.

"What is she?"

"Rene?"

"Yeah?"

"It sounds like your talking?" her voice is low, 
she is half in a dream already.

I'm keeping her awake. "Sorry babe..." and I sincerely am.

I have a habit of talking out loud when I write. Rachel says it's a creepy sounding voice, I don't know what it sounds like, I don't even realize that I'm doing it. I have a habit of staying up late. I have a habit of disappearing mentally from conversations. I have a habit of sleep paralysis. I have a habit of saying yes to everything. Of wanting to do too much. Of getting carried away. Of being too detached. I have a lot of bad habits. I guess I'm saying, I'm too lucky to have a wife that puts up with me.

I wanted a new song done by tonight. But that wasn't happening. And some how I got the idea that I was better off watching some Netflix than keeping this up.

And I did. Or started to.

I spent a good amount of time, feet propped up, shirtless, flipping through menu, checking my phone when I get an update from some social media thing. Not finding anything.Thinking of all the things I need to get done this week. Edit the podcast, finish a mix of a new Idyll Green song that will debut soon, start edits on a song we are recording, get back to my novel. And these are all swirling around me. 

I closed my eyes.

There, I saw the time we lay

in her room. When I learned 

she was a prism. We were tossed 

sheets and legs and the sun came in 

to catch her. She turned a vision 

on the walls. She danced 

like she was. So clear. 

So open. like everything could be 

                                               light

-rene 

She's Got A Hold On Me, Watching the Emptiness

Laying covered by a sea of spring
Drowning in the light
She moved like the dream I was inside
To my singing came a harmony
I never heard so right
She moved like the dream I was inside
She's gotta hold on me

Every song arrives at its own pace. Some flow in, running almost. I have to fight to keep all the words in memory until I can find paper. I've lost more than a few songs because I didn't make it in time. Quick songs make me feel powerful, like I can conquer anything. But others are slower, more difficult, and much more humbling. 

She's Got A Hold On Me, was one of the most humbling ones I have worked on. The closest analogy I can make is throwing a bucket into a well, and pulling up nothing every time. Every time disappointed. I think that is called insanity...

Sunshine rising, laughter starts to ring
A face that's just as bright
She never shown so right
She moved like a dream I was inside


When a song gets particularly hard for me, I stretch myself out on the floor. To an outsider, it's easy to mistake this for napping. My eyes closed, my hands behind my head in classic napper's pose. I may stay like this for long periods of time, possibly hours. But this is a deep meditation, and far from relaxing. I don't know if it is a good practice, but I have solved a lot of my most puzzling, frustrating moments this way. When I do finally get the answer I was looking for, I feel exhausted...how is that possible? Not to be too self-pitying, I know there are harder jobs out there than writing, namely all of them. And I have respect for everyone of them, but this is honestly how it goes.



She's Got A On Me was so tough to figure out that it took me a second to realize how special it is. Maybe because we felt it was a special song that we were so focused on getting it right.  The hook is fun to sing, the groove is heavy. The whole song is a delicious fuzzy bass-solo which makes it amazingly fun to play. Dan used a sans-amp to get the sound. I had never seen that before, but it sounded tremendous. The man has many tricks up his sleeves. The video was great too, a special thanks to everyone who made that shoot so much fun.


For the better part of the week, I found myself on the floor of my apartment, humming the melody. Repeating the lines. Playing the chords over and over in my head. Turning phrases, re-arranging them. Throwing away verses and choruses, and starting over. Like I was in a coma. The quiet. The isolation, because it doesn't matter what happens around me I am only in my head. Focusing to the dark of my eyelids like the ocean surface at night, waiting for a sign to surface.

*

writing on a noisy machine is actually really soothing for my brain

It isn't like traditional writer's block I've known, I've had that too,-- Which is best remedied by going out and participating in the world. Living fuels creativity-- because the words are there. Just not the right ones. I don't know what it is about a particular phrase that jumps out at me to say I've got it! Sometimes I'm lost among words. Never sure what I'm looking for. I am uneasy until things feel good. Like the puzzle is unfinished. There is more to discover. And diction is the key. 

I don't know if I've had a song as tough as this one since. I'm not really looking forward to it happening again. Here's hoping it won't... Maybe I have gotten better, maybe I need to be more critical... But I still work out tough spots with my laying meditation. Watching the emptiness for the right words to come along.

The flower that splits

I have a need to kick.

To clear my path

 of stones and empty cans.

What does the cat know about yarn

to make him claw it?
What does the mutt know about strangers
to make her bark when I pass?
And what does the rock know about 
the flower that splits?

-rene

* image from: http://oztypewriter.blogspot.com/2011/05/how-many-typewriters-will-it-take-till.html