I wonder whether Art Harris and Fred Jay knew when they wrote that a bit melodramatic ditty “What Am I Living For?” how many versions the song would get. Some great singers tackling it, no matter of the genre from Ray Charles and Conway Twitty to Van Morrison. There is, of course, a song of the same name by that musical chameleon and trickster Bonnie “Prince” Billy, but that is yet another story. Ah, yes, another story. There’s the point of that ‘musical’ introduction to the writers daily life. A simple question there, and let’s not be as dramatic and ask if writing is what somebody is living for, but if you see yourself as a writer of some sort or other is is an integral part of your life that you cannot do without it? I mean, there are thousands of jobs you can do because they bring in good money and of course, there is an array (certainly smaller than the number of jobs) of things you can do and do them well. But then, do you feel some kind of emptiness, and that happens practically every day if you haven’t committed at least a few words to paper, a hard disk, mobile phone notepad…something? Or, is that emptiness also there when you haven’t done a bit of research on the next idea that is circling between your ears, jotted down one or more concepts, or just read something that will at least bring you the enjoyments of somebody else’s good ideas and/or writing? Ok, so some free moments or taking care of other daily business is there, but even then, does your urge to write permeate everything else you do including emotions towards other people you feel the need to see on paper or on the screen in front of you? Sometimes though, that need truly becomes visible only when you do sit down and start writing. Then you start to realize what you have been missing all that time. And no, that time is not wasted, you can still get some good ideas from it and jot them down. And then you might draw out some good out of that Harris/Jay ditty, I was rambling about in the beginning, even that a bit too sweet Percy Sledge version that everybody likes so much. |
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February 2020
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