22/10/2017

​Way back in the Seventies Pressure Drop, a song by The Toots and The Maytals was one of those songs that helped Reggae music make a wider breakthrough it deserved. With all those juggling, happy-like rhythms, not many people paid any attention to not so happy-like lyrics, which included lines like these:
“Sometimes you feel alone
And the things that you're doing
People tell you that it is wrong
Life gets rough, life gets tough
So tell me what you gonna do about it?”

There, Toots and the guys pose a very serious question for any writer, as for anybody else for that matter. There are certainly going to be times when, as a writer, not everything is going to go the way it either should or you think they should go. From not being able to write anything meaningful, to your writing being rejected for an explicable or inexplicable reason, to you simply hating the thing you have to write about. It could be something uninspiring, something you don’t know much about, or simply something that in essence contradicts your views.

Usually, one of the key reasons you pick up to write something out of your comfort zone is that one size fits all explanation: “because I have to”. Probably the only really lovable thing there falls in that “I don’t know much about it category”. That one should be easy - learn more about it, you might get to like it, and as a writer that usually happens anyway.

All the other stuff falls in the category, “I need it as much as stress and everything it brings along” - the pressure drops, and it can really be a heavy drop with deep consequences. For you and for everybody else involved.

So, if the writing doesn’t fit, don’t do it, no matter how good the financial reward may be. The pressure should drop off, not on you. Basically, turn that on/off button to off. You writing should concentrate on what flows naturally, what really fits you and what you really know (or have learned in the meantime).
The reward that is sought will come, eventually. The more natural your writing is the more chance it has to get you where you need to be.
At that moment, you may truly enjoy those Toots and Metals rhythms and forget about their heavy lyrics. At least for a moment.

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