All writers have a process that allows them to create. However, the art of "Writing" is often mistaken for that "Process." Hopefully this blog explains the difference, and inspires people to develop their crafts, become writers, or just keep on writing.

Friday, January 17, 2025

Staying On Target

A recent writing assignment handed to me was to go over the lyrics to any song of my choice that told a story - basically, a ballad - and explore what made it work for me. This is a pretty straight-forward assignment, and I knew the song I wanted to work with. (That part took a little thinking - I thought about going dark, or some real deep cuts that maybe nobody knew, but I kept it mainstream) I made my choice, and that's when things started getting out of hand.

I went with the 1976 song, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" by Gordon Lightfoot. After all, it's very much a ballad, it tells quite a story, it's very familiar to anyone living around the Great Lakes region, and I knew what moved me about it. However, when the writing began, a bunch of thoughts started popping up in my head about the song, the ship, writing, the meanings and meta-meanings of different aspects of the song and of the wreck itself. I had one assignment to do. My mind started working on about five of them.

Example: As a point of trivia, the last broadcast received from the Fitzgerald was the ominous line, "We're holding our own." It wasn't an emergency call, it wasn't a rescue plea. She was responding to a situational request with that simple answer. Then she went under without another word. The song speculates as to just what brought down this mighty barge, but my mind wandered into other territories. Before I knew it, I typed up a quick haiku:

The last words sent from
the Edmund Fitzgerald were,
"We're holding our own."

I looked at that for a while, and my mind drifted away from ships. I thought about people going through their own tough waters, struggling just to stay afloat, but when someone asks how they are doing, they say, "Hanging in there." I thought about how those words were a veil hiding what that captain probably knew was inevitable. Maybe the captain didn't want any ships to come back for them because they would end up at the bottom of Lake Superior as well. Maybe he didn't realize just how much water she had taken on until the lake swept her under. We will never know, but I thought about this a lot.

Yes, at this point I was way off course. I wanted to talk about the social commentary of hiding our feelings even in the face of terrible situations. I wanted to talk about the nobility of sacrifice in order to not take others down with you. I wanted to talk about the beautiful terror of sailing across the Great Lakes. I wanted to tell all these stories, but I had one thing I was actually required to write about, and it was none of these things.

This can be a writer's curse: something sets off a series of creative tangents regarding everything we can create, and now we want to make them all come true - often at the cost of what we are actually supposed to do. The only cure I know to address this is to write down, in one sentence and no more, the idea that pops into your head. Make it real, acknowledge it, and keep it where you can see it with the promise that you will get to it once your responsibilities are covered. In your mind it already has value, so by acknowledging that importance you commit yourself to that next creative task.

Needless to say, I have a bunch of tasks to do that all spawned from this one song. They will all get done, they will all be created in some form or another. The world will hear about them in due time. However, the assignment comes first. The reward of finishing that assignment is not a job well done, but gaining permission to jump to that next idea that sprang to life from the creative soils of your mind. Then the fun begins. 

   

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