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#316 – Twilight Metamorphosis Baby, Part II – Sheryl Crow vs. My Actual Life
I hope that last blog didn’t give you the idea my life was some kind of grind. Far from it. Despite feeling bad about not being able to do more for Jo Anne, things are great.
Well, there’s also the problem I’m having writing.
It’s not “writer’s block.” I have trouble committing certain concepts to print, or getting things the way I like, but actually getting ideas on paper has never been difficult. With all the family things I’m doing – driving to school, driving home from school, driving to after-school activities, taking the dog for his allergy shots, etc. etc. etc. – I’m just not getting the time to concentrate on a writing project.
And this is a key time. Other than this blog, I have no source of writing income. Now is the time – past the time – when I have to commit to a new writing project. It’s hard enough choosing among the subjects I’m considering, as well as determining if I should consider some additional ideas. But I just don’t have the time.
The decision of what to write next – essentially, how I want to spend the next year or two of my life – is so important that I’m already looking for ways to avoid making it. Running errands and playing poker online are ready excuses.
There is also procrastinating. Chores, commitments, and other projects just magically JUMP into place when I have heavy-duty writing to do. I’m so bad that I almost – ALMOST – paid my bills last week to avoid having to figure out my next project. I’ve also spent a significant time updating, expanding, and modifying the playlists on my iPods.
I was driving my daughter Ellie on the day she got her driver’s license – to the Motor Vehicle Department, to the insurance agent – and we were listening to my new playlist called “Inspiration.” It has some songs about writers, some I consider inspirational and upbeat, and some that have lyrics that I consider really interesting.
[An aside about parenting: This “burden” of having to do a lot more around the house since Jo Anne’s cancer and chemotherapy has been a catalyst for spending more time with Jo Anne and more time with the kids. I never felt I was neglecting or short-changing them but the experience (plus the sheer need for me to do these things) has led to us doing a lot more things together. It’s been great and probably better over the last few weeks than ever before.
I feel, as the kids get older, that a lot of time we spend together – when the time is spent out of necessity – is for negative things. We keep it very light in our house, with five intelligent people and five active imaginations and five wild capacities for humor but it’s just a fact of life; as children become their own people, your role as parent seems to consist primarily of warnings, threats, and rescues.
Not in 2008! Valerie, who struggled in school, is thrilled over her better results because of the time we’ve spent focusing her on how to be a better student. Barry, who is finishing up at a high school he’s frequently not liked very much, just got accepted for college in a program about which he is very excited. And he’s the president of the robotics team for the school which earlier looked like it might not receive funding but is now racing toward the First Robotics competition in the spring.
Ellie, who has had some very troubled times, in one week got her first job, her driver’s license, and her first car. She’s a very serious driver and is loving work and doing well at it. She’s getting a kick of out interacting with customers and told me she received a marriage proposal from one. I said, “I hope you accepted. Because it would be awesome to get a job, a license, a car, and a husband all in one week.”
And they say today’s parents aren’t watching over their children.]
So Ellie and I were talking about my Inspiration playlist. We were reciting lyrics to the Eminem song, “Sing for the Moment.”
I think Eminem is a genius. Sure he’s crude and I won’t defend the content of every message he presents, but he jams so much into his songs that I admire how he uses words and rhymes to create a complex and unpredictable rhythm. “Sing for the Moment” in particular has some neat lines, like “His stepfather hit him so he socked him back and broke his nose. His house is a broken home.” Or “In the land of the killers, a sinner’s mind is a sanctum.” And my favorite, which people never believe is actually in the song, “In any dispute don’t hesitate to produce handguns.” It’s also got the word “metamorphosis” in it.
Ellie knows I’m a big fan of the song but she wondered why I had ELO’s “Telephone Line” in the playlist. I told her I liked the unusual acoustic tricks during the song, plus it had the word “twilight” in it.
“So if I wrote a song with “metamorphosis” and “twilight” in it, you’d put it on your iPod? Because I’m going to write the worst song in the world, but get those two words in it.”
“Then I have the perfect title,” I told her. “Call it ‘Twilight Metamorphosis Baby.’”
I also introduced her to Sheryl Crow’s “The Book,” one of my favorite songs about writers. (I should also confess that I’m in love with Sheryl Crow, which makes the lyrics much more personal.) The song is about someone – let’s say it’s Sheryl – who has an affair with an author – let’s say it’s me – in Rome for 3 days, and then finds he’s written it into his next book.
If you listened to the song for the first time, you’d think it doesn’t express a very high opinion of writers. But in my mind, if Sheryl Crow is telling the whole world about how I took advantage of her sexually, I rate a lot higher than I do in real life.
Sheryl Crow: Three days in Rome.
My real life: Three hours trying to wake up Mike Matusow.
Sheryl Crow: I laid my heart out, I laid my soul down alone.
My real life: I looked through the garbage with Ted Forrest to find out if the chicken he ate was supposed to be cooked first.
I’ve got nothing to complain about with my life, and as a writer the material I develop while living that life makes for better stories than whatever could happen between me and Sheryl Crow if we spent a weekend in Rome. But it might be cool if people THOUGHT that’s how I spent my spare time, so I’ll keep it on my Inspiration playlist.
Anything to keep from actually WRITING something.
