music

Rachmaninov’s Piano

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An old and new kind of magic
Is the music of Rachmaninov,
A man of pain and purpose,
Who knew the grief of the heart,
And the power of the will.
I will listen and have my fill
Of chords of blood and sunlight,
Of anathemas in the night
Of the cries no one hears
Of the beauty, crystal cold,
Written in tears.

Here was a man who went to Hell
And was retrieved after three years.
Here was a man who –
Perhaps without a thought for God –
Was gifted by His Creator some of heaven’s
Greatest paeans and the prophets’ greatest laments.
Here was man who wrote from the depths of his soul
With dark, navy lines, profound and intense.

The Silver Birds

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Tread softly
And do not disturb my thoughts.
They are like silver birds
In a thicket.
They speak their secrets behind leaves
Before flying away.

Someone came along.
Someone disturbed my thoughts.
The birds squawked in
Cacophony;
They were ruffled
Into a dust grey.
Leaves were shed.

When you left,
Feathers became smooth and soft
Shining like gossamer
Richer than money.
Music began again.
Flight was possible.

I did not need another
To make my music.

Child Prodigies

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In recent times,

I have been startled at my own lack of brilliance

In music and literature,

Which just goes to show that I’ve been guilty of more ego

Than I care to admit.

Experience

(And little enough of that)

Has since taught me

True talent takes time to mature.

Talent is an attitude and a world view

As well as an ability.

It is the whole person.

 

I would call a child a prodigy

If they had a remarkable ability to learn and to listen and to think.

I would not call a child a prodigy

If they were merely able to play

Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata

Or sing a Puccini aria.

Epiphany

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The paralysed painter paints.

The deaf composer composes a symphony.

The blind man sees his way.

The autistic child plays entirely by ear.

The child unable to speak

Types a novel.

 

True talent exists in the mind.

It lives and breathes in its own atmosphere,

Expressed through the artist’s attitudes and beliefs,

And the determination to

Never give up.

Writer’s Block: Seven Tips for Dealing with it

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 It happens to every writer at some point in their writing life. My policy has always been to pretend that it doesn’t exist, and normally that has enabled me to keep writing. You can’t be crippled by something nonexistent, after all. However, for the first time in my life, I’ve had to admit that I’ve been pretty stumped. It’s a rather scary experience if you haven’t been there before. But in some senses, it’s just a normal part of the writing cycle. A poet once said that the times when you weren’t writing are just as important as the times when you are. The experiences that you harvest during inactivity eventually refill your ‘creative well’, and you can toil on again. And ‘toiling’ is certainly the word! It feels like jogging uphill with an anvil strapped to your back. You don’t think you’ll ever make it. And yet, I am writing again – I managed to finish editing an anthology this week and for the first time ever, I’ve started a script. For anyone going through the same thing, here’s some tactics that I use to deal with it. Hopefully they help.

 

 1. Don’t spend too long on one project. Once you’ve finished a novel, don’t start editing it immediately unless you’ve got a pressing deadline. Write something else, edit something else, do something else, and then come back to the old project fresh. This year, I spent the entire twelve months pretty much on the same series. And it did me in.

2. If you’ve made the mistake of spending too long on one project, it’s not too late to shift. If one style of writing isn’t working for you (novel writing, short story writing, etc), switch to a completely different one. I tried poetry and script writing. It’s probably awful, but it’s got me writing again.

3. “Stop while you’re ahead,” to quote Mr. Hemingway. When your writing is going really well, stop for the day. Save the passion for tomorrow. Ration your passion. I’ve taken this to new levels before, purposefully leaving a sentence unfinished. When you come back to it in your next writing session, you view it with fresh eyes.

4. Listen to music. This is a personal favourite; it might not work for everyone. I always find that if I’m already listening to a CD, I can’t go Youtube exploring because there’s already something playing. There’s a sense of continuity about systematically going through a bunch of CDs, and I’ve done it for years with good results. I normally make it my aim to write for the duration of the CD when I’m lacking motivation. Somehow it works. It does depend on the genre though – certain types of heavy metal I find too distracting. Opera, baroque, medieval, celtic, classical, romantic, and classical contemporary all work for me however. Bach is particularly good.

 5. Keep reading. Never stop reading. Ever. You die of thirst if you don’t drink water.

 6. Watch an inspirational movie. This shouldn’t become a habit, because otherwise it cuts into work time. But sometimes if you watch a movie in a similar genre to which you are writing, it kick starts your motor again. You see ideas you like, and all of a sudden, you’ve come up with a new angle. And then you’re on fire again.

 7. Have a no-multiple-projects/no-editing-while-writing policy. Do not start another project. And then another. And then another. You may think things will get better if you start five new things. In actual fact, it is depressing having a lot of half-finished things lying around. Ask anyone who has never finished a novel in their life but loves to write, and they will tell you that they start new things all the time. Please be boring. It pays to finish something, and it feels just wonderful. That said, I never come to a project going “I will finish this, and it will be amazing”. I always have the same feeling: one of being entirely overwhelmed. Yet, I do think to myself: “I’m never going to quit, even if it kills me.” So far, I’ve survived, and (if I’m counting right), I’ve finished fifteen books – and all of them except a poetry anthology are somewhere between 15,000 and 110,000 words. The other secret is not to stop and edit while you are writing. There is no surer way to kill passion. Be content to be awful for a couple of months and just finish the thing. Then you can tear it apart a bit later. 

 

 All these tips are really not just for writers. They’re for artists in general. Don’t get stagnant. Don’t give up. You will make it in the end.