“Everyone has at least one good book in them.”
So, why haven't I written one, then? Well, I've started lots. Novels, academic books, books about soundtracks, books about Doctor Who... The list goes on.
The big question is, why haven't I finished a book?
Well, I'll get to that. But, first, a bit of a preamble.
The book I would currently like to write is a book about music composition.
"Why", I hear you ask, "Would anyone want to write a book about music composition? There are already thousands of books on music composition out there!"
But, are there?
Think about the music composition books you've read over the years. Are they really texts on music composition, or are they actually just manuals on harmony, notation and musical forms?
Now, back to writing books. When I was "determined" to be an author, I read an awful lot of creative writing books. These books weren't about grammar and spelling, but were concerned with evoking emotions in your reader, taking your reader on a journey, analepses (flash-backs), prolepses (flash-forwards), etc. Fundamentally, teaching the use of language as a tool, rather than teaching the rule of language.
This was the difference.
When I was still a composition lecturer in university, I would often tell my students that I had learnt more about composition from creative writing books than from books on so-called music composition.
If I may be allowed to paraphrase one of those lessons:
"The way to not write the great American novel is to try and write the great American novel."
Wow! What a lesson. Don't try to write anything good. In fact, deliberately write something that isn't good! Try it, and find out just how liberating that is, and watch the creativity flow.
At the time, I put this into practice and began writing a tawdry vampire novel, abandoning the pretentious philosophical novel I was attempting to write* at the time. Ok, I didn't finish that novel, either, but I got the furthest into writing a novel than I ever had before. Really far into it.
However, it was as soon as I applied this lesson to my music composition that things really began to take off for me.
Before applying this lesson, I found composition incredibly difficult**, but as soon as I gave myself permission to compose something that wasn't a masterpiece of the 21st century, or, in fact, permission to write something that wasn't even good, my productivity shot through the roof. And, you know what? The music I wrote wasn't half bad, and, I'm certain, it's no worse than it would have been had I tried to write a masterpiece of the 21st century. And, the great advantage of this process is that those pieces actually got finished, and I'm not still staring at a blank piece of manuscript paper with Opus 1 written at the top.
So, what's the point of this wandering stream of consciousness?
Well, the point is, if I try to write the great, missing composition book, it's really not going to get done, is it?
However, if I jot down in this blog my meandering anecdotes of things I learnt - who knows? - eventually, there might be something in the jumble that could be edited into a useful text.
Let's see.
“Everyone has at least one good book in them.”
* For "attempting to write" please subsitute, "avoiding writing".
** It still is difficult, but nowhere near as cripplingly difficult as it was before.
