Listen to music and see faces in its fires

I will not read your script:

It rarely takes more than a page to recognize that you're in the presence of someone who can write, but it only takes a sentence to know you're dealing with someone who can't. (By the way, here's a simple way to find out if you're a writer. If you disagree with that statement, you're not a writer. Because, you see, writers are also readers.)

QFT. Also,

To make matters worse, this guy (and his girlfriend) had begged me to be honest with him. He was frustrated by the responses he'd gotten from friends, because he felt they were going easy on him, and he wanted real criticism. They never do, of course. What they want is a few tough notes to give the illusion of honesty, and then some pats on the head.

One of the few things I've learnt at uni is to deal with criticism (and to not argue with it.) You have to really listen and take it on board. You can still ignore it of course, but it's important to at least consider it because usually the things you love the most about something is the thing that doesn't work all that well. It's probably the hardest part of the writing process though. If you ask for feedback, you have to be willing to take it and you cannot take it personally. You may have poured your heart and soul into something and love it dearly, but you can't let that predetermine your response. If you are defensive, you can't learn. I was super defensive about a particular bit in an Amped script once but when I started the re-write and thought about it, I took it out. I may love it but that doesn't change the fact that it doesn't actually work well with what we're trying to say. I never finished that re-write, but I will some day (December dammit!)

What I'm trying to say is, I've reached the point where I want criticism, you can keep the pats on the head. I don't care about that anymore. I've worked with a number of published professionals now and I generally feel confident enough in my writing. What I want is to get better, and I can only get better if there's criticism. As they say in Almost Famous, be honest and unmerciful. As the previously linked post notes, it's the kinder thing to do for the long run.

On the topic of things that I love, I'm still listening to The Gaslight Anthem. I'm giving 'I'da called you woody, Joe' a lot of air time mostly because it captures perfectly the way I felt the first time I heard The Clash too. I've never really been able to articulate what it meant when I found punk, not without sounding idiotic, and now I no longer have to try, the song has captured the feeling perfectly.

As heard by my wild young heart, like directions on a cold dark night,
Saying "Let it out, let it out, let it out, you're doin' all right."

God I love music. It seems to have the ability to capture feeling in a way no other medium can. I've often wondered whether my love of music didn't merely stem from my obsession with words. I listen to a lot of things that aren't particularly melodic or innovative, but that has stunning lyrics that I can't resist. This train of thought clashes with my love of punk though, where generally wordplay and poetics are discarded in favour of simply being loud and/or angry. Then there's classical music, and my obsession with the piano. In the end I can't help but think music transcends some sort of barrier that contains other forms of expression. Maybe it's just because melody can't really be tied down in words, caught and examined and explained, not really. By going against traditional form of interpretation so it resists translation into referential meaning. Critics try, of course, but it's such a subjective thing, it almost comes across as cupping water in your hands. Words can be twisted, taken out of context, and misinterpreted. Music just is.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to pull out some long Nick Hornby quotes now:

It is, perhaps, the curse of the trade. 'All art constantly aspires towards the conditions of music,' Walter Pater said, in one of the only lines of criticism that has ever meant anything to me (if I could write music, I'd never have bothered with books); music is such a pure form of self-expression, and lyrics, because they consist of words, are so impure, and songwriters, even great ones like [Aimee] Mann, find that, even though they can produce both, words will always let you down. One half of her art is aspiring towards the condition of the other half, and that must be weird, to feel so divinely inspired and so fallibly human, all at the same time. Maybe it's only songwriters who have ever had any inkling what Jesus felt on a bad day.
[Chapter 11: So I'll Run, 31 Songs, p.58]

Music, like a colour, or a cloud, is neither intelligent nor unintelligent - it just is. The chord, the simplest building block for even the tritest, silliest chart song, is a beautiful, perfect, mysterious thing, and when an ill-read, uneducated, uncultured and emotionally illiterate boor puts a couple of them together, he has every chance of creating something wonderful and powerful. I don't want to read inane books, but books are built from words, our only instruments of thought; all I ask of music is that it sounds good [and makes me feel something.]
[Chapter 19: Caravan, 31 songs, p.114]

I can't live without books any more than I can live without music. I can't really write without music either. There's something so intoxicating about art, these various creative forms of expression. Sometimes I feel like the secrets of the universe is wrapped up in there somewhere. Somewhere within the contradiction that at times feels so encompassing and so overwhelming, within that ability to make you feel so very alive and yet so very inadequate. Like the first time I read Hemingway.

Anyway, with another favoured Hornby quote, I'll go back to work:
But sometimes, very occasionally, songs and books and films and pictures express who you are, perfectly. And they don't do this in words or images, necessarily; the connection is a lot less direct and more complicated than that...It's a process like falling in love. You don't necessarily choose the best person, or the wisest, or the most beautiful; there's something else going on...I'm talking about understanding - or at least feeling like I understand - every artistic decision, every impulse, the soul of both the work and its creator. 'This is me,' I wanted to say when I read Tyler's rich, sad, lovely novel. 'I'm not a character, I'm nothing like the author, I haven't had the experiences she writes about. But even so, this is what I feel like, inside. This is what I would sound like, if ever I were to find a voice.'
[Chapter 2: Thunder Road, 31 Songs, p. 11]

Pic from here

[Parting shot: I think this whole thing sums up why I continue to feel compelled to defend Twilight - for the mere the fact that she thanks the artists that inspired her in the acknowledgements and that, with the playlists she posted online while writing the books, you can see the effects of that inspiration. That said, I had to go through fifty thousand Twilight related images while searching for one to include in this blog - there is a world beyond these books people, a wonderful world filled with hobbits, dead princes, pirates, snarky detectives, femme fatales, gangsters, reporters, crime, fairies, sword fights, true love, doomed romances and if you're reading The Dresden Files, it has all of that save the pirates. Broaden your horizons beyond Forks, to introspective moody, narrators; to larger than life characters; to fantastical, funny, heartbreaking, thoughtful books that are just waiting to be fallen in love with. Truth, beauty, freedom, love! Oh hang on, that's Moulin Rouge...]

Music: Norwegian Wood - The Beatles
Mood: Pensive