What do
you do with a pot of dirt?
“Today’s
music is junk.”
“They
don’t make ’em like they used to.”
As a debater
or attorney, you learn to spot flaws in argument. The reason you don’t like
today’s songs, TV, plays, movies etc. is that the writers aren’t writing for
you or the words no longer speak to your heart! They’re writing to today’s
audience. In the case of song, they write to the young. Those who desperately want
to understand love and how to go about it. Those whose heart aches. Does this sound like something a romance writer might find useful?
Your
remedy: find a way to fall in love (with something) and passionately and have that flow into your work in progress.
IMO, it’s
author intrusion to force feed your own perception of what is art and what is
junk. Not that you can’t have a voice. Who are you writing for? The wider the
audience, the more you understand love through the eyes of your readers, the
more you’ll sell, if that’s what you want.
Grandpa
gave his granddaughter a pot of dirt. “How do you play with dirt?”
“Water
it every day.”
And soon
the child came to know life.
Message In A Bottle, The Police, 1979
EXTRA CREDIT:
or if you prefer a more direct means of communication: PEensylvania 6-5000, Glen Miller's Band, 1940:
Or for my generation: Beachwood 45789: The Marvelettes 1962
Message In A Bottle, The Police, 1979
or if you prefer a more direct means of communication: PEensylvania 6-5000, Glen Miller's Band, 1940:
Bob:
ReplyDeleteThanks for the reminder to write for our audience. Alas, lately I seem to be writing for women young enough to be my granddaughters. Can't stop it: Time marches on. But I remember it well...
People often laugh at me because I like most of the music my kids listen to. Can't always take the extremes of Rappers, or the high pitched voices of hiphop, but give me some ICP, God Smack, Lynkin Park, sound just like what I listened to in the 80s. As for reading material (and the writing) I loathe an angsty character, in any genre. I've a feeling I would not have liked that style even when I was young however. I'm finding even my generation (nicely mature but not in our dotage) prefers the YA/NA themes now. A disappointment for me as an author.
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