A Daily Dose of Zen Sarcasm!

Wasting Another Month, Perhaps

By

Maria Helena Carey

I normally don't listen to music while I write.

I have seriously wondered about this minor but ultimately important component of my creative (or not) process, but I think it's more just a very pedestrian manner of preference.  I bring it up because it's one of those things that NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month for those of you keeping score at home) has as this kind of getting-to-know you bit and it's always intimidated me.  I initially just filled it in as, " I don't listen to music while I write."

Also, I sometimes get so much into a song that I forget what else it is that I'm doing.  For instance, I 'm playing right now some old R.E.M. songs at random (thanks to the wonder and confusion of the new iTunes, I couldn't even tell you exactly how it decided to jump from the middle of "Reckoning" and launch straight into "Murmur" but okay) and my mind starts to play weird tricks.

I can't really write linearly.

I start remembering things and start getting pissed off at Michael Stipe (typo corrected: "Spite" for "Stipe"– Freudian) for mumbling and whining.  And then I start to wonder why the arrangement is like that;  okay I like it but I dunno…. bongos for this song?  Weird.  And then I wonder about just how many people think that R.E.M. suck and are judging me based on my music tastes and how I'm a bit of a music snob myself but how some people are just EXHAUSTING with that holier-than-thou, I-knew-of-them-first shit.  It's like music is only good enough for listening if it goes through the precious sieve of their discerning ears and how dare we mere mortals have any damn taste whatsoever because seriously?  You like Top 40?  Are you insane?

And then there are the emotional reactions.  For instance, I still have not figured out exactly why "(Don't Go Back to) Rockville" makes me bawl every time.  I mean, there are a million beggy, pleading, please-don't-go songs out there, and few of them (okay, none!) make me enter some sort of mentally feeble crise de foi state where I wonder just HOW HORRIBLE Rockville is. 

(It isn't)

But yes.  It's too much going through my mind to write.  On the other hand, I guess that's the thing: the song occupies so much of my available synapses that if I write, I can only seem to write about me and the song, thereby creating this solipsistic spiral of action and reaction where I cannot seem to talk about anything other than how that revealed lyric or that chord or that jangly guitar makes ME feel.  Not you.  Me.

("house in order"?  WHY?!)

Anyway.  Here is day one.  Since there is no theme for the month and like a freak I'm also doing NaNoWriMo, I think I'll make my own theme.  It shall be "MIND DUMP".

Read and enjoy.  I hope.

Oh and say hello if you're a lurker or if you're coming from NaBloPoMo, will you? 

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4 responses to “Wasting Another Month, Perhaps”

  1. alejna Avatar
    alejna

    Hey! I’m NaBloPoMoping, too.
    I can’t really write while listening to music either. If music is on, I either get distracted by it, or if I manage to concentrate on what I’m doing, I tune the music out to the extent that “listening” is not really the right word.

    Reply
  2. Vixen Avatar
    Vixen

    Hey, I like listening to music while I write, or play, or clean, or do anything really. 😛 Unfortunately, my hubby likes the tv on instead. So we compromise.
    When people criticize my music choices, which are quite varied as those who ask find out, I just smile at them. Which gets some of them to ask why I’m amused. “Easy enough,” I answer, “it’s my music choice not yours.” Or sometimes I’ll say things like “you don’t have to like my choice” or “no one said you had to like the same music I do” or, “it’d be boring if we liked all the same things”. My favorite response to people who criticize my choice for anything is “So?”
    It’s my choice and I don’t need to defend it.
    Same for you, it’s your choice and you don’t need to defend it. Besides that’s part of what makes you an interesting person. Now I need to find this Rockville song.
    I like Mind Dump as a title. It sounds like it will be a fascinating look into your thoughts. Which means it will be a fascinating look into your thoughts. As your posts in the bloq show all the time.
    Have fun. I’m not doing NaNoWriMo this year. No time or energy for it.

    Reply
  3. Madame Meow Avatar
    Madame Meow

    Woohoo, Alejna :o) This will be our second year doing it– I think we should send each other medals at the end of it!
    Vix– You’re so funny! Although I gotta say, some people wouldn’t exactly back down from the ego trip were you to tell them that you don’t have to like the same things. The music snob can and may be completely relentless.

    Reply
  4. Vixen Avatar
    Vixen

    *laughs* It’s the ego trippers who usually get a smile, a raised eyebrow and the “So?” comment. They had a hard time dealing with a person who really doesn’t care about their opinions.
    I’ve met some relentless ego trippers and usually end up telling them “There, there. Someday you’ll grow up” and walking away. Or if I’m someplace where I can’t walk away (on the bus for example) I’ll start talking about something else and ignore all attempts to get back on a music discussion.

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