I seem to find inspiration for my creative endeavors at some of the strangest times in my daily life. More on that later.
I’ve challenged myself to write everyday on Medium. I really wouldn’t have done that if I didn’t enjoy this process. The challenge to write everyday isn’t needed, yet I enjoy it personally because it helps me work through emotions that run through my mind everyday. When I write about them I feel good afterwards, like I’m letting off steam, and hopefully along the way others read my work and either learn something or feel compelled or inspired to share their ideas.
I actually miss days here and there, but it’s not because I’m sitting around watching Netflix. I actually have some other pretty substantial goals that I’m working on, and as I was too busy yesterday to post, at least it was because I put so much effort into one of my other goals (creating content for YouTube).
So this morning I read an article from a writer that I pay a lot of attention to: Tom Kuegler. Tom’s articles are roller coaster rides, and that’s not negative. Sometimes Tom is happy and so excited in his endeavors to conquer Medium. But sometimes he’s depressed and you can feel the struggles in his words. It seems like he writes from the heart, and if he isn’t, then we should all quit, because you can’t get more authentic in my opinion.
Here was his article, and then I responded to him because… well, it compelled me to understand, to relate, to comment, and then even to write this post on my page! (I actually even told him in the Response that I was inspired by his post and I was going to go immediately write mine!)
Real human struggles are so identifiable, and we can all relate because we’ve all “been there — done that” and some of us “bought the t-shirt”. We long for those creative juices to guide us along our masterful journey of writing, or music making (in my case), or video creation (also something I work hard at), but at times we just hit a brick wall.
Those plateaus come and go and we’re never ready for them, ever. As creators, we feel the need to create everyday because we love it, but when we stare at a blank page (figuratively or in figuratively) the stress that bellows up into our consciousness is hard to deal with.
“I’ll be inconsistent if I don’t post today!” “A YouTube influencer told me in a video that consistency is key to making it on the platform!” “I gotta do something…”
I can’t help it… sometimes I feel this way because I’m so involved in doing the hard work that when the day comes where I probably need to walk away, I feel guilty inside. I’m training myself daily to stay intense, stay hungry, stay open to challenges no matter the conditions.
If I’m not present, or if I’m not taking advantage of every single moment to put myself out there, then someone else is gonna grab up all the opportunity.
Ever feel like this?
So sometimes we feel the need to manufacture art and we force creativity in order to not loose our footing.
This feels slimy. It’s like the band that has a couple of great songs but the producer thinks that they ought to have a few more tunes pulled together to create an album, so that album can be packaged and promoted a certain way. Can the group get their heads together and feel inspired to write “a few more” tunes, especially after they just poured all of their emotions and passion into what they hoped was a “just the right amount” of music?
As I’m writing this post, I don’t have the answer for this. I think that some die-hard artists would scream about not forcing a creation. Thought process: Inspired material is created out of passion, and comes from the heart. It’s perfect, honorable, and magical.
But then there have been times in history where a song or story was written to fulfill an obligation, but it turned out incredible, or it became one of the band’s hit songs for decades or all-time!
Below is a killer article I found detailing 5 huge hit songs where each song was forced, or frowned upon, or some huge obstacle stood in the way of its pending release. However, when those songs finally made it to the public ear, they became massive hits!
One particular story from this article is even more relevant to the discussion at hand regarding inspiration:
Keith Richards woke up suddenly for reasons that shockingly had nothing to do with heroin. He had a riff in his head that was harder to shake than his heroin habit…
Richards got up and recorded the riff and the phrase “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” before dozing off. The next day, Keith and Mick fleshed out the track, and immediately Keith began to hate the shit out of his late night inspiration. At first his complaint was that the song was too “folksy.” …
Eventually the rest of the band had to drag Richards into the studio and force him to record the song that he wrote and showed them in the first place. Even then, he considered his guitar part a scratch track and the recording an unfinished demo. Keith just wasn’t satisfied.
(I omitted a little of the commentary of the article).
You never know where you’re going to find the proper inspiration to create.
In my response to Tom Kuegler this morning, I spoke of a situation that I find myself within where lyrics to songs, or lyrical patterns and words that work for the rhythm of a song, will come to me in the shower! IT ALWAYS HAPPENS IN THE FREAKIN’ SHOWER!
There have actually been incidents where I’ve had to get out of the shower, dripping wet, shampoo still lathered in my hair, and I had to walk across the house to find a pen and paper. Or later in life.. I had to search around for my smartphone and open an app to capture my idea. The idea hits exactly at one of the worst times ever, but you have to capture it, because you have a serious fear of losing that train of thought.
I don’t know about other artists, but I go weeks, and sometimes months without being able to put riffs together for a song. Or in the case of one of my original tunes, the music had actually been recorded for over a year, and I even know what the subject matter of the song was going to be about, yet I hadn’t been able to complete the lyrics yet. It’s disappointing, and frustrating, but somehow I still believed it would be possible. I didn’t want to force it.
I hit a strange plateau with that particular song. The music came so easily, and was so right. The changes worked on so many great levels, and everything was falling into place perfectly. But then that damn brick wall got in-between me and the task of completing the lyrics. I was intimidated by the feeling of knowing the music was some of the best material I’d ever written, so I often thought, “How am I going to write lyrics to match the quality that’s coming together on this song?” I doubted myself, and trashed so many small ideas in the process.
So here’s how it all went down
Just last month I was in the studio, standing in front of the vocal mic, music blaring through my headphones, the track armed in record mode (meaning you’re on, get ready!). The metronome came on (a ticking sound that helps the musician stay in time) AND…… 1.. 2.. 3.. 4… Here it comes!!...
I literally had no idea what to sing! Not only did I not have my lyrics ready, I didn’t know how the melody was supposed to go.. I was completely lost… And, I was the one responsible for recording the rest of the music for the song! Just lyrically I was really blank.
I’m relieved and happy to report, after blaring out a couple of hums and nonsensical words, I actually evoked a melody. I use evoke because I realized in that moment, there were so many times before that I had subconsciously been humming a melody when I listened to the raw track. I’d be in the car, or walking the dog, or hanging out listening to the track in the studio, and I would actually make a little melody float around in my head, but I’d deny it because it never lived up to the sound that I thought would work.
So in the studio, in front of that microphone, I hummed my way through the chorus line. I paused, summed the courage to continue, made up a few words related to the subject matter that I knew I wanted to sing about. Then I wrote them into my Notes App on the iPhone. I stared at them and continued to hum and recite those same words over and over… AND THEN BAM! A title wave of words came flowing out so hard and so fast that I could barely keep up with the intensity!
I looked at my friend, the drummer in our group. He stared at the computer screen, and I could tell he was processing what just took place. I believe in that moment I was winning him over, but nothing was spoken out loud. So I record enabled a second track and immediately recorded a harmony line to compliment the first vocal track.
It’s at that moment that both of us looked at each other in amazement. We high-fived, shouted in excitement, and both wore a stupid grin on our face. He knew that I had broken through that barrier. I had put myself all the way out there. I had gone the distance, but this time, come back with the heavyweight belt.
I guess the public will decide if they like our music when it gets released, but I know the rough road that I followed to get to that moment in the studio that day. Over a year I struggled to know what to do, but only in a minute, directly in front of the microphone, full-on stressed, creatively void, and scared to death I would mess it up, did I rise to the occasion, and create one of the best songs of my career. The best song in my own opinion of course.. HA.
I hope you enjoyed this post today. Tom Kuegler’s article got my creative juices flowing, and out this article came! That’s what it’s all about, right? When it hits you, be ready to capture it, be ready to deliver the goods, be ready to go the extra mile. Sometimes you might need to step away, take a breather, and free your mind of the stress. But still, sometimes maybe when you double down, put yourself out there, manufacture a little creativity, it just might be the key that opens the door you couldn’t find before.
Clap for me if you feel inclined! I didn’t realize this but I learned today from writer Danny Forest that you can actually clap up to 50 times! Boom!!
I’d love to read your responses if you so desire, and I’ll see you in the next post.
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