If You Have A Song to Sing, SING IT!

               STEP FOURTEEN

Perhaps this should have been the first post instead of the 14th out of 15. It is, after all, foundational to everything I have come to understand about writing in general and the writing of novels in particular.

It has to do with music. Sort of.

Let‘s have a little truth in advertising here. I am not a musician. I can strum a D chord on a guitar and whistle–that’s the extent of my musical ability. There are wonderful musicians in the family. My husband is incredibly gifted, could have been a professional jazz guitarist. Sons are all musical in one way or another; daughter majored in piano performance in college.

I am the weak link. The un-musician. But even though you don’t want me on your team for Name that Tune, a music analogy is the clearest way to explain my point.

For the 25 years I made my living as a minion in the “the working press,” I defined my job as “concert pianist.” I wrote thousands of news and feature stories and penned more than 1,200 weekly columns in those years. I developed, nurtured and clarified my writing voice (though at the time, I didn’t realize I was doing that) and perfected the art—and it is an art!—of writing under deadline pressure. And every word I wrote was a note from somebody else’s musical score. I spent my career telling somebody else’s story, playing somebody else’s music. I either told the story well and brought the people and events to life on the printed page, or I told it poorly and bored my readers into skipping to the classified ads or the obits. But either way, it was never MY story.

During all those years, I was a voracious reader, went through novels like Sherman marching through Atlanta. I absorbed story and form, characterization, timing, building suspense—like chapped skin soaking up hot oil.

And the answer to the question you haven’t asked yet is yes. Yes, I did wonder. As I spent the golden years of my working life singing other people’s songs, now and then I would stop to wonder—did I have a song to sing? Is it possible that instead of being a concert pianist I might actually be a composer?

But there were bills to pay and kids to raise and I made a living as a journalist and … Ok, truth—I didn’t ask the question because as long as I didn’t ask it, I didn’t have to find out that the answer was no. And deep down, I so wanted the answer to be yes. I so wanted to believe that somewhere inside me, there was, indeed, a story of my own.

Then, in 2006, my husband was asked to supervise Young Life in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Scandinavia—and we moved to England! I walked away from the editor’s job at a thriving newspaper I’d founded and just like that, badda bing, badda boom, my journalism career was over.

But I had written—something!—every day of my life for 25 years and after a month of not writing, the words started to back up in my brain like a clogged sewer. It became a life-and-death situation quick. I could either write or have a stroke. So I wrote. A book. Yep, a book. And another. And another.

You know what I discovered? I didn’t have a song to sing. I had a whole symphony! I had so many songs bubbling up I couldn’t keep track of them all. Story ideas chased each other around in my head like squirrels playing in the trees and I couldn’t get the words down on paper fast enough.

It has been that way ever since. If the well ran dry tomorrow, I’d have enough story ideas to write for another 50 years.

So what, the dear reader is wondering, is the point of this post? Poignant though the story may be, how does it relate to the Fifteen Steps To Get That Novel Out of Your Head and Onto the Page?

Simple. I tell you my story so you can learn from it and not make the same mistake. Don’t settle! If you have any inkling that you have a song to sing—sing it! Sing it loud and off key until your learn the melody. But SING. Don’t settle for listening to other people’s music—write your own. Do it NOW! Don’t wait until some fortuitous circumstance makes it possible for you to write—CREATE your circumstance. Ask the question! If the answer’s yes, you’re in for quite a ride!

We’re almost done here. This is Step 14 of 15 and I hope each step has given you  practical tools to help you sing the song that’s in your heart.

BUT… (You could hear a “but” coming, couldn’t you.) Step 15 won’t show up on Thursday next week as all the other steps have done for the past 14 weeks. That’s because I won’t be here to write it. I’ve been faithful to my commitment to a weekly blog since September 1, 2012. But for the next two weeks I WILL BE IN ISRAEL!! Yep, I’m going to the Holy Land, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Laptops and internet and blogs and …and everything else, will just have to wait until I get back.

Look for my blog here the week of March 24. I’ll give you the final step…and SURELY I’ll have a story or two to tell.