When people think of writing, few of them think of the tools of the writer. All a writer needs is a pen and something to write on, like paper, a cocktail napkin or a bathroom wall, right? Partly.
I’ve been considering the tools I use for writing again. I tend to change them from time to time to keep it fresh. I do so many kinds of writing: this blog, my lyrics, journals, essays and tons of other stuff that I would never own up to in a public setting like this one.
I’ve written in ruled notebooks, blank bound books with lines, blank bound books without, large books and very small books. I’ve written with ink, with pencils, with my computer and with an AlphaSmart Dana. (I don’t want to do a commercial or
anything, but the Dana is essentially a PalmOS device with a full size keyboard and a really wide screen without color. It was often used to teach typing to kids, but many writers dig them too. I like it because there is nothing for me to do with it except write. That’s better than checking e-mail or any of the other things you can do with a computer that don’t get you where you want to go. It’s light and small and uses very little battery power. Now, onward…)
In my blank book days, I would obsess about the pen that I used. I wanted something weighty and comfortable. But then overnight, only pencils would do it. I would suddenly require the sensation of the graphite scraping across acid-free paper. Then, I loved the feeling of acid-full paper. (Is that what it is when it’s not acid-free?) I also ritualized writing a great deal. The tools and the experience of it had to agree with the value of what I felt I was creating with every word.
I’ve left a lot of that behind, since most of what I do now must eventually end up on a computer somewhere so I can publish it to my blog or print it. However, I still get stuck on writing lyrics. Since I’m actively writing and revising lyrics for my new album, the conundrum has come up again. What tools do I use? It’s hang-up city and I still vacillate when I work on lyrics. My songs are the most enduring of all the work I do. I never write throw-away songs. I could write an essay in an hour and forget about it, but I always feel like I’ll be singing my songs forever. There has to be magic and a subtle connection to my most primal self. What’s the most appropriate medium in which to capture that?
After working on a word processor for so long, it has begun to inform my writing process. The ability to move things around at will and dump ideas with the confidence that I’ll be able to make sense of them later has made it much harder for me to scrawl out my work with a pen or pencil. The thing is, I can now type faster and more legibly than I can write. (Mark Twain said the same thing.)
Typing helps me get something down, in whatever stage of development it’s in, before I forget it. I find that sometimes my bursts of inspiration are so fleeting that if I filter them in any way or experience any time lag between the thought and the notes I make about it, the idea can become terribly diluted or even drift away completely, never to be heard from again. I would never have known that if I hadn’t captured so many great ones using a word processor. Since that initial idea can be the most crucial element of the process, it’s hard to make a case for using a pen when it could get in the way. Besides, I go through several drafts of most every piece. It’s easier to edit on a word processor, instead of scratching things out and drawing little arrows in the margins. On a word processor, I never have to write out the finished product when I’m through revising either.
Because of the immense significance I attach to them, writing lyrics on a word processor throws me a psycho-emotional curve. John Mayer (whom I really don’t admire much) made a relevant point when he was at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and saw the original framed lyric sheet for “Like A Rolling Stone.” Mayer said (I’m paraphrasing) that it seems like a more significant piece of music history to behold that handwritten lyric than what might have come from opening Microsoft Word to a new document and printing it out when you were done. Oh, too right.
But still, when I write lyrics, images can come fast and furious. They may come before I can hammer them into the right meter or scheme. They might not come in order. For example, they might not be relevant in the first verse I’m working on, but I get the feeling that they’d be great for the second. Sometimes great ideas can occur to me that end up in other songs. If I’m working on the Dana like I am now, I can scroll down and dump a new idea at the bottom of the page for consideration later. Then, I can scroll back up and continue to stare at my unfinished stanza until I get it to work. If I had to turn a page and date it (which I always do no matter what I write) I might lose the idea. Working with files saves me the trouble, since they’re date-stamped automatically. In addition, if I have to look at a seemingly incoherent idea note while refining a verse, I can find it distracting. I can even find it disheartening, because even if I finish the perfect first verse, that page is littered with ramblings that declare the lyric very unfinished.
I told you, hang-up city.
So this has been my challenge of late: getting past the idea that lyrics that ring eternal can’t be written on a word processor. It doesn’t matter what they’re written on, as long as they’re written. Who cares what “Like A Rolling Stone” was written on? Who the hell cares about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? I certainly don’t. Those things are all irrelevant. It’s far less poetic to keep the Dana on my nightstand then a fountain pen and a leather bound book, but I have to remind myself that I’m about writing, not about creating some legend about myself as a rustic artist. I still write in inspiring places (that little word processor thing comes everywhere with me) but I find that my best ideas come when I’m doing decidedly unglamorous things or when I’m almost asleep.
“Like A Rolling Stone” could have been written on the toilet. There’s no proof that it wasn’t. Kind of takes the edge off that little piece of history in the museum, doesn’t it?
