Formulaic

My favorite music has always been Gospel. But I cannot identify one iota with what I hear these days. It's definitely not Gospel, no matter what they call it, and I don't think they bother with that word anymore anyway.

I have a business degree. I understand the market place. I understand that times change too. No matter what I understand, or try to anyway, I don't get what's going on, and I know I hate it.

You can blame producers, but it's people's taste. Producers maybe some too, they can get short sighted, but they still are catering to what people want, or at least trying to like everyone else in the market place.

So, I want to be a writer. I used to want to be a singer. I compromised a bit as a singer. I did want to make it, even badly. But not just for the sake of singing. I wanted to move people like songs and styles moved me. Crap didn't move me, so I surmised, even if it moved others. I'd rather not make it than sing crap. I did a great job of not making it.

So, I want to make it as a writer. Formulas. All these stupid formulas. What people want these days. What sells on the market. I love the business challenge of it, actually, just hate doing the ingredients I despise.

But all of a sudden, some of this is fun. I have spent the better part of three days now writing from scratch a new first chapter for this old concept I've had for a novel for twenty years. I have chewed on plots, researched volumes, experimented with ideas for maybe a month now on this latest story of mine.

I loved my first chapter overall, but I could feel it. Too slow. This remote control world I keep hearing about is going to want action sooner than I'm giving it and I won't get past the first editor, if I get that far.

I thought about it and the light bulb came on. Yeah, this might work for a new opening. And I got it done in five pages. But by the second day, five pages felt an eternity. They still are going to flip my channel off.

So, I squeezed it into three yesterday morning, and before I could start feeling snug, I started getting paranoid again. It's still three pages, but after seventy-five thousand more rewrites, it's almost approaching what just may have a chance in today's formulaic world.

And I'm having fun doing it. I want to say things I want to say, and fit it into this formula too. I don't want it stiff. So, how do I keep it flowing and have some depth too for whoever doesn't want to be deepened.

Suddenly I'm loving the challenge. I guess I'm turning more into a writer. I still hope the word good gets attached to me someday, but at least maybe I'm becoming a writer now.