C.S. Lewis, what a guy... what a life. I was reading about him today just for poops and giggles found out he belonged to a literary club "The Inklings"- members included Tolkien, Hugo Dyson, Charles Williams, Dr. Robert Havard, Owen Barfield, and Nevill Coghill, among others. Ummm... cool. Just cool. I got to thinking though, Nashville is kind of the same... So many great writers in this town get together, they have a community.
In a town where there are so many songwriters, it's fun to get to write with other people. However, as neat as it is when great minds join forces and create timeless songs- it's just as important to write by oneself. That said, I've been writing alone lately and it's just not going as planned. My fear is not of a blank page, because as a writer (I wrote for the paper in college- news, opinion, life & arts, interviewed Barbara Bush) I could write 10 pages of nothing and not think twice about it. My fear is 2 verses and a chorus, saying something in a poignant way and saying it like no one has said it before and making it sound all pretty and stuff. It's hard...
C.S. Lewis is a genius of a man and has brought me inspiration at different points in my life- I've read The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe more times than I would like to admit. His book The Screwtape Letters rocked my world, and Mere Christianity is also mind blowing. But one quote of his I came across hit me today- "If you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without even trying to."
Just what I needed to hear... As I prepare and write for the EP I am going to record at the end of this summer, I will have songs that I write with other people but also something I've written on my own. Whether it's been said before... we all feel the same at some point in our lives, humanity is our core and thats what brings us together, that's how we relate. So off I go... another day and another attempt, maybe I'll have a video blog next time so you guys can hear what I'm working on. Until then....
All the love,
C
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