Ars Poetica

When I first started writ­ing, it was for the sheer joy and mys­tery of it all. It was just down­right amaz­ing to me that I could think up any­thing I wanted and then make it, well, make it real just by writ­ing it down. I got hooked.

I think always knew I wanted to write and play music. I was try­ing to make music when I was in dia­pers; I’d bang on pots, pans, my momma’s lamp­shades — any­thing that made sound was fair game.

I used to not pay atten­tion to my school work so I could write songs. Even before I played an instru­ment I was writ­ing down lyrics and singing melodies as they popped into my head. Somewhere in the stacks of my child­hood is my first album, sung a cap­pella and recorded in glo­ri­ous one track mono on my Radio Shack cas­sette player.

Those were the days.

Later, when I went to col­lege, I found out you could major in English and get a degree, just for writ­ing. And the good news didn’t stop there. It turns out, peo­ple will pay you for this too. Don’t ever tell me life’s not fair. I worked my way through school as a reporter (and web devel­oper, and fast food slinger — I was broke, after all) and skated my way through class after lit­er­a­ture class on the strength of cof­fee and cig­a­rette fueled all-​​nighters. And all the while, my gui­tar was a con­stant com­pan­ion and trusted friend.

But some­thing hap­pened to my writ­ing dur­ing those col­lege years. I started writ­ing out of neces­sity. Don’t think I didn’t still love it, but my rela­tion­ship with words was chang­ing. I focused less on the joy and more on the dead­lines; I was wrapped up in the why rather than the writing.

Now I try to write to answer the ques­tions I ask myself as I kick off the sheets on a sul­try night in late July. I’m redis­cov­er­ing the joy of writ­ing; rekin­dling my love affair with words and music. And in writ­ing for self-​​discovery I’ve once again awak­ened the mys­tery and mar­vel of explor­ing the uncharted land­scape that lan­guage unfolds.