Green Room - Week 4 - Day 2

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

Good morning Green Room!

Last night I went to see Jonathan Richman. Note to GR, if you don't know who I am talking about, become familiar with who I am talking about. Seriously, the man is hugely influential over the last 40 or so years of rock music...

One of the things that people note when they are seeing him is his sincerity. It pours out of every word and each look that he gives people. He's talking about his life, and the way he looks at the world, even when it's telling "someone else's story".

Which is important, because if your writing isn't about you, if it isn't telling something about who you are and how you see the world - what is it doing? You can say "Telling an interesting story", but what you find interesting *is* about you... it's revealing.

The act of creating art/crafting a story/performing a song, is showing vulnerability to the world. It's showing something that is real/true, it is a piece of yourself that comes out in fiction as easily as it does in non-fiction, poetry, or hip-hop music!

Which is part of what makes Idol so interesting *to me*. Getting to see those slices of your lives, and what you choose to share with the rest of the world, and what slips out through the cracks.

***

Btw - there is a Second Chance Idol deadline this evening: http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/620730.html

and a main competition deadline tomorrow: http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/620811.html

Comments

[kandigurl.livejournal.com]

Frankly, I can't write if there's none of me in the writing. The more removed I get from my own experience, the more shitty (I feel) my writing becomes. Sometimes the sliver of my experience is small, but has an emotional core that I can relate to. Sometimes I'm just writing about something that happened to me and slapping fictional names on it. But there's something from my experience in every piece.

[cacophonesque.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've got to feel a connection to my stories or nothing happens. Or, something happens but it's crappy and lame and I can't even let other people read it, because why waste their time?