The Purpose

I have heard so many people say that they love songs and love music because it makes them feel happy. That is certainly a good thing, but I have to disagree when I hear them say that the purpose of songs is to make us feel happy. I believe that the purpose of songs is to make us feel and happy isn't the only emotion a person can feel.

Writing lyrics makes me feel happy no matter what emotions led me to write them. Songwriting can help me express my happiness or help me deal with my sadness. Above all, it is the best way I know how to truly be myself. Maybe it will never take me anywhere and maybe no more than a few of my friends will ever appreciate anything that I write. That's a very real possibility, although I hope it's not the case. Either way, writing these songs didn't just help me feel happy. It helped me feel. And I am so grateful for that.

Sharing what you have to say is a powerful thing though. And knowing that you can get someone to listen to something that's important to you is a valuable thing that should be cherished by every writer, whether you have one person listening to you or a million. Whatever your purpose is for writing, always keep it in sight.

~Eliza

Writing Lyrics like you Love Songs

There are a lot of different opinions and perspectives about how to approach songwriting and about what makes a good song. The reason I love my lyrics so much is because they are songs that I want to listen to. I haven't gotten to the point where I have any recordings of the songs that I've written, but there have been so many times when I've been browsing the web for music or listening to a radio station and thought to myself, "You know what? I don't really want to listen to this. I want to hear my song!"

And since there is no recording, I can either listen in my head or sing it to myself. Sometimes it's because the song I wrote relates to something personal I went through, but it's usually just because I think it's a song that has a lot of potential and is fun to sing. And if I enjoy it that much I think other people would enjoy them too.

Write the songs that you would want to listen to. What kind of lyrics pull you into the song? What makes a song stand out to you? Write those kinds of songs because if you want to take those songs anywhere you have to stay motivated and it's hard to stay motivated about a song that doesn't even hold your own interest, let alone anyone else's.

Look to the songs that you enjoy and pull inspiration from them. What rhyming patterns work for the song you're listening to? What metaphors make the song work? It's similiar to reading stories to help you become better at writing them. Examine the strengths that these other writers have and compare them to your weaknesses. Where could you use a better metaphor? Which rhymes are out of place or don't make sense? Once you start paying closer attention to what techniques make other songwriters successful, it will be easier to apply those lessons to your own songwriting. Never underestimate the value of self education and determination.

~Eliza

A Little Update

The creative writing is coming along quite well. I have written a few songs and fragments in the past couple of weeks. All the other writing has been poems and stories. I plan on using the rest of July to focus on that and revert my attention back to songwriting in August.

I'm currently trying to find homes for two poems that I wrote. One is called "Too Shallow" and the other is "Dear God". I am also working on finishing some stories that I'll be submitting by the end of the month.

As far as my songs go, I recently wrote a song called "Ain't Nothin' to Me" and started a couple new ones called "No Business" and "I Don't Feel Sorry".

I apologize for not updating for so long. I've really been focusing on these other projects that I'm excited about publishing and I'm making some real progress. I'll be sharing some more of my lyrics on here soon!

~Eliza

Writing Stories and Songs

I feel refreshed and I feel like I'm back! It's time to move on. No more wallowing and no more pity parties. I've got a new attitude and I'm ready to make the most of things and remember the good things about this experience instead of focusing on the negative and the parts about this that hurt me.

As far as my writing is concerned, I would like to focus on writing stories for a while, a few weeks at least. I found some anthologies and contests that would be interesting to write for and I'd like to give it a shot.

This doesn't mean giving up on songwriting and it certainly doesn't mean giving up this blog. I love writing lyrics and I love writing for my blog, so I'll continue to post updates on my blog while I'm working on these projects.

Songwriting and story writing both come with their own challenges. For songs, you have to convey your thoughts with a much smaller amount of words and some of the words you use for that song are repeated over and over in the chorus. In addition to having a limited number of words to use to convey an emotion or a story, those words have to be put together meticulously so that they will fit into a rhyming pattern or specific melody.

For stories, you can pretty much use as many words as you want, make it as long or short as you want. This comes with a greater responsibility, however, requiring the writer to have a higher understanding of how to create and describe characters, develop a believable and interesting storyline, grasp the fundamentals of storytelling, and write well enough to convince an editor to publish their story and entertain the readers that see it. These are challenges that I have not really faced. I have written several stories that I felt weren't quite ready to send out yet, but lacked the dedication to follow through and make the changes that would make it better.

I consider writing lyrics to be easier. They come to me quicker and they're generally more fun. Once I write lyrics, I start singing them whenever I get bored. When I write a story I usually don't sing it. Now that I'm feeling more inspired and energized, I'm ready to tackle story writing again and see where it takes me. I'm very excited about these projects I'll be working on the next few weeks, and when I'm done my songbook will be waiting for me.

~Eliza

A Productive Week

A few days ago I went to bed at around midnight. I tossed and turned for about a half an hour, then I got up and worked on some songs for about four hours. I finished "Bad Boy With a Heart" and "Just Gets Harder"! Both songs had just been fragments for a couple of months, so I'm very happy that I was able to finally finish those.

I didn't finish any other songs over the past couple days, but I've started half a dozen new ones and added several lines to some old ones. It has definitely started out to be a very productive week and I plan on continuing that on my days off. Hopefully, this new level of energy and inspiration will last that long.

~Eliza

I'm Back!

I was able to take four days off from work. It's not exactly a vacation, but unlike most of my other days off I wasn't tied down with errands to run or other obligations. I could do whatever I wanted the entire time and it was great. I turned 22 on the 19th. The time off gave me time to really think about things. I caught up on lost sleep, I wrote a little, and I practiced what I had. I have a renewed passion for my songs. That's what I really gained this past weekend. It's not that the passion wasn't there before, but it's easy to lose sight of it when it seems that you have no choice but to spend all your time trying to figure out how to solve your money problems. I have so little money available to me right now that every single decision is complicated by it and it gets frustrating and discouraging to constantly be held back from doing things that I want and need to do because of money problems. Those kinds of problems are things we all deal with. It won't just go away. It's a part of life and I have to deal with it. It's a real issue that can stand in my way sometimes, but it's time to stop letting that keep me from doing what I want to do. ~Eliza

Song Inspirations: Pain

Passion Level: 8

Motivation Level: 10

Today I'm reminded of a song inspiration that is very real in my life-pain. I'm not talking about emotional pain, but physical pain. I have an illness that causes me chronic pain. I am in pain every day.

At one point in my life the pain was so intolerable and so difficult to face every single day that I did not want to live. There were days that I couldn't even lift my arms above my head because of the pain, holding my head up was a challenge, and the thought of shaking someone's hand petrified me because they were so sensitive at times. The pain was so much more than just an irritant that I didn't want to have to deal with. It interferred with day to day activities. It made simple things extremely difficult, yet it wasn't the pain itself that made me want to kill myself. It was the thought that there was no hope that it would ever get better. Each doctor appointment seemed to reaffirm that thought. It was test after test that didn't provide answers and it was medicine after medicine that didn't work. How could I live a life like that? What could possibly make my life worth living?

The worst part about all of this was that I shared those thoughts with no one. The friends who knew me at the time would probably be shocked if I told them I was depressed and suicidal then. I didn't talk about my pain and I didn't talk about how difficult it was for me to deal with. Everyone around thought I was cheerful. A little strange sometimes, maybe, but certainly not depressed. I felt that if I shared those things with people they would judge me for it and I also did not want to burden other people with my problems. So I kept it all inside and suffered in silence.

I began thinking of ways to kill myself. I didn't have access to any fancy shmancy instant poisons, so my only options were the more gross, old fashioned ways. Fortunately, I'm a bit squeamish, so none of those options were real options for me. There were times I held a knife in my hands, turning it over and thinking about it, but I knew I didn't have the nerve to do it.

What really brought me out of it were some of the friends I had in my life, but I also started to get better. We finally tried some medicine that actually helped. I was barely holding on to any hope at all that something would work. The doctor told me that the medicine was very strong and would make the symptoms worse before they got better. That next week was pure hell. The symptoms did get worse. Everything I had been feeling was multiplied, but after about a week I finally started to feel better. I wasn't healed. It's just not that kind of illness, but I finally felt like I could deal with it. It was suddenly something that I could live with. The pain was not gone, but it was tolerable.

Today the pain is usually tolerable. I will occasionally have some days were I feel like I can't take it and that it is still too much of a burden for me, but I care about surviving more than I did back then. I'll never let some pain take me that low again, even if it is as horrible as it was before. And after all I've been through, pain doesn't really scare me anymore. I don't like it, but I experience it all the time. Whenever something is a challenge for me, I think about that. I would be in pain either way, so how can I let it hold me back? I may be small and I might not have a lot of physical strength, but I can take a hell of a lot more than you might think. I've been at the point where I've had to face something horrific because I had no choice. Now I'm a lot more willing to face things when I do have a choice.

Pain is a great inspiration, but I'll be honest. I didn't care about living at the time, so writing songs was not a high priority. And most of the lyrics I did write at the time were total garbage. They may have helped me deal with what I was going through at the time, but they had no value as songs. It's okay to write songs that are dark because our songs should reflect our lives and life is dark sometimes. That doesn't mean every song you write about something dark will automatically be beautiful. Just because it's real to you doesn't mean that you are communicating it in a way that makes sense to other people.

I still use the experience for inspiration today, and I've found that it's better. As I look through what I did write back then, I really don't like most of it, but I wanted to share parts of what I found.

You could take me almost anywhere and I would be okay

But I can't stand the dark

Looks like that's where I'm headed

No turning back

This is a dark place

And I've cried many tears here

This is a dark place

I've lost myself to fear

And I swore I'd never return

To the dark place

Oh, this is a dark, dark place

For this one all I wrote were these four lines. I didn't bother finishing it at the time for obvious reasons.

Every day is more of a struggle

Just to stand, just to survive

Every day it's just a little harder

To see the value of my life

~Eliza