Originally Posted by Everett Adams
We are told to write what we know, if you know only negative things, how can you write positive things? Is that instruction wrong? Should it be "write from your imagination" not what you know. I write from my imagination anyway, if I had to wait to have experiences to write about it, I'd have very few songs.

Anyone who only knows negative things needs psychiatric help. Do you know anyone who does not find beauty somehwere? Someone who does not find joy somehwhere? I don't. Even seriously demented folks find joy in hurting others. So, I don't believe that you would know only negative things. How about your mother? How about children. God's love. Are they negative to you? I don't think you'd say they are.

Of course writers use imagination. But the trick is to "ground" it with a real, hidden, metaphor. Take a story you heard, or one you made up, then find things in your own life that produce the feelings you want people to get from the story. Someone who loves children, but has never been a parent, can write a beautiful, effective song about being a parent...because they love children.

The feelings and communication of the story has to be real and authentic, not the details. Someone who is a parent, but can't stand children, would probably sound disingenuous when writing about being a loving parent.

Find your passion, then write about it, you can make up the details. When you write a story totally foreign to you, give it a hidden metaphor that ties it together.

Here's my old friend Michael Smith singing his wonderful song, "The Dutchman."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLgttYMF4lM&feature=related

It's not a Nashville country song, but is a stunningly beautiful "folk" song.

Michael hadn't been to the Netherlands, only collected some things he knew about the Dutch and put them into a story about someone he did know. The song is about a friend of his who burned his mind out with drugs to the point where it was only the love of his wife that kept him...and his wife...going. It was love that gave them both hope in a hopeless situation. But Mike wrote about something which he didn't know personally, (the Netherlands) using feelings about something he did...his friend's story.

You've got to know your limitations. I don't know what your limitations are. I found out what mine were when I was twelve. I found out that there weren't too many limitations, if I did it my way. -Johnny Cash

It's only music.
-niteshift

Mike Dunbar Music