Back when I wrote songs and poems regularly, I learned one important thing: I can write a fairly decent poem any time I want, but the good poems and the great songs just drop out of the sky when they are least expected. I assumed my Muse had left me, because nothing has dropped out of the sky for a long, long time. Until this morning.
As usual, my bladder woke me up for the third time around three A.M. I crawled back in bed, really sleepy, feeling pretty sure I'd be asleep again in no time, when two lines dropped out of the sky. "An old man with his tractor is something to behold; he'll touch that rusty carcass like it's something made of gold."
It wasn't quite that polished, but the idea and the rhyme were there. I shoved it aside and tried to sleep, but other ideas and words came in a flood. I finally grabbed the IPad that's always beside my bed and began typing some of the lines into "notes" on the Icloud.
At four A.M. I got up, opened up the laptop (because it's faster and easier to type on as opposed to the one-finger pecking I have to do on the IPad), went to "notes", and started adding to the skeleton of a poem I had, which of course showed up there because these things sync, you know.
I polished what was there, added more lines and rhymes, and got that familiar thrill I always used to get when I realized "this thing's gonna work!"
I clicked out of the browser that held my golden words. But when I went back to it, all that remained was the skeleton, the original thoughts I had put on the IPad in bed. Back to the IPad, I saw nothing was left but those first jottings.
My first thought was to give up and forget about it. I didn't remember half the stuff I had added to the song/poem. But then I thought, "The Muse hasn't come around for a long, long time. I guess I'd better work with her.
So I'm working. This time I'm using "Open Office" as my notebook. I know there are some golden thoughts that are gone forever, but maybe the whole thing will be worth saving in the end.
Sounds like the beginning of something wonderful ! Nice to have some inspiration like that wake you up. I've been trying to find some here, but to no avail. I'll be looking forward to hearing more about the man and his tractors.
ReplyDeleteOh I hate that you lost the first one!!! I've had that happen, and it can be heartbreaking. I have woke up with lines or bits of music floating around in my head and had to get up to write them down or record them. I never got in the habit of keeping a notepad by my bed; I guess it just didn't happen often enough for me to bother. But my sister Barbara has kept one by her bed for years and will often wake up in the middle of the night to write down a dream, an idea for a song, some lines of verse, or even to put down a drawing that occurred to her.
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