As a big fan of Julia Cameron’s “Artist Way” series, I’ve been looking through her books to see what I might have missed. And one book I just noticed is Your Right to Write. In it she tells the story of a boy in the 6th grade and how she’d written numerous short stories, hoping to get his attention. She says she “chased him with pencil and paper.” And in doing so discovered the thrill of chasing with words.

I had to give that some thought. Although I also did a lot of writing in school, music was my first love. And I realized that my 6th grade love life was more about listening to my Elvis records in my garage (door open) with my “boyfriend” rather than any chasing with pencil and paper. Or chasing with words. Okay, so maybe I wrote my first love letter to him, so there were some words involved. 🙂

Since books about art are usually written by writers, the focus is on writing and the life of a writer. And while that is super encouraging to artists of any kind, I’d like to find something written from the point of view of music. It may exist out there – I just haven’t found it. I’d write it if I thought I had something new to offer, but maybe I’m already doing it right here. Sharing other people’s words with my musical experience thrown into the mix. Mix – yeah, that’s my kind of word. lol!

So maybe writing is writing and songwriting is another form of it.

“Songwriting is my way of channeling my feelings and my thoughts. Not just mine, but the things I see, the people I care about. My head would explode if I didn’t get some of that stuff out.” — Dolly Parton