Whatever My Mood, The Sh*t Won't Write Itself

For most of us it’s natural and normal to have ups and downs – in our personal and business lives, with our spouses, partners, families, lovers, friends, work situations… and yes… in songwriting too.

When it’s a gloomy, rainy day it’s hard for me to imagine the sun ever coming out. And then, as soon as it’s sunny again, I forget how all-encompassing the overcast weather seemed at the time.

This is how it tends to go for me – my emotional state seems like a fact of life, not something that will pass. When feeling unmotivated, I can forget that very soon my feelings can be quite the opposite and therefore my view of my life can totally change too.

Gaining some understanding of this has made a big difference for my productivity as a writer. Sometimes, when either I have a writing idea or I have some writing scheduled… I just don’t feel like it. The joy, the thrill, is not there; it feels like a chore. Or I’m just depressed about something else in my life and I don’t feel at that moment like channeling my emotions into songs. I’d rather escape into something else that’s less… demanding of me.

Sometimes I give in to this; sure. Sometimes I need a break, need to take the pressure off. And sometimes I’m just weak. But most of the time I just show up and write anyway.

Why? Part of it is that I’ve made a commitment to being a writer, and I need to write to keep that commitment – that is, to produce the quantity that leads to experience, growth, and hopefully a certain amount of quality.

But another big part of it is learning and remembering that my moods can change – a lot. That writing (or doing a lot of things) can be the last thing I feel like doing and then, sometimes an hour or even minutes later, I can be having a lot of fun and feeling great joy from being involved in the act of creating something. (Of course it doesn’t always go that way; sometimes it’s a slog all the way. But often enough it does.)

My mood is usually no predictor of how the writing is going to go on any given day. My mood is just how I feel, right then. Not that feelings aren’t important. Of course they are, for many reasons, and especially to a writer – they’re the lifeblood of what we do.

I’m just speaking for myself here, but if I let whether I ‘feel like’ doing something (write, record, practice, exercise, see friends, go to the doctor or dentist, etc.) be the main determinant of what I actually do or don’t do, very little of what’s most important to me will be done.

Did I want to get up at 6 a.m. to take my kids to 8 a.m. soccer games when they were little? Hell, no! Was it worth doing, did actions like that pay dividends… and did I even end up having fun at a lot of the games (not all, I admit)? Hell, yes!

Did I feel like writing this post tonight? Don’t take this personally but… No… I’m tired! But I’m glad I did.

What’s worth doing – what I value most – is often not what I feel like doing at the moment. But, as my inner voice often tells me… ‘The shit is not going to write itself!’

6 Comments on “Whatever My Mood, The Sh*t Won’t Write Itself”

Tony, I certainly agree with your main point. Someone once said to be a writer you have to write. I try to write everyday. But at least for me I’ve come to realize that they’re are times when I’ve got the power and I can feel it and there are times when I quickly realize it’s just not happening.My only point being that I think that the process works better when you know the difference and can walk away from a situation that’s not working.Because in the end we don’t want to turn something out just to say we did it, we’re trying to write something great. You can’t wait around for that magic feeling but for me there’s usually little reward for those times you drag yourself to to your workplace hoping for the best. There’s a lot of “work” in songwriting but it seems I hear too many songs that have been “worked” to death.

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