The Art OF Writing | New Sound Magazine

The Art Of Writing

By: Steve Timonen

Date Published: 5/14/2008

Editing Date: pre-edited 5/14/08

the art and writing school in nor
Norwich School of Art & Writing

As Always, my dear reader... please bear with me. As any musician worth his weight in anything.. I feel I have something to say. And I want to be heard!

I’ve said it before. "Writing is easy." Some people don’t seem to understand that. Many people attempt their hand at writing and find out real quick that it’s not easy at all, but perhaps they never worked construction or washed trucks for a living.

I’m not the first to say it. There’s an old saying in the writing world. “Writing is easy! Rewriting the nine hundredth rewrite is a bitch!” But I don’t buy into that either. Sitting on my ass behind this computer, making sure my thoughts are linked and figuring out when to start a new paragraph is not hard at all. It’s a simple matter of letting out exactly what’s in my head. Then fixing my mistakes.

Cest’ la vie. I enjoy it and I damn sure know that it’s better than digging ditches. Most of all I know that it (the writing) and you (the musician) have the potential to live forever. Once it’s published no one can take it away from you and no one can claim the credit. The better the writing is, the more it has the potential to change the world and the course of history. If your work is "truly genius" you will indeed live forever. It won’t end with your death. There will always be people who haven’t yet read it or know about it, and even when all 5.5 billion people on Earth have read it, there are more to be born.

It’s the same with music. The difference is; music is more vivid. God.. I hate the word, “vivid.” But it’s true. It’s not hard to tell what emotion the artist is conveying when listening to their song. When writing, there is no song, no moan and no video to convey your meaning. The result is a tricky dive into stating your purpose without being predictable, phony or boring your reader.

Text does not carry humor. It’s often hard to tell if the writer is serious or he/she is making a backhanded joke. There’s definitely an art to it. Although it’s easy to throw in a "LOL" or simply tell the reader that you’re joking but, depending on the reader themselves, this can be a shady, potentially career-ending issue.

Sarcasm, fear, defiance and many other emotions are also hard to convey when writing. While listeners of music can hear it for themselves, it becomes a simple matter of the audience deciding if they relate or even care.

A person reading a writer’s work does not have the luxury of their ear. They are using nothing but their eyes and their brain to decipher the text. The result is a reader who can be easily bored and turn the page, throw you in a pile of old unread magazines or stick you on some old forgotten bookshelf. If the writer does not know what he/she is doing, they will quickly be added to an overflowing pool of “would-bes.”

writing is a true art

My first serious attempt to get one of my books published came in 1996. I had written about a year in my life and the year was 1995. I reluctantly submitted it to my literary agent and she, in turn, took it to the biggest, best book-publishing company in the world. A published author herself, she was raving that I had something that other’s didn’t have, she was confident in her plan. I, myself, didn't have much of a plan and I wasn’t so confident.

About a week later we received a letter from the publisher: "Steve has certainly led an interesting life and I am certain that there’s a market for his writing.
Due to the fact that his work is not vivid enough, we are choosing to pass on this opportunity.
We wish you both the best of health and good fortune."

They signed their name and were gone from our lives.

the art of writing

While my agent was disappointed, I was jumping for joy and laughing.

She didn’t understand so I explained it. “She said my work was marketable, that I had led an interesting life! She actually read it! They said it was interesting!”

There were thousands of other publishers to market my book. Before the rejection letter there were none. I didn’t know if it was marketable at all. I didn’t know if I could hold a reader’s interest. I didn’t know anything. Vividness could be worked on and fixed. Boredom simply could not. Above all, the rejection letter could’ve simply said, “no.” There was no need to say anything else unless it was truth. Truth was all I needed to continue with my writing career and so I did.

So what the hell does she mean, vivid? It was quickly explained to me that my work moved too fast for most readers, that I don’t take the time to explain, in detail, everything that was going on; what I was smelling, hearing, tasting… only what I was seeing and feeling.

It was indeed a dilemma, but I would never change it. While writing about this rejection letter, l could’ve explained that my agent had a plant hanging from the ceiling and it filled the room with a refreshing outdoor odor, that it’s beauty filled the room with 11 shades of green and that it seemed to absorb my words in the perfect context with nature,….. I choose not to do that. I believe the reader (my reader) would be bored and that they came to me for truth and I did nothing but fill pages with a quota. Maybe it just boils down to the way I think. I go to people for truth and most let me down. When people come to me for truth, whether it’s in my writing or in person, I simply don’t want to let them down.

There’s an awfully fine line. Boring you with detailed garbage is not my style, so I simply avoid it. I’m the same way face to face. I’m always telling stories but I leave it up to the listener/reader to fill in the details. At some point I recognize that you either care or you don’t. I know, in person, whether I should continue with the story or not. When writing, this issue is not pronounced. I simply don’t know if I still have your attention, so I am left with no option but to walk in your shoes. At that I simply give you what I would want for myself…. Truth.

art/writing

Now we come to 2008 and I find myself writing about music. It’s the perfect gig for me. I can let the artists tell you what the details are. I can simply write the truth as I know it and their voices and their instruments can tell you what to feel and what to see. From there, the reader/listener can decide for themselves if they like the taste, the touch and the sound.

I guess the whole point is for you to see that writing is indeed an art. I could make a lot more money doing something else but then I wouldn’t live forever. And, again, I could tell you what your senses should know and I could sit here with my godly bank account and my hypocrisy. Instead I choose to stick to my guns, just like the artists I sometimes rave about.

In all great art there is truth. Whether it hurts you or not, whether you like it or not, I choose to be an artist, in both our names.

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