Music, Writing, and Other Passions

by Mary Jane Adams

Although I make my living as a writer, and writing is an amazing outlet of personal expression, I have found that I just don't love it the same way I love music. My passion is music, and I wish I had the courage to be more active in creating it. I have my fistful of songs and fragments that sprouted and bloomed over the years. I've even played them for people once or twice. At one point, I had a blast as the bass player in a reggae band, for which I contributed a song. But writing—primarily technical writing—is what pays the bills. I don't love being a tech writer. But I am very happy that it allows me to make a pretty good living using my writing skills.

I am enormously grateful to the universe for giving me an opportunity to work as a writer, even if I'm not crazy about my current gig. My frequent aggravation with a lack of work-life balance has taught me that I am a lot happier when I am proactive about doing things I love to do every day. When I don't take care of this personal necessity, I tend to get annoyed and depressed with my day job. It takes a little extra discipline, but I now seek to balance my work life by doing more creating. Picking up my guitar or bass a few times a week is an enormous stress reducer. At the end of a long day, I feel much better when I give myself as little as 10 minutes of strumming or thumping the strings of an instrument. And sometimes, a song pops out when I least expect it.

Pondering Joni Mitchell

As I pondered this, I thought about Joni Mitchell, one of my favorite songwriters. To me, Joni is a genius as both a musician and a poet. But she has always claimed to be a painter first. Music wasn't her first love. It seems to me that sometimes, life calls us to do things that may not be what gives us the greatest joy, but they are what the world needs us to do. I think this may be true for me with music and writing. However, I know my life is still evolving, and perhaps I just haven't yet figured out how to fully extract the music that is buried in my soul.

Our lives tend to become whatever we make time for in the day-to-day spaces of our existence. If I make more room for my music each day, perhaps it will eventually take on a life of its own and fill the places where it seems to be missing. I don't really want music to be a way to make a living. I just want to be sure I'm making time in my daily life to do something that brings me enormous joy.

Doing What You Love

Recently, I wondered if other writers share the same dilemma that I've gone through with music. Could someone else have a passion that conflicts with her chosen vocation? I was pretty sure the answer is yes, so I posed this question to a writers' discussion list&list mdash;not Seattle Writergrrls, incidentally. The responses were very interesting.

Wendy Tokunaga is a San Francisco Bay-area novelist, short story writer, and vocalist. She wisely cautioned me against thinking of writing and music as an either/or choice. It's possible to find ways to do both, and this may be the key to avoiding the feeling that I am selling out one for the other. "When I was younger," Wendy says, "music (singing, performing, playing bass guitar, and songwriting) was my big passion. But when I got older and grew tired of being in bands that went nowhere, I turned to writing fiction (something I'd done in my teens but quit in favor of music), which has become an even bigger passion. But that doesn't mean I still don't do music. Instead of being in bands, music morphed into concentrating more on expressing myself as a vocalist. I have participated in singing contests, am taking voice lessons, and currently perform with my husband occasionally at low-key events like parties, but [I] am not trying to do 'gigs.' I have found that I derive satisfaction from both, and have discovered that I am a much better prose writer than songwriter, so I concentrate on music written by others now and am more of an interpreter. What I guess I'm trying to say is that it's not an 'either/or' situation; I get great pleasure from both passions."

Beth Elliott is a California-based novelist, singer-songwriter, essayist, and short story writer. She reminded me that writing and playing music are totally different animals in terms of the creative process. "Well, I have a novel out and am working on a CD for release next year," she says. "In an ideal world, I'd be supported by both so I can do both for myself and not have to hire out writing and other skills to other people to make a living. I think it's hard to compare the satisfaction produced by writing and that produced by music, because writing can be a long process of crafting a piece while playing music gives immediate gratification. And, since the musical equivalent of writing a book—recording an album—involves a lot of playing music as you go along, the immediate gratification is there as well."

Jamie Anderson is a North Carolina-based novelist, freelance writer, and singer-songwriter who will release her eighth album this year. She offered similar wisdom from her experience. "It takes me a long time to write a song," she says. "[It's] not as time-consuming as a novel, of course, but that long process of polishing is still there. Just playing the music can sometimes be the same thing, especially if I'm trying to bring my guitar playing up to the next level … When I'm writing a magazine article or a chapter for my book, I get into a zone just like the one I get when I'm writing a song. I don't want to leave it, even to eat, and believe me, I love food. But when the piece is done I don't enjoy it again and again like I do the songs. And it's not like I play the songs over and over when I'm alone. Presenting my creative work to a live audience on a regular basis is scary but immensely satisfying. That reminds me of something Joni Mitchell said during a live recording when someone yelled out a request. She replied (and I'm paraphrasing here), 'No one ever asked Van Gogh to paint A Starry Night again.'"

So there's Joni again, serving as an inspiration to stretch out in many creative directions. I was very grateful to Jamie, Beth, and Wendy for sharing their insights about how they have successfully pursued their passions as both writers and musicians. The stories of others doing this for themselves remind me that it's always possible. I've been able to find that balance for myself at other points in my life, so I'm sure I can do it again. And lately, I've been delving into yet another realm of possibility. In fact, it's what I'm doing at this very moment—writing about music.

Mary Jane Adams is a long-distance Writergrrl from Memphis who aspires to live in Seattle. A former book editor for Towery Publishing, she is currently a technical writer at FedEx and a free-lance writer, editor, and information architect.