I have written only one song in 13 years. I wrote hundreds before I was 40.
I’d like to think I have continued to write music, though. Sometimes as I write these little reflections, it feels as if the words are singing, and it builds to a crescendo, and if there is no melody at least there are rhythms and recurring themes and all the elements that make music.
I could call it poetry, or prose poems. Poetry is a kind of music, or rap wouldn’t be music, right? (Don’t!)
Music is everywhere if you know how to listen. I didn’t say that first; I want to say Terry Pratchett wrote it, but the thought is eternal. (That’s what I was getting at when I wrote about “Revolution 9” the other day.)
I’m not sure if it matters what to call what I’m creating, except to signal to people who might like it. “Hey, folks, look here, I made this — thing.” “Come read my books of — stuff.”
I saw Logan Pearsall Smith’s wonderful book Trivia described as a book of aphorisms, but then I saw definitions of “aphorism” that suggested aphorisms are very brief and concise, more like an adage or a saying, like “Some days you’re the bug, some days you’re the windshield,” and Smith (or I) go on for more than a sentence or two.
And sometimes it’s just a fragment of a scene or a short story. The former subtitle of the blog said it as well as anything I ever came up with: “Fragments of thought and bursts of creativity.”
I suppose it does matter what it’s called if the goal is to find readers who may find it interesting or entertaining or useful. Otherwise I’m just puttering along amusing myself. Although what is any creative work if it’s not the result of the creator puttering along and amusing herself? “Once upon a time there was a funny little creature called a hobbit, and there was this ring that had magical power,” and the next thing you know …
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By the way, you do know I’ve written books of — stuff, right?