No, not the cats--this is another writing post. I am usually highly skeptical of writers who use the analogy of stories being like children. This is only because I've had a few online encounters--and been pointed to some pretty funny online discussions--with aspiring writers who cannot possibly change a single word of their creation, because "My stories are like my children!" and "They are perfect as I conceive them, and they cannot be changed!"

I haven't run into that one in a while, but it's not the sort of thing you forget. For one thing, it makes me wonder about the writer's actual human children (if any.) Like, how are their table manners?

And then there's Matt Mays (who I actually ran into again last night and had a chat with, and all I have to say about that is it's nice when you're already a fan of someone's music to discover he's a really likable guy as well.)

Ahem. Matt Mays has posted several messages on his band's MySpace wall over the past few weeks, talking about the progress of the latest record. And in the very last one he busted out the parental metaphor. But what I found interesting is that he took what is often a pretty lazy metaphor, as well as an excuse for sloppy writing, and made it work.

Quote:

It's like being a parent In a way. You start by conceiving a child, then you feed it, and teach it what's right, and what's wrong. You then try to give it a good understanding of manners. They grow rapidly before your peepers to have their own personality. A personality that you eventually can't control, but you can trust when you're not around. This completely original vibe comes out of nowhere, a little independent being is right there...and then one day...POOF! After all this work, and effort to make a good human, you have to go out and get them some new ninja turtle sweat pants, pack'em in the voyager drive to the bus stop. You put them on a school bus with 40 strange kids with the flu. Then you gotta stand there, and watch on the curb as he/her drives away to school. Away from you for the first time EVER.

Your creation is off to be tested, judged, made fun of, loved, hated, jabbed with pencils, or maybe kissed under the coat racks, with dangling mitts like marionettes tied to yarn strings overhead. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm about to buy my record some new sweat pants here, and I'm freakin out about it.

Okay, he was obviously writing in a hurry and he'd already mentioned there has been a great deal of NyQuil in his life over the last few days, but I do like the idea that an artistic creation is more than an inspired moment--it's a lot of work. And it takes on a life and a personality of its own and to a certain extent you have to let it, because there is only so much you can do.

And then when you send it out into the world, other people are going to react to it and it's going to mean different things to different people and there is not one thing you can do about it. You can't tell listeners (or readers) what reaction they're supposed to have to it--their reaction is none of your business, it's strictly between them and the work of art that may mean something completely different to you.

I kind of love that.

And then I remember poor Kurt Cobain, who I recall complaining that some people who liked his band's music would have hated him in high school. In the first place, not fair, since he had not actually met every one of those "jocks." And secondly, as Kirk Hammett (a big Nirvana fan) commented at the time, if you want to control who gets to like your stuff, don't release it commercially. Keep the tapes or manuscript and share it with your friends. You are not allowed to say who is allowed to like your stuff. It's between the reader/listener, and the stuff. I don't know if that was part of the reason he was so unhappy, but trying to control things that are out of your control is not good for you.

So what you do is, you do your best to create the book or record or whatever that was in your head or your heart or both, and then you have to take a step back and let it be.

And yes, I guess I probably like this whole image partly because I like Matt Mays, but the reverse is also true: I like Matt as an artist because he thinks like this. Despite the anxiety in the quote above, there's a kind of fearlessness about it, too, and an essential ability to trust what he does and how he does it. It's led to an interesting career progression so far and is looks likely to continue doing so.

I just hope he really does get the Torpedo to cover Stan Roger's "Bluenose," because that would be beyond awesome.


The song plays over this video. It's gorgeous--now picture a rock version.