Somewhere along the way this past weekend I misplaced blocks of time. They were those chunks I use every weekend to write at least one post for the coming week and a rough draft for the other one. This is my excuse for this post being so short. It’s also a little fragmented. Hopefully my next post won’t be so flaky. 🙂
Homini:) @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/homini/
Sometimes I wish I knew what age groups I’m addressing when I write my posts. It isn’t that I’m bias. In fact, I think of myself being quite open-minded and this does include a variety of ages. Still, when writing about my past, I prefer to use the terms of the time being revealed through my words. Do I need to explain these terms in my post? This is where it would be nice to know what generation you’re in.
My stepdaughter refers to those times as “back in the day”. I don’t know about you, but to me it sounds like she’s talking about the Wild West. I’m not that old, believe me. I’m one of those from the “make love, not war” generation, and even at that, I’m one of the younger in the group.
I heard somewhere, not knowing where exactly, that great music comes from the generations who were faced with more tragedy in their childhood or early adulthood. For instance, beautiful music came out of the years during WWII. The same could be said of WWI too. My generation had the Vietnamese War. I think some fantastic music came from those years, but I could be prejudice.
Does the same go for writing? In my opinion, it does. Books like The Great Gatsby, Grapes of Wrath and Catcher in the Rye were hitting the book stands during war-time.
Although I think there’s plenty of correlation between war-time, music and novels, those of us who are writing at a time of relative peace (please note that I said ‘relative’) can produce that great quality of passion and work too. However, I do think we have to work a little harder at it because the outside stimuli that comes from all-out-war isn’t there. We, instead, have to look inward for our inspiration. I can assure you that digging down into yourself is much more difficult than finding that motivation that you may see in a newspaper or on TV.
Some of you are old enough that you’ve experienced these differences in the Eras. Others are too young and may be having a hard time finding the joys in music and writing. Both can tell of great emotions that you are invited to share in.
I want to encourage those of you who have not lived through a time of war to listen to the music of those years and read the novels of those times. It may just give you that outside stimuli to get you going on your own projects.
A Scripted Maze 
I’m a teacher, and one of the requirements of the new Standards is that students make writing appropriate to task, purpose and audience. What I’m saying is–you’re right. Who your audience is, is important in the way you build your post.
Good discussion.
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Jacqui, I’ve tried to find out about my readers and have had some success. However, there’s a lip in the history that I write about here that separates 2 generations that is hard to deal with at times.
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Love the music through all eras. I’m too lazy to research, nut the most beautiful music to me, is classical. I wonder what the Greats were experiencing when they wrote such wonderful pieces.
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I’m like you, although it could have something to do with my background in music. Still, I’m having a hard time accepting rap.
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My taste in music is eclectic however I love Dizzy Gillespie, Glenn Miller, The Andrews Sisters, Bob Dylan, Cat Stevens, Elvis and also classical. I also love a lot of the music of today. However I just can’t seem to get into a lot of the books from the older eras.
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The ‘Big Bands’ of the 1940s were marvelous. I was exposed to it because of my parents. I’m not fond of all of the classical music. I don’t like
baroque music. Brahms was part of that era. Except for his lullaby, I didn’t like anything he composed. I like most classical rock. I can do with out the group, Traffic though. As for books, I love historical fiction as long as it doesn’t revolve around a romance.
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As I type this reply, I am listening to some Jazz (a-tisket, a-tasket). I have been listening to Brahms most of this week. My favourite of his is the Hungarian Rhapsody.
I used to read a lot of historical fiction – Philippa Gregory was one of my favourite authors. She had some romance in there but her books were very enjoyable. My current reading list is mainly self help, meditation and study books. 🙂
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I don’t know that author. I’ll have to look for her next time I’m at the book store here in town. 🙂
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We are so lucky to live in a world rich with expression. How fortunate there is enough already present to satiate the desires of nearly every taste and preference, and how fortunate we are when somebody feels an itch to expand upon the wealth we already have and opens up a new portal of art and interpretation.
Here’s to all the genres we love – and even to those we don’t. Cheers
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Bravo! You have said it all beautifully. 😀
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Glynis, I’m a substitute teach now, and just spent the last week teaching high school social studies and English. Both were about the Great Depression, the dust bowl, and The Grapes of Wrath. At first the kids weren’t that into it, they couldn’t relate. So I began telling them individual accounts of people I read about. I told about the teenage girl who wore the wornout dress to school each day and upon returning home her mother wore the dress to work the night shift. This finally hit home with the students.
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The Great Depression was the era my mom grew up in so for many years it seemed as though I was getting a daily dose of it. It really wasn’t that often but I learned to appreciate all that I had and do have today.
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