Thursday, December 7, 2017

My Mr. Holland's Opus Moment

I now have Wednesdays off from work so I can have some time to write during the week. At the moment, I'm still working on Twofold Love Comeback, in spite of feeling like I'm at a standstill with plot development.

Yesterday, I decided to "camp out" at the Chick-fil-a in Bearden, inside their study area.  However, when I got there, I was too wired to concentrate. (No, I had not had any caffeine.) It must have been because I had finally had a chance to write somewhere else other than at home and I had just had an edifying conversation with someone. 

If you know me, I can't write without music.  But nothing I played yesterday morning, from the Guess Who to Foreigner, seemed to work.

Then, I thought of this song:


Whenever I hear this song, the only thing I can think of is when Richard Dreyfuss plays a 45 of it in Mr. Holland's Opus.  I love how he says to his student, "These guys...can't sing...and have no harmonics...they're playing the same chords over and over...and I love it."  Because it's fun.  I have always thought the same way about this song ever since I first heard it.

I have to admit I was getting a little frustrated because I wanted to make good use of my day off, to have a productive, meaningful time to write.  But after I heard this popular song, I was relaxed and in a flow to write, though what I had written, in my humble opinion, didn't have much of that same thing.  But I didn't care.  I could always look at it later and change it.  Right now, I just needed to embrace a wonderful moment to pound on the keys as much as I could....because writing is fun.

What did I end up writing?  An idea for the start of the turning point in Twofold Love Comeback.  Approximately 1800 words later, I was satisfied, gathered up all my stuff, and went on to my other commitments for the afternoon.


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