Of Mondegreens and Mottoes

[rj_anderson]

 As you may or may not know, I'm a big fan of singer/songwriter/producer Matt Hales, otherwise known as Aqualung. renisanz introduced me to him some years ago, and I've been eagerly buying up his albums ever since. His most recent (and maddeningly hard to find) album 10 Futures features a single called "Be Beautiful", and when I first listened to it just

Comments

[deva_fagan]

I like your version better too. :-)

[rj_anderson]

I suspect you may be a little biased in my favor, but I'll take it. :D

[sartorias]

'bad stuff' is a comment on human nature (the news is proof these days I think) but I love your version more.

[rj_anderson]

Yeah, I figured it would probably make sense if I looked at the "new" phrase in full context, but I was feeling sulky and didn't wanna. :)

I think he's actually trying to say that perfection being silent and elegance being still are good things, albeit subtle ones compared to the way "the bad stuff" smacks you in the face; whereas I was reading "silent" and "still" as negatives, implying that they are cold and lifeless. Fascinating how just one or two words can change the whole meaning of a song for the listener, or at least for this listener...

[imbecamiel]

I think your version's better and more meaningful too! (Hmm, which may indicate you've got more of a natural instinct for phrasing than you may feel you do? ^^)

It always amazes me how often I read one of your posts and it just strikes me how much I feel this. Particularly knowing so many writers who do just have beautiful, epic turns of phrase or snappy, witty style that just sparkles, my own style always feels so drab in comparison. When writing memes are going around, encouraging people to post various quotes from their own writing, my own writing just never feels very quotable. I've got characters and concepts and themes that I'm really passionate about and I hope that cumulatively a serviceable style is enough to convey them to other people in an engaging way. It's hard not to get hung up on wanting my style itself to be that beautiful, well-crafted, witty artistry that I appreciate so much in others... I have to keep reminding myself that if God's given me something to say, then I need to use the talents He's given me to the

[rj_anderson]

I'm happy to hear that my posts seem relatable to you, and even more so that you find them reassuring.

And I have a lot of trouble coming up with quotable quotes from my own writing as well -- so many of what I'd consider my best lines are wholly dependent on knowing the character(s) who are saying them and being aware of the context. My most frequently liked quotes on GoodReads and Tumblr come from the end of Ultraviolet, which has one of the few passages that I think does resonate out of context; whereas the (much rarer) quotes from my faery books make me cringe internally, because I can't imagine they would be even slightly comprehensible or interesting to a non-reader. (A quote like "I found her lying naked on the lawn at midnight, can I keep her?" for instance, really needs a whole book's worth of context AND the reader's understanding that it's a sarcastic joke!)

if God's given me something to say, then I need to use the talents He's given me to the best of my ability instead of sitting on them until I feel like I have "

[imbecamiel]

"I found her lying naked on the lawn at midnight, can I keep her?"

Ahaha, that would be the quote people would pick up on, wouldn't it. I mean, it IS a great joke with the context! But for someone just seeing that out of the blue... XD (Still, "Wait, what?" quotes can be effective for intriguing people too.)

It's all in Hopkins, all in Hopkins: bless me, what do they teach them at these schools? :D

That is just lovely. :)

[sunsethill]

I love your phrase about writing with the voice that God has given YOU--not someone else. The original is always better than an imitation. As you say, if God has given you the ability to tell stories, then you need to be the best YOU can be, not a poor copy of someone else. I personally rather prefer people who can convey a lot with very simple, but to-the-point prose. I've always felt that your writing was clean and spare and not pretentious. I find myself skimming over pretentious. ;-) Oh, it's also nice to know that other people have trouble understanding song lyrics. I figured it was just the fault of my age. Just kidding. Isn't it lovely when God uses even misheard lyrics to help us gain wisdom and insight into our problems?

[rj_anderson]

Thank you for saying so about my writing, that's kind and also very reassuring.

And to be fair to both of us, I don't think any listener can be blamed for not understanding song lyrics when the singer doesn't enunciate worth a dram. Even now I know the guest vocalist is singing "bad stuff" in that line, it doesn't sound anything like it!

[rose_in_shadow]

As someone else said above, I feel like every time you post about writing I'm sitting here nodding along as I read. Passion is indeed better than beauty, in my opinion.

I was thinking about beautiful prose recently as I was reading through the Winner's Curse trilogy. The first book was wonderful, but I felt like the second and third books (the second in particular) were a little too aware of their own prose. It felt almost purple at times. So now when I think about those books, I don't think about the plot or the characters, I think about how the prose knocked me out of the story. And that, I think, is a risk of prose-y writers: getting distracted by the strokes of paint on the canvas rather than seeing the painting as a whole.

But you do have turns of phrase that I remember: "mild as an egg" from Wayfarer is a metaphor I've adored ever since I read it.

[rj_anderson]

I've read the first Winner's Curse book but not the second or third. I did like the first book quite a lot, though, so it's on my TBR list (albeit the vague and half-remembered version of said list that I haven't yet got to writing down. A lot of promising second and third books have disappeared into that list, never to be seen again).

I think you're right about self-consciously sumptuous prose, though. It's a fine balance between trying and trying too hard, between poet and poetaster. Erin Bow, for instance, is an Actual Poet and even her earliest drafts are full of vivid turns of phrase that make her settings and characters come alive; but I've read sample chapters at conferences from beginning writers who are trying to sound "literary" and only end up being opaque.

Anyway, thanks for the encouragement. "Mild as an egg" was one of my favorite similes too, but IIRC it never actually made it into the final draft of Wayfarer because I cut the scene that used it. So I'm tempted to recycle the phrase in another book for actual

[rose_in_shadow]

I was going to do something very foolish and contradict the author to say "yes, that scene is still in Wayfarer!"

But I was smarter than that and looked in my copy. Sure enough, you're right. :)

I must remember it from beta reading. Funny how that turn of phrase so stuck with me that I even thought it was part of the published version.