I'm only 17 but I really, really enjoy writing. I've had a few people compliment me on my writing of short stories but I wouldn't really want to do it for a living. Sure, I love to use my imagination to conjure up the most incredible scenarios that my brain could ever possibly think of, but if I needed to do it then I'd feel as if I was being forced to use my imagination. And over a past few years when I've been writing I've realized that you can't force your imagination to put ink on paper and create something people will enjoy, if it happens then it will happen. What about you, Ben? Your lyrics have a lot of emotion and meaning in them and have a lot of people including myself listening very closely to understand what you are trying to tell us. How do you come up with these lyrics? I know most are through personal experiences but the way you change an experience into a song is just genius and I'd love to know how your mind works. Thanks for reading, and I can't wait to find out what you come up with next.
I'm not much of a poet. I love words, but I don't think I'm particularly eloquent. So I've never written any outright poetry. I don't think I'd be terribly good at it. With lyrics I'm really just trying to get a feeling or idea across in the allotted space. Sometimes a direct approach feels better, and sometimes I'm happier leaving it vague or abstract. I just go with whatever feels the most appropriate for the subject. But all that is usually where the most struggle is. The words are always the biggest struggle for me when making a record. One day I'm gonna make an instrumental album just to see how different it'd be.
I'm sure it'll be brilliance even without your voice, I can't wait to hear it and hopefully I hear it sometime soon. Thanks for replying, Ben. It means a lot.
; I don't really write poetry, I'd suck at it, but I do write random stories, but even in that category, and even since I've been doing it since I was a kid, I suck. Wrote a 67 page story on something completely stupid. -.-' And now, I can't even seem to do more than 6 pages. I have writer's block currently, and can't even do my usual, very detailed descriptions. It sucks. Ben, so you've never written any poetry really, or so you said up there, what about just writing in general? Stories? ~Alexandra
I write poems some nights when I can't sleep and words are swarming my mind. To be honest I don't even think about it, it's more like the words just flow through me, but more times than not they tend to relate very personally to whatever it is that is going on in my life. I must have a pretty awesome muse or something, she always keeps me guessing.
I used to write poetry all the time when I was younger (as opposed to in the future, when I'm older), but I took a Creative Writing course in high school that stole all the fun out of it. I write a few Charlie-esque letters a week (Perks of Being a Wallflower) that straddle the border of poetry and prose, as that tends to be my writing style. It might be fun to write a communal poem or short story, with each person writing a couplet/stanza or paragraph with a central abstract guiding the direction of the work. It would end up like a patchwork quilt, an idea romantic in and of itself.
Hrm. I use to write all the time, and certainly in my high school days (forever ago, and not even my best friends knew about it). It was something to be creative with and pass the time. Reflection on the current moments in my life at the time. I suppose I still write sometimes, but not as often. Life in my neck of the words is far to busy and noisy with daily clutter. I think at times I try and experiment with different form of poetry though, but I don't ever write them down. Mostly free verse, ballads, Rhyme Royal Type, and Lyric Poetry. Never Sonnets nor Haiku. If you care to share with me some of your works, I'd love to read some. Send them my way, I could pass on a few I think some I've kept around my desk. Although, most of my creativity as of late has been used up in writing two novels as of now, and I want to get close to finishing. I have some really eager friends that want to dive in to some of my work.
I used to write a lot of weird short stories, and tried writing a novel. But I noticed I got stuck in a certain rhythm, as if all the sentences had the same kind of flow. Hard to describe, but it didn't work haha! So I tried to write poetry, and still do sometimes, but I don't really work on it or shape it. More like stream of consciousness stuff. I've been writing songs for years though, and that seems to suit me best. The lyrics might not work as a poem, but the music helps give them their rhythm and structure, so I find it easier than writing poetry.
Ben has written a short(ish) story called Green Thumbs which is poking about somewhere if you can find it (I looked for it but apparently it's gone walk abouts from my computer). I seem to remember him saying that he hasn't ever been happy with anything else that he's written but I'm sure Ben can give his own input on this instead of me telling you everything . -Edit- Dug out a link but it is dead since the new website I'm afraid.
To anyone interested in Green Thumbs it seems to be working here: old.radicalface.com/music/GreenThumbs.pdf
So here's part of a cliche, depressing, dramatic poem I've been writing. I find that all my thoughts are bent upon you, charged with longing, with all the sad hunger of the heart. Beneath the heart-wrenching pain, a bowstring tension quivers insufferably with, for me, a ranking sensation of self-loathing and complete and utter numbness. Free verse.
