My Music Journal 2025 - January 12, 2025

 

Sunday, January 12, 2025

Time: 5:31 PM
Song: Foxglove
Artist: Murder By Death
Mode of Consumption: Spotify –From Liked Songs playlist

Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/2TOO2ohf6zjCGTBnF28zCL?si=506362a5e5b54875

When you delve into writing, you find out that there are two types of writers. Plotters and Pantsers.

A plotter is someone who imagines a story, and then develops a plot usually by putting together a detailed outline. Something like this: 

1. Jason is assigned by the magazine he works for to investigate a story about a heinous crime in a rural area.
2. Jason interviews the family.
3. Jason rents a room from a place that doubles as a tavern. 
4. All hell breaks loose at the tavern.
5. Jason learns something about himself and the world he lives.
6. Jason writes the story, maybe not the one intended. 

You may notice this plot becomes vague about point four. Well, that’s because I am the second type of writer. A Pantser. That means I come up with a scene and just keep writing from there. I can count on one hand the number of times that I have started a story with an ending in mind, much less an order of events to get there. 

No, I usually type in a feverish rush to see where I go, and just hope to know when I’ve reached the logical end. The problem with this approach, it’s bereft of pitfalls.

1. Overwriting that causes extensive editing. 
2. Starting a story that doesn’t have a finish within the framework of a contest rules.
3.  And the last, which I am experiencing right now. I have written about a thousand words for a three-thousand-word story, and I have yet to find a plot, or in other words, a point. I am in a corner now, and it’s either abandon the idea or blowup the idea, meaning make the story something different than where my Pantser mind initially intended. 

This song sounds like what I am experiencing, being alone and lost. The narrator of the song is looking for his love. I am looking for my plot.