Aaron Dethrage
October 18, 2010

Greetings from the cozy, quiet Smokey mountains!

It is the start of autumn in my senior year, and I am roughly halfway through the initial writing portion of my project. The poor pages on which this first batch was written have been marked and marred through and through in an attempt to craft something worthy, original, meaningful, and true. I’ve eased up on myself some with the more recent writings, but I am still, by no means, an easily-pleased taskmaster. However, it is amidst this time of frantic writing and re-writing that I thought it would be best to address the task of cross-genre writing and how listeners of this work may best understand my efforts.

I am currently in the class, Writing in the Genres, with Dr. Andrea Stover, and our conversations thus far have sparked a lot of thought within me about the issues of cross-genre writing. The class focuses on several different genres, noting the similarities and differences between them as we go. We began with Margerat Atwood’s A Writer on Writing–-a collection of essays–-and then proceeded to read a collection of both traditional and less-common fairy tales. We discussed what it would be like to try to write either work in a different genre. We talked about writing Atwood’s book as a thriller, a short story, or an email; we talked about writing “Little Red Riding Hood” as a letter, a novel, or a blog. Each discussion was prompted by the simple question, “What would be lost, and what would be gained?” It is with this scope that I wish to approach my lyric writing as inspired by these short stories.

At first glance, it is easiest to realize what has been lost from the stories in many of my lyrical embodiments. Eggers is a beautiful and compelling writer who is able to do much with few words. This was one of the reasons I picked him as my author-of-choice in the first place. However, lyric writing is a limited genre as it is, so it should come to no surprise that much of the lush language that he uses is missing from the lyrical recreations I craft. Much more alarm will probably be risen over the lyrics where whole characters and plots are abandoned and only the slightest semblance of an idea remains. Yes, I fear that “what is lost” will be far more apparent to many readers and listeners who are expecting to hear these songs as if Eggers himself had written them. Unfortunately, he didn’t; I did. And with that comes the tone of my narrative voice, the interjections of my experiences, and the tailoring of my style.

This has been one of my greatest challenges in writing these songs, battling between creating something that is mine and staying true to the stories. I have come to peace with the discord-–at least as close to peace as I may come-–by realizing that just as I am not a twice-divorced fifty-something riding though the desert on a wild Arabian stallion (the protagonist and plight of “Another”), neither was Dave Eggers, only thirty-four-years-old when the book was first published. Each of these stories represents something more than a set of characters and their surroundings; they represent ideas, emotions, as well as specific and sometimes volatile world views. It is my job as a writer, just as it was Eggers’ initial challenge, to take these intangible ideas and emotions and craft them into something that my listeners can understand and to which they can relate. What was for Eggers a reckless man painfully adjusting to a hazardous horse ride and dangerous culture, transformed into an undefined man known only to be desperate for change, adventure, and debauchery in order to feel like he has direction and meaning in his life. It is easy to see that these are two different people, but I believe that I also managed to capture the essence of the character Eggers created without copying the form.

Much of my inspiration and imagery comes from myself, my own feelings and experiences, while Eggers, still on the heels of his extremely successful autobiography/memoir at the time, distanced himself and his already-told story from the characters he creates in How We Are Hungry. Perhaps I too desire to start with my own personal experiences, or perhaps I am still too inexperienced as a writer to know how to do otherwise well. Whichever the case, I would like to think that I, myself, am something that is gained in these recreations. I bit my tongue as I say this, because I greatly admire Eggers and still feeling as if we exist on two separate planes, mine being the lesser. However, I feel like there is beauty in the mind and life of each person, no matter how well-known or unknown they are, and it is that beauty which has allowed me to create something with these stories that no one else could have created. Perhaps this is arrogant and naively optimistic and something I will regret saying later, but for now it is how I find the strength to continue on with my efforts, not yet confirmed and not yet denied by anyone as to their actual merit.

I hope this sheds some light into the mentality with which I am approaching this task for anyone following my process, because I hope to be posting lyrics soon and am honestly quite frightened to do so. As long as they rest here with me, they are just ideas, incubating safely from sight, free to abort without chastisement or remorse should I change my mind, but once I reveal them to you, they become, in part, yours as well. They are open to your interpretation, your praise, and your ridicule, and that terrifies me. However it is a fear I must face, and face it I now will.

Please, dear reader, take these words of explanation and try to see for yourself what is lost and what is gained from each story, and should you discover anything of such controversy that you desire to let me know, please do not hesitate. After all, to whatever few of you will read this lengthy preface or will pay much attention to these, my first presentations of effort, my lyrics will soon begin to belong, both to you and to your reception, and I deeply love many of you with me here from at beginning and wish to impress you as much as my pen will allow.

I pray that always manages to be enough.

Aaron.