The Secret Life of Hubcaps
ONE- A Chapter A Day
Every six months or so, I start/continue writing a book called the Secret Life of Hubcaps. I get a few chapters pulled together and something shiny happens. Something shiny that takes my attention off the book. Often that something is the simple act of remembering some other project I have forgotten about for six months. The cycle goes on and on and I drift along remembering one thing after another. As I have mentioned before in this book, by the time I finish a project, there have been many deaths and many rebirths.
I have books all over my house. Each one has a few chapters read. I vaguely recall the beginning of many, many stories. As I write this, it is 1 am on a Sunday morning and I got out of bed to write. I had been reading a Richard Bach book that I have started several times. This time I made it past the introduction. Something in the few pages I read sparked a thought: What happens if I give myself permission to be who I am and work the way I work? I have been writing songs since Nixon was in the White House. I (almost) always write the same way. The first note comes with the first word. The first line is followed by the second line. A verse or two are followed by a chorus. I arrange the song as I am writing it. I write the way you hear: sequentially. The music comes into my head as a finished piece. In my preteens and teens, I was unable to get out what I heard in my head. My musical journey has been learning to translate the thought into a reality others can hear.
Markology 101- Every song ever written is in existence at all times. Music was created outside of time and is waiting for someone to catch it as it goes by. Every bit of melody, word couplet and so on is energy vibrating in the spiritual atmosphere. This comes through to the rest of us by a person willing to be used. Tin Pan Alley songwriters like George and Ira Gershwin or hard core rockers like Kip Winger are all feeding off the same source: energy. It is a thought from Creator that floats in our collective consciousness until thought again or remembered by an individual. We learn to receive or hear the thoughts that appeal to us as “writers”. I can improvise a song and call it Manna and say God created it or I can “write” a song and call it the brilliant work of the Reverend Mark Steven Archambault © 2010 Humnal Music ASCAP. It really is all the same. It is like a microphone and a speaker. Vibrations move a diaphragm (microphone), it becomes energy and that energy in turn moves a diaphragm (speaker). Spirit creates a vibration (song), it is vibrating in us until someone amplifies it by receiving and playing/singing it again.
When a song comes to me, I do not write it down unless I feel I have it completely. If I have not received the whole of it, I let it go. When it is ready for me, it will come back to me. For years my life was filled with notebooks of lyrical bits that I might use someday. That day never came. When I looked back at things unfinished, they made no sense to me. They were not yet complete. The burden of carrying every half cocked idea from my waking existence became too much for me. When I moved from Wisconsin to Arizona in 2004 I burned over fifty notebooks. It is now a matter of faith with me. If I never write another song or book or whatever, so what? I went for a few years with no new songs and rarely thought about it. Surely if Spirit wants me to have a song, I will have a new song. They drop out of a clear blue sky when I am thinking about other things. Driving seems to produce the best ones. Doing dishes is another song generating activity. When I had a lawn mower, and a lawn to mow, I cranked out tunes every week. The point is that the song is already there. Bringing it into our world is about relaxing and trusting that I will receive.
I used to listen to NPR religiously every day. For a complete list of why I no longer do that, buy me a few beers and get me started. On Public Radio there was a program called Chapter A Day. I loved it. A book was read aloud one chapter a day. It was a model of simplicity. One thought laid out after another in sequence. The shiny thought that ran through my head at the top of this page was simple: why not write a book the way I write songs? Front to back, start to finish? What do I have to lose? Who am I trying to please? I can write one chapter a day without editing or attempting to pull it all together. To the best of my knowledge exactly 16 people have heard my original music and only slightly more than that have read my published articles. Given that no one is beating down my door begging for my thoughts, I can be free to be honest with me, about me and for me. No one else will care because, well... no one else cares. Not unless those 16 drooling music fans tell two friends each. At that point it could become chaos right here in Picture Rocks.
So here goes, a chapter a day. Check back in a month and see how I am doing.
Mark
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