Strange as it seems, one of my favorite things about returning to work has been the drive. Once upon a time, sitting on the freeway used to get me frustrated and impatient but now I see the drive as twenty-five beautiful minutes to listen to the radio, to sing and to hear new songs from new-to-me bands. And sometimes, old songs from old bands.

Last week Triple J kicked off the Hottest 100 of the last 20 years, and suddenly my morning car ride became a journey in more ways than one. Like a flashback sequence in a movie, over and over, I re-lived times I thought I had forgotten. Green Day whisked me off to a friend’s party, held the minute her parents drove away on a two-week holiday. Mazzy Star’s Fade into You left me crying on my bedroom floor after a bout of unrequited teenage love. The White Stripes’ Seven Nation Army transported me to a bus chugging through the South Korean countryside and Alex Lloyd’s Amazing gave me goosebumps, taking me back to a  rainy day funeral.

Enter Spiderbait’s Sunshine on my window and it’s 1996 again and I’m driving down the Mitchell Freeway, in my 1972 canary yellow Datsun, smoking a cigarette and running late for a lecture. How strange that after all this time my brain has retained these frozen moments, these stored snippets?

Or is it?

In David Russell’s film adaptation of Matthew Quick’s novel Silver Linings Playbook (SLP), Bradley Cooper plays Pat, a mentally ill ex teacher. For Pat, Stevie Wonder’s My Cherie Amour, the song played at his wedding – and, cruelly,  the song playing when Pat discovers his wife in the shower with another man – has become his musical monster. When heard, the song triggers a disoriented rage and takes him over. And although I’ve never experienced such an extreme sensory memory, I could certainly relate.

Taking Hollywood exaggeration into account, some songs, like My Cherie Amour do take the moment for ransom, an idea great filmmakers (Scorsese and Tarantino, for example) use regularly. In SLP , Pat’s trigger song isn’t just about the soundtrack, it holds the plot up, it tells a story.

“Music is at the emotional heart of film-making”, says SLP Director, David Russell, who in the same interview goes on to speak of music’s power to steer the narrative.

Using music in another narrative (writing) doesn’t work in the same way as in film making but it can trigger emotions and memories. Because of this, exploring a song can add colour and detail to a character or storyline.  I’m not talking about simply listening to music while you write, but instead using music as a way to tap into the past, using forgotten moments as a writerly resource, or a subconscious ‘ideas’ file.

Because music, like a metaphorical magic carpet, can carry us away, to light and dark places, and do it with great efficiency. For writers this is gold.

And blogging even, when used as a tool  to convey personal stories is all the more powerful when combined with music. Deb, blogger and writer at Bright and Precious uses songs beautifully (and oh-so-powerfully) to steer the narrative. Many of my favorite ‘Deb’ posts have music and lyrics woven into the story.

Like Pat discovers in SLP, the trick is to not make the music a monster. But then again, if the monster insists on being, then use it. Focus on it because it’s a doorway not only to creative potential but to listening to your own narrative.

“Sentimental music has this great way of taking you back somewhere at the same time that it takes you forward, so you feel nostalgic and hopeful all at the same time.” Nick Hornby, High Fidelity.

Do you have a musical monster? Does music help you in your writing?

It was an inspiring afternoon, organised by JustB editor Pip Lincolne, Village Voices editor Bron Maxabella and the fabulous Kidspot team. For the 100 creative bowerbirds in the room, the workshop offered a proverbial pick and mix of advice about blogging, creativity and design. The most engaging and inspiring something was delivered first up from keynote speaker Hailey Bartholomew.

Hailey, a photographer, filmmaker and all round creative type, shared her personal story, which begins with the making of her first short film in 2005. Unsettled in her small life in suburban Brisbane – not necessarily unhappy, but wanting more out of life – she decided to make a film and enter it into an ABC filmmaking competition.
The film entitled Picket fenced-in was an ode to the life of a mother of young children who wishes for a life less ordinary. She aspires to sew all the pieces of her life – her family, her creativity, and her passion – into a coherent, liveable whole. In the meantime, Hailey tries to treasure all that is in front of her; kisses blown from her daughter’s chubby toddler face, the whirl of a child swinging from the clothes line, her family’s laughter. The film is a montage of treasured family moments, raw and lovely and familiar. In the voiceover, Hailey shares an African proverb “I am lost and I rejoice in the openness”.

Here is the clincher: Hayley is not a filmmaker. She has never made a film, and while she undoubtedly has creative vision, she has no experience or equipment. She is a mother at home, with little time and money. How does she do it?

• Make a start
• Take a step
• Love it
• Persevere

Hailey admits to making mistakes along the way. Of the material she shot in the first two months on borrowed equipment, she confesses much of it was unusable. But she persisted, got better, and eventually submitted the completed film. That was an achievement in itself, but it gets better.

The short film makes the top 5 of the competition, eventually taking out the Viewer’s Choice Award. That little film made on a borrowed camera was the vehicle that got her career off the ground.

Hailey took her vulnerability, her passion and it became fuel for her creativity. Now her life looks how she imagined it to be, but this was only possible through perseverance, positivity and a lot of hard work.

This was the take home message from the workshop. The online world provides the support for anyone to build a blog, a business, to create, but in order to do that one must become comfortable with being uncomfortable, to learn to “rejoice in the openness”. In many ways, living a creative life is making a living out of being vulnerable, taking half-formed ideas and rendering them whole. Whether that be creating  tassels or thrifting all things retro or working with brands or charities to promote products or causes we feel passionate about.

How appropriate this morning Brain Pickings should land this gem in my inbox. Debbie Millman (writer, artist, brand consultant and host of radio show Design Matters) says

“Start with a big, fat lump in your throat, start with a profound sense of wrong, a deep homesickness or a crazy love sickness, and run with it. If you imagine less, less will be what you undoubtedly deserve. Do what you love, and don’t stop until you get what you love. Work as hard as you can, imagine immensities, don’t compromise and don’t waste time. Start now.”

To everyone who’s ever swallowed the lump in their throat, you need to stop doing that. Take that lump (it’s called passion) and run with it, and don’t stop running until you get where you want to go.

What are you waiting for?

You wouldn’t even know it was Autumn outside, going by my Twitter feed. Golden leaves as soft as guinea pig’s ears lie on our drive and lawn, and the air is full of the tell-tale thump of a football being kicked from one child to another.

I’ve spent the afternoon brainstorming story ideas while Ruben slept in his pram. When I say brainstorming I mean clicking around the internet mindlessly. I am no better for it; in fact, it leaves me with a profound sense of loss. Rather than building a fire, I struggled even to create a single spark. Nothing. Zip, except this massive ill-defined feeling of blerg.

Perhaps I am experiencing one of these five emotions that didn’t exist until the internet came along? It can’t be internet addiction, because that hasn’t been officially listed as a thing yet. I know for sure I have a very unhealthy relationship with Google, and on Monday realised I was unable to navigate from Flinders Street station to the tallest building in Melbourne without clicking nervously to Google maps. If I turned my phone off, I could have just followed the signs at the station and the steady stream of foot traffic over the Yarra to Southbank. And, you know, looked up to the sky to see Eureka Tower glistening in its 297 metre glory: they call it a landmark for a reason.

I know at this point I need to go on an internet diet. There are, at best, only half to a dozen sites I fully appreciate and gain value from. The world would be a poorer place without them, and I begin to mourn them even at the thought of not being able to click mindlessly through their pages, pages I wouldn’t have ready access to from my regional Australian home without the internet. For this, I am grateful.

But then there’s everything else. I log on to check a quote, and I come away having toured a house and window shopped for new jeans. Then I get lost in the photo album of someone who I went to school with, and haven’t seen for 20 years. Why am I here again? It’s like going to the shops for some milk and instead, buying a couch.

The most worrisome aspect is that, as a blogger, I contribute to the noise. My intent here is not to be mean spirited, because there is a lot of good on the internet, and I make concessions for amateurs trying to find their voices, clear their thoughts and create. And of course there are people trying to make connections; this is important to creating a community online. And yet it’s hard to find the good among all the bad.

Clear thinking is what I most appreciate as a reader, and yet it’s increasingly hard to hear it in this 24/7 social media party we find ourselves in. There is lots of shouting over the top of each other just to be heard. Attention for attention’s sake. I feel like a very short person in a pub full of tall people.

~

Louis arrived home from school with his friend H and after a leisurely snack, they began to kick the football on the front lawn. Rather than stand by aimlessly, I grabbed a straw broom and began to make piles of leaves on the drive. At first I began to clear the path near the front window, but the mindless sweeping turned to making a pile, and the pile turned to filling a tub. Once the tub was full, I emptied it by the chook pen and began the process again.

Three tubs. Clearer drive. Clear head.

It wasn’t rocket science or a published article or a pithy hook. It was a pile of leaves.

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Is it Autumn or Spring where you are? How do you disconnect? Do you ever?