In my most recent post, I mentioned how awesome it is to have music on a continuous playlist in my mind, being a songwriter and all. Lady Muse shows up whenever she desires to sprinkle her sparkling fuchsia pixie dust all over the place. But all too often, her cantankerous counterpart, Edgy Editor, is an uninvited guest. He is an absolute monster whose unmitigated nerve knows no bounds. He is constantly scrapping lyrics and melodies, ready to snuff out the brightest of ideas and rewrite songs playing on the radio. Savage. Edgy’s weapon of choice is his lightning fast, sharp red pen, a lethal but necessary evil. As essential as Lady Muse is to the creative process, Edgy Editor, in my humble opinion, is actually more critical. His primary job is to vet an idea to ensure there is actually a worthwhile song to be written from Lady Muse’s flurries of inspiration. If the idea survives the initial red pen onslaught, then Edgy makes sure the song remains on task and conveys the intended message. In other words, he keeps the pixie dust out of our ears and eyes so that the song is not drowned by all that pretty glitter. He is essential, but timing is everything.
There is a thin line between inspiration and expiration. While Lady Muse can float in and out, freely moving about the sacred creative space, Edgy Editor needs to be kept in his place and invited to the process in due course. When he’s allowed to barge in like a party crasher, he often kills the feel good vibes of inspiration that Lady Muse is creating, with all his critical thinking, early editing and “that’s a silly idea” banter. In a cowriting situation, his red pen is one of the leading causes of death, killing the inspiration and likely putting an expiration date on that creative partnership. As I am learning and growing as a songwriter, I definitely see the beauty in allowing the lyric and melodies to flow in a continuous process so as to give the song some shape and form. Edgy is always chomping at the bit to jump in and massacre everything, but I resist him. He’s invited to do his initial job of vetting the idea to make sure there is a viable song, and then I send him to sit quietly in the corner. Once the song begins to take shape and I have a clear idea of the message I desire to convey, I allow Edgy to hover over my shoulder but his red pen must remain in his pocket protector. Though he doesn’t get a seat at the creative table, he has carte blanche in the editing room to do what he does best. That is his playground and Lady Muse is sent to the corner of the room to sulk. Sometimes his cuts are deep and unyielding, but the end product is always better having undergone Edgy’s red pen. His editing and rewriting is just as important, if not more important, than writing the initial song. I would even dare to say that though Lady Muse gets all the credit, Edgy Editor’s red pen is where the real magic happens.
