Singing to Myself

If your writing process/life could be summarized as the title of a song – what song would it be? And why?

-from Susan

Not only is this the hardest question I’ve ever been asked on 7CriminalMinds, but it begs the question of how I can begin to summarize my writing processes. Catch me on Wednesday and my process, my writing life, is apt to be 180 degrees different than it will be on Sunday.  Meet me for coffee on Tuesday and I’m floating. See me at an event on Friday and it’s doom, doom, doom.

And to make the assignment even harder, I don’t have a wide range of popular music to draw on or the memory bank for song names. I was in agony trying to wrest something – anything – to answer the question. I knew “Mahler’s Fifth Symphony” wasn’t going to cut it, or the prayer to Isis and Osiris from The Magic Flute…so here’s the best I could do:

The dorky song “High Hopes,” sung by Doris Day in that strangely chipper voice. Something about ants, I recall, but the idea was that you keep on and you can conquer most everything, which in my case includes sloth, the desire to rewrite endlessly, and plot holes I keep falling into.

“Pick Yourself Up” written in the 1930s and sung in one of those charming if effete musicals Fred Astaire did so well. The only lyrics I recall are “pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and…” Sorry, it fades after that, but it is a good idea for a writer, right?

Here’s my best song candidate: “Hotel California,” by the mighty Eagles. Why? This line, which I do remember “…this could be Heaven or this could be Hell” and if that doesn’t describe the overall writing life for me, I am stumped as to the best candidate.

I wait eagerly to see how much better the rest of the week’s answers are!