Okay, it’s going to take a few minutes to get around to my point.  This sounds as  if it’s about music.  It’s not.  It’s about writing.  Stick with me.

So, I’m not a country music fan.  In general, it’s just not my thing.  The only person less country music oriented would be the hubby.  He has the music taste of a 18 year old boy or, maybe, a 14 year old girl.  One of those. Despite all that, while trying to avoid the endless parade of re-runs last evening (and a looming deadline), we ventured over to our much-neglected Tivo list. The not-yet-viewed choices came down to Empire Falls (which I’m waiting to watch until after I read the book), the movie The English Patient (which I have successfully avoided for months) and something called CMT Crossroads.  This is a show where a country music star/band and a former big-time rock star/band are put on stage together. 

This episode - the only episode we have and I don’t know why we even have this one - was Pat Benatar and Martina McBride.  Let’s stop for a second to discuss just how cool Benatar is and how amazing she looks.  She looks exactly the same as she did 20 years ago.  Actually, she looks better.  The woman is somewhere near 55 years old and still has the power to make my hubby say:  damn, she’s hot.  And, he wasn’t wrong.

Now to the point - I promised I’d get there eventually.  They sang some of McBride’s songs (I only knew one) and some of Benatar’s oldies.  Benatar’s husband, guitarist Neil Giraldo, took the stage with the women and they did an amazing version of Benatar’s We Belong.   The rendition knocked the audience silent.  There wasn’t any chit chat in my living room either.  Certainly, the song was well-done but, for me, there was something else going on up there on the stage.  The way Benatar looked at Giraldo, so intimate and loving, while he sang with McBride, well, it was nothing short of breathtaking.  My thought was:  wow, she still looks at him like that after all these years. 

My next thought was:  how do we capture that feeling, that sense of forever, in romance writing.  We can see the special bond when people in love look at each other.  We can hear it when a singer injects emotion into a song.  In fact, that might be the difference between a good singer and a great singer - that ability make people feel something deep and profound.  Writing is a bigger challenge.  We can’t depend on the gazes, the beat or the actual voice.  It has to come from somewhere else.  From the way the words string together and the internal beat the reader hears in those words.  It’s a skill  - knowing how to create a character and picking exactly the right word to use at exactly the right time.  The easy answer is that this is all part of craft and is learned over time.  But I do wonder if, like with singing, there will always be people for whom this special gift comes naturally while the rest of us are left to study and practice to reach a level of proficiency but never quite get to the same place.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 15th, 2005 at 5:30 am and is filed under About Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.