Challenge

Just over a week ago I received a challenge from a blog reader I'd been in contact with via email. I'd been saying how bored I was at work and how I wanted to put my writing skills to use, but was lacking an idea of what to write. I wanted someone to give me a task, to tell me what to write and he gave me the task of writing a song!!
Not an easy task, and not exactly the sort of writing I am used to (especially as I am not a musician in any way, shape or form, and have little understanding of form and tempo etc).
I initially thought of adapting one of 50-odd poem that I'd written years ago, but most were written during depressive episodes or times and my challenge had been two-fold. I had to write a song and it had to be up-beat, "Nothing depressing, something fun." Talk about challenging!!

The first night I really gave it a good try. I even got a bit of a tune in my head and tried to think of something good or happy in my life that I could write about. It's said to be best to write about what you know. I just couldn't think of anything specifically in my past that was positive and of a subject suitable for song. Most songs tend to be about relationships and I only have the one to draw on. So, I decided instead to make up a situation and write about that. I wasn't happy with the result, as it seemed very amateurish, as were many of my poems. I dabbled around with some other ideas and then I guess I gave up. Sorry Sloan.

Tonight I decided to have a good look through my poems, I have them all collected, hand-written in one notebook. The last of them was written in 2002, not long after I had begun getting help for my my depression. Sadly, but as expected, I only found about 5 upbeat poems, and only one of them was possibly suitable for a song (the others being in the style of Hillaire Belloc, the first poet I was ever interested in). The one that is possibly suitable will have to be adapted, at the very least the last two verses need to be rewritten just to work as a poem. I've got some night shifts coming up, so I'll give it another go then I think.