music writing: a manifesto

I don't pretend to know shit about shit, when it comes down to it, but it seems to me like there are a few basic things that one should take for granted that most people don't.

1. If you can't write, don't try to write about music. What the fuck makes you think your writing is going to be any better if you're trying to write about music? Writing about music - writing specifically about any one subject is going to be inarguably harder than writing about whatever. If you can't put a proper sentence together - that includes things like oh, you know, grammar - please don't bother.

2. Please do not go out of your way to weave some magical sentences about what you're listening to and describing the way the music floats on the air and makes you think of the fairies flitting through the trees and the delicate little summer blossoms sway through the breeze and then the entire universe sings in unison.

Or, rather, when you are done weaving those magical sentences, re-read them. Do they say a single fucking thing about the actual music you are listening to? If the answer is no (and the answer is probably no), then make them go away. Don't delete them, necessarily, just save them in the folder where you're writing your book about the fairies flitting through the trees.

3. Hi, it's called word count. If you don't know how to use it, I would be glad to show you and so would that little paper clippy thingie in Microsoft Word.

4. Please do not use a music review as a thinly veiled attempt to talk about yourself. There are timeswhen talking about yourself can be a great and incredibly revealing way to talk about the music, but if you don't know the difference, then probably you're doing the former.

5. Please do not assume that the writer of the song and the narrator of the song are the same person. I don't really have anything to add to this one because I have no idea why you would make this assumption in the first place.

6. If you're not willing to meet a deadline or edit something when asked - or at least to explain what the fuck you're talking about - why do you bother? Why would you do anything if not with a conscious attempt to continually be better at that thing?

This is all not meant as a slight against any one person, but as a general exercise in frustration because I genuinely do not understand any of the above. I don't profess to be good at writing myself, but I am constantly trying to be better. I know even less about editing, but the harder I try to do my best, the more I realize that most people don't give a fuck.

That's what this is really about. At the end of the day, I want to know that the hours upon hours that I spend putting all of this together are worth a damn, and lately it sure doesn't feel like it.