Saturday, January 28, 2012

I knew her when...

I’m not really a celebrity watcher.  I don’t pay much attention to who’s with who in Hollywood or who’s in rehab or who’s having a baby.  I also don’t put much stock into tabloids or shows devoted to giving us the scoop on the entertainment world at-large.  For the most part I think stars are regular people and their job happens to be to entertain us. 

However, I do get a sense of satisfaction when there is an actor/actress or singer that I have been watching or listening to for a while and all of a sudden they become popular.  For example, I started listening to ADEL back before Chasing Pavement even hit the airways and my absolute favorite song of hers is not one that’s played on the radio.  I have this feeling like I could say, ‘I knew them when…’, and now everyone else gets to know how talented they are.
I imagine this to be what an agent or editor must feel like when one of the books they’ve worked on hits a best seller list or gets optioned for a movie.  They can say, ‘I knew that author when their book still needed work’.  It’s like being the first one to know a secret everyone will eventually figure out.

As a writer I know I have tons of great ideas in my head waiting to be shared (okay, maybe they’re not all great, but tons of them anyway) and it’s one of those ideas that someone somewhere will pick up and say, ‘This is great, I’m glad I read it’.  Maybe they’ll get the satisfaction of saying, ‘I read her debut novel’, or ‘I read her work before she was a New York Times Bestseller’.  No, I do not ever expect to be as popular as J.K. Rowling or Stephenie Meyer (I can dream of course), but I will share my stories just as they did.  After all, that’s really what it’s all about, sharing our stories with others, sharing part of us with the world.
This brings me to something I’m particularly excited about.  A few weeks ago I saw a commercial for a new show on NBC called SMASH and when I saw that Katharine McPhee is starring in it I nearly screamed (nearly).  I have enjoyed listening to her music since her American Idol days (even though I rarely watch the show) and I got all tingly inside thinking how wonderful it is that other people will finally see/hear, and appreciate, how beautiful her voice is.  Also, one of her songs played a major role in the writing of my first novel and I’m afraid that if it hadn’t been for that song I probably would never have finished writing it or even thought about writing more after I’d finished that first one.

So here is the song with the lyrics, maybe it will inspire you as much as it did me.  Feel free to share what other songs, or persons for the matter, have inspired you.


(P.S. If you haven't checked out this new site for writers, you are majorly missing out.  Pub(lishing) Crawl)

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