12.3.12

Heavy metal horns for happy moral messages and the spirit of rock 'n' roll...

There's a message I want to share and a moral to this story and that moral is: "you shouldn't hate rock 'n' roll so much, grandma." That's pretty much what today's picture book tale, "The Evils of Rock 'n' Roll", amounts to ultimately as the old-age narrator warns of the music genre's wickedness and then has a surprise  epiphany at the end, totally undermining the sermonising that makes up the entire text.

I've realised the tragic truth that the thing I've spawned as today's effort is an expression of a deep-seated wish that I had a grandparent who shared my love of Iron Maiden. Never mind. I have other relatives who dig Black Sabbath so that's okay. Anyway, I want to enthuse about hard rock and that energy transplanted itself into today's typing. Prospective readers, in theory, get to revel in the glory of rock 'n' roll and with some excellent accompanying art, everyone enjoys a silly tongue-in-cheek 'rock is bad for you' polemical poetry spree, like so...

All rockers are terribly hairy,
Great stinking ogres, their hygiene’s scary.
Daft things like that are the order of the day in this piece. Once again there are doubts and raised eyebrows of "who is this actually for?" and "does this have any appeal to anyone beyond myself and maybe a few cultish people who share my geekish interest?" I'm not sure but, as ever, I'm reconciled to the fact that it doesn't matter when you're having an excellent time and creating matter that's inspired by the things that move you. You face up to the things in your mind and allow yourself to rely enjoy them - part of the beauty of writing visual stories is in picturing what you're describing. It's bittersweet because the images in your head may never materialise (it's all speculative work at this stage) but in the pure moment of creation it's exhilarating.

This is what my writing mission is - it's grasping at the ephemeral bliss of pure creation. It's seeking nirvana in the scripting of words and in the immersion of one's self totally to the contents of your imagination. If that's too Zen and hippyish for you, it's me coming up with silly ideas and cackling maniacally to myself as I type 'em up into terrible rhythmic tales that no one is reading.

The latest individual effort is me once again wearing my heart on my sleeve and allowing my own passions to inform picture book story ideas. "The Evils of Rock 'n' Roll" is another nice exercise in trying to balance clumsy rhyming couplets with messages (i.e. "keep an open mind and maybe consider listening to rock music 'cause it's real swell stuff, kids!") while I tell stories.

Plus I got to rock out to the band Bigelf while writing. Rock 'n' roll...

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