We Can Tell

It has long been my experience that things end up getting written in three main ways.  First, because someone is paying someone else to write it.  That simple.  News articles, album reviews (Ha!), things of that nature fall into this category.  These are not the things I'm here to ramble about. 

The second way is because a person has an end goal in mind.  A best-selling book, a hit song, an acceptable blog post - something of that nature.  The person has a goal and subject matter in mind and they go searching for the inspiration, the meaning, the heart of it.  Sometimes we take the experiences of others and use them as fuel for this fire.  Or we dig deep to our pasts and the things that lurk within for inspiration.  It's a task.  It's not always easy and sometimes down right painful.  But very often, it works.  To an extent.

Then there is the best way.  When something bubbles up inside the writer and just demands to come out.  It spills over, it cannot be contained.  It can be born of experiences or emotions or memories or anything, it doesn't matter.  What does matter is that it will no longer fit inside and it must be unleashed into the world.  It pours out freely and is cathartic in its release. When that happens, the thing written exists on it's own.  Just the fact that it's out is good enough. The work was done on the way out.  But these organically written things often have the best potential to become something great (if these are ever shared with other people).  They can become best-selling novels, hit songs, brilliant blog posts, etc.  However, their true beauty lies in the fact that they really don't need to be any of those things. 
Here's the thing - people can tell.  Alright, maybe not in the case of books and whatnot, but after watching interviews and reading many articles about how different people write music, when it comes to songs I believe we can tell the difference between those that were forced that those that forced their way out.  There are songs that you can just tell are part of someone.  They come from deep within, they demanded to be let out into the world.  The whoever wrote them didn't have to dig for the inspiration, it was just there.  Personally, I believe those are the best kind.