Little Pieces of Hope is a 2021 book about happy-making things in a difficult world

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Todd Doughty’s joyous book from 2021 is titled Little Pieces of Hope: Happy-Making Things in a Difficult World. There is a preview at Google Books. Most of his one-page lists are of Happy-Making Things in a Difficult World.

 

One on page 7 (with links added) is:

 

“Happy-making things in a difficult world:

 

Making friends with strangers while waiting in a long line. Dolly Parton in general, but specifically her bluegrass version of ‘I Get a Kick Out of You.’ A very small bouquet of lilies-of-the-valley. The grace of Simone Biles. Your favorite old T-shirt. Le Creuset. The Meryl Streep parts of the film Julie & Julia. A really good mixtape (or playlist, for you young ones) made for you by someone else. Vintage photos of 1940s NYC.

 

Driving north on the Pacific Coast Highway on a cloudless day when the view is astounding. The smell of a cut lemon. The entire score of Guys and Dolls. That day when you realize you’re finally over someone who dumped you. Grandmothers. Plaid shirts on a crisp fall day. Red velvet cake. Adriana Trigiani’s novel Lucia, Lucia. Someone who says, ‘You were great!’ Someone who says, ‘You look great!’ Someone who says, ‘Don’t do it!’

 

A vividly bright yellow parakeet. The Chrysler Building on a rainy night. David Sedaris’s audio recording of Santaland Diaries. A good run, physically or metaphorically, Leaving a party at precisely the moment when you are having the most fun. Inge Morath’s 1957 photo of that llama in a cab (Google it), A Llama in Times Square. 

 

Four jigsaw puzzle pieces came from OpenClipArt.

 

 

Jump and Find Joy is an uplifting 2025 book by Hoda Kotb about embracing change

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hoda Kotb was co-anchor of the morning Today show on NBC News from 2018 to 2025. In 2025 she published an uplifting book titled Jump and Find Joy: Embracing change in every season of life. There is a preview at Google Books. This book is divided into five parts, each with chapters starting on the pages shown:

 

Part 1: A Jumping-off Point  1

  Moved to Make a Change  3

  Your First Leap Won’t Be Your Last  14

  Think Before You Jump  20

  It May Not Be Broken, But It May Not Be Working  26

  Don’t Be Afraid to Change Your Story  37

  Helpful Tips and Tools  44

 

Part 2: Leap of Faith  47

  A Second Chance to Make a First Impression  49

  I Never Want to Wonder What If?  57

  Surrendering Control  71

  Those Four Fabulous Words  75

  Don’t Hog Your Journey  82

  Baring It All  91

  Letting Love In  98

  Making Space for a Leap of Faith  102

  Helpful Tips and Tools  113

 

Part 3: Hop, Skip, and a Jump  115

  Today’s the Day  119

  Sink or Swim  123

  Sweet Soul 129

  Finally, Yes  132

  Take a Deep Breath  141

  Face-to-Face  147

  Share the Load  150

  Forward  159

  Helpful Tips and Tools  165

 

Part 4: Jump in with Both Feet  167

  Finding My Spark

  Finding Time for Transformation  180

  The Pandemic Push  196

  Lead with Love  199

  Get Growing  209

  Helpful Tips and Tools  220

 

Part 5: Jump for Joy  221

  Room to Grow  223

  Turning Sixty and Turning the Page  237

  Breaking Up Is Hard to Do  247

  With Love  253

  My Next Big Jump  255

  The Day After Today  262

  Walking the Walk  265

  Helpful Tips and Tools  268

 

Conclusion  271

 

There are a total of 32 biographical Jumpstarts, including Anne Lamott, Bette Midler, Chip Conley, Ally Love, Thomas Rhett, Mel Robbins, etc. She has three Helpful Tips and Tools on page 113:

 

 “ 1] Treat books I’ve already read – and loved – as a touchstone when I’m feeling a bit lost. The Book of Awakening by Mark Nepo is one of my favorites. It includes bite-size nuggets of wisdom you can read each morning to set a positive tone for the day. I find that a good read offers another voice, which is helpful when the one in our head is driving us crazy. (If I need some title ideas, I’ll search the go-to books of people I admire. What are they reading?)

 

 2] I’ve discovered the power of sixty minutes. When my brain is spinning and my body is dragging, I’ll shut myself down for an hour. I close the door to my office, turn off all of my devices, and just sit quietly. I need to recharge! Sometimes it takes the entire time just to feel an ounce of peace, but I never regret it. Carving out that time for yourself is the juice you need to keep pushing forward.

 

 3] Get curious. As you move toward the new direction you’ve chosen listen and learn. What can the people who’ve already arrived where you want to be teach you? I love to explore podcasts, TED talks, and commencement addresses for the motivation and information I need. Just search the curated list of topics, for example, ‘Find me a TED talk about opening a bakery.’ So fun!”

 

And there are more Helpful Tips and Tools on page 165:

 

“Even little hops and jumps require encouragement. Go, me! I love listening to music for so many reasons, but I’ll always turn to it when I need a quick boost. After all, a song is only about three minutes long! Here are some of my favorites.

(How about making a playlist just for jumping? ‘Songs That Launch Me Higher.’)

 

1]  ‘So Will I’ – Ben Platt

I find this song so reassuring and uplifting. It reminds us that no matter what happens, the world and you are going to be just fine.

 

2]  ‘May You Find a Light’ – The Brilliance

The music in this song is so ethereal and soothing, and the lyrics transport you to a place where you feel safe and grounded. You’re home.

 

3]  ‘Rainbow Connection’ – Paul Williams and Kenneth Ascher

What’s more comforting than Kermit the Frog singing? His message is for dreamers and lovers and anyone with hope in their heart: wishes do come true when we believe in ourselves! (I love this song , too, because anything with rainbows reminds me of my Hopey.)”

 

An image of a girl jumping for joy was adapted from OpenClipArt.

 

 

An excellent eighteen-minute 2026 commencement speech by country singer-songwriter Eric Church at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the ProRhetoric web site on May 11, 2026 I saw an article titled Your Life, as Six Strings. It has this quotation from country music singer-songwriter Eric Church:

 

"The difference between a life that sounds like music and a life that sounds like noise ... is whether you're honest enough to hear which string has drifted out of tune, and humble enough to make the adjustment."

 

There is an 18-minute YouTube video from May 14, 2026 titled Eric Church – 2026 Commencement Speech at UNC Chapel Hill (Full Version).

 

First he demonstrates how awful an out-of-tune guitar sounds. Then he discusses all six strings on it: Low E, A, D, G, B, and High E. String one, the low E is your foundation. That low E is your faith. String two, the A, is family. String three, the D, is your partner or best friend. String four, the G, is ambition and resilience. String 5, the B, is community. String six, the high E is the one most easily bent by outside pressure, but ignore that.

 

There is a five-and-a-half-minute lyric YouTube video of his recent song Darkest Hour sung live at the Pinnacle in Nashville on May 24, 2025.

 

The guitar image came from Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

There is a massive 710-page book titled The Complete Johnny Cash: Lyrics from a Lifetime of Songwriting

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back on April 4, 2011 I blogged about Stories in words and music: country edition. Of course, I mentioned Johnny Cash (February 26, 1932 to September 12, 2003) and his songs Folsom Prison Blues, I Walk the Line, and Tennessee Flat Top Box. Songs are magical – they tell a story in a few minutes with poetic words and music.

 

At my friendly, local public library I found and am leafing through a massive 710-page book from 2025 assembled by Mark Stielper and titled The Complete Johnny Cash: Lyrics from a lifetime of songwriting.

 

Folsom Prison Blues (from 1955) appears on page 26. I Walk the Line (from 1956) appears on pages 40 and 41. Tennessee Flat-Top Box (from 1961) appears on page 120.

 

I Still Miss Someone (from 1957) with Roy Cash Jr. appears on page 52. There is a video from  1990 with Highwaymen – a duet with Willie Nelson. The lyrics lament:

 

“At my door the leaves are falling
A cold wild wind will come
Sweethearts walk by together
And I still miss someone

 

I go out on a party
And look for a little fun
But I find a darkened corner
'Cause I still miss someone

 

No, I never got over those blue eyes
I see them everywhere
I miss those arms that held me
When all the love was there

 

I wonder if she's sorry
For leaving what we'd begun
There's someone for me somewhere
And I still miss someone”

 

Elsewhere there is a curious description for a song Johnny wrote with another person. That song, Tiger Whitehead (from 1973), is listed as being with Nat Winston. An article at Bob Cox’s Yesteryear on February 24, 2014 titled Dr. Nat Winston Fondly Remembered as a Noted Psychiatrist, Musician says that:

“Martha Winston recalled that Nat often talked about the time he received a call from June Carter Cash urging him to treat her husband. Although Johnny would not agree to enter a hospital for rehabilitation, he was perfectly willing for Nat to come to his Hendersonville, Tennessee home for private therapy. Nat did this over a period of one year, visiting Johnny every day after work without accepting compensation. He did it out of friendship and love for Johnny and members of the Carter family. Also, since he was serving as Commissioner of Mental Health, he felt it would be a conflict of interest to continue to treat patients for a fee while he was serving the state.

‘Johnny Cash credited Nat,’ said Susan, ‘both in his biography and publicly on the Larry King Show for his medical treatments that restored his life and career.’

‘On one visit,’ Nat told him of James ‘Tiger’ Whitehead, a colorful Carter County mountaineer, mill operator and bear hunter (reportedly killed 99 bears during his lifetime). On another trip to Nat's cabin, he took Johnny to visit Tiger's grave on Tiger Creek Road between Hampton and Roan Mountain. Johnny was so impressed by the story that he wrote ‘The Ballad of Tiger Whitehead,' which he later recorded on an album. Nat had no idea that Johnny gave him credit as co-writer until one day when he received a royalty check. Listen to Johnny talk about Tiger Whitehead and sing the song.”

 

There also are some clearly mistaken attributions in the book. Gold All Over the Ground (from 1967) on page 192 is listed as with Brad Paisley. But Brad was born later, on October 28, 1972. Chinky Pin Hill (1970s) on page 248 is listed as with Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O’Donovan, and Sara Watkins. Sarah Jarosz was born on May 23, 1991. Aoife O’Donovan was born on November 18, 1982. Sara Watkins was born on June 8, 1981. Those three women formed a band, I’m With Her, in 2014.

 

There is a 2016 posthumous book by Johnny Cash titled Forever Words: The Unknown Poems. And there is a 2018 album by that same name. The thirteenth song is Chinky Pin Hill  by I’m With Her. There is a review of it at RedGuitarMusic on April 23, 2018 titled Johnny Cash – Forever Words (Album Review). The song Gold All Over the Ground by Brad Paisley is the second one on the Forever Words album.

 

And To June, This Morning on page 320 (1970) is listed as with Ruston Kelly who only was born on July 31, 1988, and Kacey Musgraves, who was born on August 21, 1988. The song is the second one on the Forever Words album. There is a video of them from April 6, 2018 titled Ruston Kelley, Kacey Musgraves – To June This Morning (Johnny Cash: Forever Words).

 

The 1977 image of Johnny Cash came from the Library of Congress.

 

 

Living in the Present with John Prine is a memoir by Tom Piazza

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On April 14, 2020 I blogged about Remembering John Prine – a great storyteller. There is an article by Tom Piazza in the Oxford American on October 8, 2018 about that singer-songwriter titled Living in the Present with John Prine. John selected Tom to write a memoir with the same title – a 2025 book Living in the Present with John Prine. Near the end, on pages 157 to 160 his lead guitarist Jason Wilber described John’s combination of abilities:

 

“John loved performing, for sure. He had a really …I want to say he had a natural talent for it, but that, I think, underplays what I’m trying to communicate. I’ve said this before, to other people, but I feel like I stood there with John onstage for twenty-four years, and watched him do a magic trick over and over … and over. It always worked, he pulled it off every time, and I still don’t know how he did it. He had this ability to communicate on an emotional level through his writing. ‘How in hell can a person go to work in the morning, come home in the evening and have nothing to say?’ I don’t think there was a time I heard him sing that line onstage that at least one person in the audience didn’t cry out, and go ‘Whooo!’ or respond in some way, and usually lots of people. Think about that. That’s not, like, a normal thing. You know what I mean? That line is not asking you to comment in some way. It’s not saying, like, ‘Hey, everybody put your hands in the air…’ It’s a spontaneous reaction to a line that communicates something of such emotional depth and resonance that people are prompted to spontaneously cry out. And I heard that happen over and over. Almost every night.

 

So that’s just the writing part. But he also had the ability to do that as a performer, as a live in-person communicator. He just had this emotional intelligence that was off the charts. He was a genius in his way. And I know that’s not news to you. Or anyone! But that is really what struck me about being onstage with him. It’s not just that he could do a good show, and in fact, if you reduce this to technical execution of music, he was not that ‘good.’ And I mean that with complete respect. But, like, if you just wanted to measure this with scientific instruments, John’s show wasn’t good because his vocal intonation was perfect, or his guitar technique was perfect, or his guitar was perfectly in tune, or because he was making no mistakes … Quite the contrary! But it didn’t matter. Because his ability to deliver the rest of it – the emotional part – was so in the stratosphere that none of that shit mattered.   

 

And for me, as someone who spent their whole life practicing, and trying to learn how to do things exactly the way I was trying to do … It took me a long time to understand that, like, wow, John is actually doing the things that I thought … I thought I was on the path to what he was doing, but now I see he’s doing it with none of those things. It didn’t matter if he made mistakes on the guitar, or he was out of tune. In fact, when he messed up people loved him more. He would make a mistake and people would cheer! Because of a look he would make, or the way he would react to it.

 

But here’s the other part – it wasn’t only onstage. He just had this ability to communicate with people. If you only knew John superficially, you could say, ‘He’s a regular guy. Just a nice guy.’ And he was. But he was also … his emotional intelligence extended into the interpersonal. The same way he could connect with a whole room full of people, he could sit across the table from you – not that he was always connected, because sometimes he would be off in Archie comics land – but when he was there with you he could be really tuned in to you and know a lot about where you were, even maybe more than you knew.

 

He had a pretty good read on almost everybody and every situation. I think that allowed him to trust people … He could read people quickly. He had an idea of who you were and what you were about. He wouldn’t say it, he didn’t talk about it, but he knew. He was super, super smart, in his own way. Not like he knew the atomic weight of water, or whatever, but he was smart in all these other ways that really mattered. I think his talent was in some ways a mystery to him as well. He knew that he had this talent, that he was off-the-charts good at this one thing, but he didn’t necessarily understand why he was. But he knew it. And he knew he could trust it. 

 

I used to think if you work hard at something you can get as good as anybody else. But those things I just talked about, about John – writing, performing, communicating, reading people – communicating with people based on his reading of what’s happening – I could work on them until the end of time and never be nearly as good as him.”

 

A good way to get to know John is to watch ten Youtube videos of his live performances from Sessions at West 54th:

 

Sam Stone

Hello In There

Spanish Pipedream

Lake Marie

Souvenirs

All the Best

Far From Me

Six O’Clock News

In Spite of Ourselves (duet with Iris Dement)

The Jet Set (duet with Iris Dement)

 

There is another article at Country and Midwestern titled John Prine Explains the Origin of “Lake Marie”. And still another article by Clayton Edwards at American Songwriter on October 28, 2024 titled “Midwestern Mindtrips”; Why Bob Dylan Names John Prine Among His Favorite Songwriters Ever said Bob liked Lake Marie best.

 

The 2016 image of John Prine is from Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

Hand gestures by the Four Tops in a video for the 1967 song Reach Out - I’ll Be there

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Recently I was watching the three-minute YouTube video for the 1967 Four Tops hit song Reach Out - I’ll Be there, which begins with a ten-second musical gallop.

 

After that, the Tops do a wonderful series of choreographed hand gestures starting with claps and continuing with lots of finger pointing, etc. Although you don’t have a production team like Motown’s famous Holland-Dozier-Holland, you can still use hand gestures to add emphasis to a speech. 

 

There is another YouTube example with their live black and white version of Standing in the Shadows of Love where lead singer Levi Stubbs is sweating profusely.

 

An image of the Four Tops was colorized from this black and white one from Wikimedia Commons.  

 

A joyous Book of Delights by Ross Gay

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On October 25, 2025 I had blogged about An intriguing book by Ross Gay with 14 essays about inciting joy. Before that, in 2019, he had published another little 274-page book with 102 essays titled The Book of Delights. There is a preview through page 24 at Google Books. His preface says:

 

“One day last July, feeling delighted and compelled to both wonder about and share that delight, I decided that it might feel nice, even useful, to write a daily essay about something delightful. I remember laughing to myself how obvious it was. I could call it something like The Book of Delights.

 

I came up with a handful of rules: write a delight every day for a year; begin and end on my birthday, August 1; draft them quickly; and write them by hand. The rules mad it a discipline for me. A practice. Spend time thinking and writing about delight every day. 

 

Because I was writing these essayettes pretty much daily (confession: I skipped some days), patterns and themes and concerns show up. For instance, I traveled quite a bit this year. I often write in cafes. My mother is often on my mind. Racism is often on my mind. Politics. Pop music. Books. Dreams. Public space. My garden is often on my mind.

 

It didn’t take me long to learn that the discipline or practice of writing these essays occasioned a kind of delight radar. Or maybe it was more like the development of a delight muscle. Something that implies that the more you study delight, the more delight there is to study. A month or two into this project delights were calling to me: Write about me! Write about me! Because it is rude not to acknowledge your delights. I’d tell them that though they might not become essayettes, they were still important, and I was grateful to them. Which is to say, I felt my life to be more full of delight. Not without sorrow or fear or pain or loss. But more full of delight. I also learned this year that my delight grows – much like love and joy – when I share it.”

 

There is an article by Christina Cala at npr codeswitch on August 19, 2021 titled How Ross Gay Finds Joy in the Smallest of ‘Delights’. And there also is a four-minute YouTube video at AlgonquinBooksTV on November 6, 2018 titled The Book of Delights by Ross Gay where he reads from #80 Tomato on Board and #96 The Marfa Lights.

 

The very brief Essay #56 on page 154 is titled My Life, My Life, My Life, My Life in the Sunshine. It is about the 1976 Roy Ayers song Everybody Loves the Sunshine, which you can listen to here (and find the lyrics). Ross says:

 

“Which delight landed in my lap from the open window of a passing car, and is simply (although the plaintive synth chords and watery triplets betray somewhat the simplicity) an argument for the sunshine, which, true, maybe I am the choir, but I like the argument for its simplicity, which is that everybody loves it , and everybody loves it, and folks get brown in it, and folks get down in it, and most convincingly to me, and that which elevates it to the metaphysical, even the holy: just bees and things and flowers.”

 

The 1974 mural by Dieter M. Weidenbach came from here at Wikimedia Commons. 

 

Zero dark thirty and 25 (or 6) to 4

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some phrases are rather cryptic. For example, Zero Dark Thirty is 2012 political action thriller film directed by Kathryn Bigelow about the manhunt for Osama bin Laden. A Wikipedia page explains that title is:

 

“American military slang for an unspecified time between midnight and sunrise.”

 

There is another Wikipedia page about the Chicago song, 25 or 6 to 4 that was released as a single in June 1970. It was written by Robert Lamm, who said his cryptic title was telling about trying to write a song in the wee hours of the morning. There is an article by Jay McDowell at American Songwriter on February 1, 2024 titled The Mundane Meaning Behind “25 or 6 to 4” by Chicago. It is not about LSD (sometimes known as LSD-25), or heroin, or cocaine.

 

This post was inspired by my listening to the album, The Best of Chicago: 40th Anniversary Edition.

 

Michael Knowles didn’t like Beyoncé's revised version of the Dolly Parton song Jolene

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Michael Knowles didn’t like Beyoncé's version of the Dolly Parton song, Jolene. He tweeted:

 

“Beyoncé's ‘Jolene’ cover is BAD.”

 

But it wasn’t just a cover - it was a revision. At YouTube you can watch lyric videos of both Dolly’s version, and Beyoncé's version. And at NME on April 1, 2024 there is an article by Hollie Geraghty titled Beyonce gives Dolly Parton sole songwriting credit on ‘Jolene’ that is subtitled The country icon previously gave Beyoncé's new version her seal of approval.

 

I don’t think we should we pay much attention to a negative evaluation by a political commentator like Mr. Knowles. He’s not an expert on music or songwriting. His review reminded me of my December 28, 2012 blog post titled Soapbox Guru is a web site for posting videos of speeches or presentations and receiving evaluations. In it I mentioned that back on January 23, 2010 consulting expert Alan Weiss had panned Taylor Swift’s live performance on the Help for Haiti telethon. A week later Taylor won four Grammy Awards – Album of the Year and Best Country Album for Fearless, and Best Country Song and Best Female Country Vocal Performance for White Horse.

 

The thumbs down was adapted from this image at Wikimedia Commons.

 

Willie Nelson tells stories behind his songs in the book Energy Follows Thought

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At my friendly local public library I found and enjoyed reading a 2023 book by Willie Nelson (with David Ritz and Mickey Raphael) titled Energy Follows Thought: The stories behind my songs. It is big: 9.25” wide by 11.25” high by 1.25” thick, has almost 400 pages and weighs 3.83 pounds. On the back cover it says:

 

“I see these lyrics as little postcards from a long life. I see them as expressions of sadness or joy, fear or frustration, heartache and hope that are all part of our daily struggle to stay sane.”

 

Willie was born way back on April 29, 1933, so he is almost 91. He wrote Night Life, recorded it in 1960 and reissued in 1963. You can listen to it here on YouTube. The lyrics are:

 

“When the evening sun goes down

You will find me hanging round

The night life ain’t no good life

But it’s my life

 

Many people just like me

Dreaming of old used-to-be’s

And the night life ain’t no good life

But it’s my life

 

Listen to the blues they’re playing

Listen to what the blues are saying

 

Mine is just another scene

From the world of broken dreams

And the night life ain’t no good life

But it’s my life”

 

In the book Willie says:

 

“When I first met Ray Charles, who became one of my best friends, he said, ‘Willie, I gotta be honest. When I first heard ‘Night Life,’ I was sure it was written by a Black man.’ ‘Thank you,’ was my quick reply. It was one of the nicest compliments I’ve ever received.” 

 

He also wrote the song Crazy, which was recorded by Patsy Cline and released in October 1961. It was a hit and reached #2 on the Billboard charts both for Hot Country and Adult Contemporary. Willie claims he saw Patsy’s husband, Charlie Dick, past midnight at a Nashville bar called the Orchid Lounge (next to the Ryman Auditorium which was home for the Grand Old Opry radio show). He played it for Charlie, who insisted they take it immediately to Patsy and make her listen to it, at about 1:00 AM. On YouTube you can hear both Patsy’s 2:45 hit version and Willie’s slower 4:01 version.     

 

The title song of the book begins with these verses:

 

“Imagine what you want

Then get out of the way

Remember energy follows thought

So be careful what you say

 

Be careful what you ask for

Make sure it’s really what you want

Because your mind is made for thinking

And energy follows thought”

 

My cartoon was modified from two at Openclipart: one of a scheming boy and one of thunder and lightning.

 

Could you write a speech consisting of nothing but questions?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is that possible? Yes! I found a pair of commencement speeches where rather than provide answers they only had questions. One was given in 2019 by David Glaser at Tufts University. It is described in an article by Joel Abrams at The Conversation on May 16, 2019 titled This commencement speech had nothing but questions. A second, last year for the Torrey Honors Institute at Biola University, is described in another article by Fred Sanders at LeadingWithQuestions on July 20, 2023 titled A Few Questions For You.

 

What about poems or songs? William Blake’s 1794 poem The Tyger just is questions. And in her 2023 album A Great Wild Mercy Carrie Newcomer has a song titled A Book of Questions. You can watch a five-minute lyric video for it on YouTube. (The brief chorus is not questions).

 

How about an entire novel consisting of questions? I have two examples with excerpts at Google Books. From 2001 there is Gold Fools by Gilbert Sorrentino. And from 2009 there is The Interrogative Mood by Padgett Powell. The Kirkus Reviews article on The Interrogative Mood opens by whining that:

 

“This novel a one-trick pony, and that trick is a question mark.”

 

How did I get started on this offbeat topic? At the public library I got Dwight Garner’s 2023 book The Upstairs Delicatessen. On page 108 he says:

 

“Powell wrote a 164-page novel, The Interrogative Mood, in which every sentence is a question. (Sample: ‘Have you decided yet which historical moment you would most like to have witnessed with your own eyes and ears?’) The form suited Powell, because he’s one of the most inquisitive writers we have.”

  

An image of a head full of questions was adapted from one at Openclipart.

 

Getting your use of details ‘just right’ – like in the story of Goldilocks

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When writing a brief speech (such as a typical 5-to-7-minute one for a Toastmasters club meeting) it is important to add just the right number of details, rather than either too few or too many. At her MANIACTIVE blog on July 25, 2023 there is an excellent post by Laura Bergells titled The Goldilocks Guide to Adding Detail in Your Presentations. She says:

 

“Goldilocks captivates with storytelling. She chooses concrete and relatable details that paint captivating mental images. A forest, a house, 3 bowls of porridge, 3 chairs, and 3 beds. Goldilocks also lets you know the sizes of the bowls, chairs, and beds.”

 

Singer-songwriters like Jason Isbell are particularly adept at poetic, pithy details. You can watch a video of him at the beginning of the second episode of the PBS TV series, Southern Storytellers. There also is an article at PBS on June 30, 2023 titled Meet the Musicians in ‘Southern Storytellers’ | Jason Isbell, Thao Nyugen, Adia Victoria & Lyle Lovett.

 

Three examples come from songs on Jason’s latest album, Weathervanes. The first is from Strawberry Woman. Instead of stating men were watching her, he instead says there were:

 

“Prairie dogs popping up to see

 that strawberry woman sitting next to me”

 

The second is from Save the World, a song reflecting on mass shootings. Its second verse begins:

 

“Balloon poppin’ at the grocery store
My heart jumpin’ in my chest.
I look around to find the exit door
Which way outta here's the best?”

 

The third is from Volunteer, a song about an orphan. Jason begins with:

 

“Daddy worked hard, mama worked harder

 Propped up on pain pills and pride

 They were just kids when I came in this world

 And I was a kid when they died.

 

 They’d fight about money, they’d fight about fighting

 They’d fight about nothing at all

 The car was still running when the deputy found ‘em

 At the Shell by the Gunbarrel Mall.

 

 Chorus:

 

 Take me away from here

 No, I never belonged to this place

 Wish I could disappear off the edge of the earth

 Take me away from here

 No, I don’t wanna fight for the rest of my life

 I ain’t your volunteer.”

 

The title, Volunteer is an ironic reference to Volunteer State, which is the motto on license plates from the state of Tennessee. It refers to residents volunteering to fight in the War of 1812 and the Mexican War.   

 

Gunbarrel Mall is a horrific name for a shopping center. Is there really something like that? In Chattanooga there is a Gunbarrel Road, and a large mall between it and Interstate 75 named Hamilton Place. Maybe its local nickname is the Gunbarrel Mall. But there is a smaller center near it named Gunbarrel Pointe. That name suggests you could be held up at gunpoint or even shot dead.

 

On July 7, 2020 I blogged about Jason in a post titled What rhymes with parking lot? His answer is astronaut.

 

The image of Goldilocks in one of three beds was adapted from page 25 in a 1923 book at the Internet Archive titled The Child’s Treasury.

 

Advice on writing and editing from singer-songwriter Ben Folds

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ben Folds is a singer-songwriter, who once fronted an alternative rock trio ironically named the Ben Folds Five. In 2019 he published a memoir titled A Dream About Lightning Bugs: A life of music and cheap lessons. I have just enjoyed reading that book, particularly his advice on songwriting and then editing in the chapter titled Follow the Brown that begins on page 254. Starting with the second paragraph, he says:

 

“….The most common question I’m asked about songwriting is whether the words or music come first. And that’s a reasonable question. Hell, I ask my songwriter friends the same thing. We all want to know what the spark was. What was the first syllable the writer uttered before the musical sentence was complete? What stuck to the page first? For me, it’s almost always music. I believe my subconscious clues me in to my feelings by expressing them abstractly through music – a few notes, a musical sentence, that I don’t yet understand. I will follow the music to the edge of my lyrical comfort zone, because I firmly believe the music is about something and that’s for me to decipher. Often, the music fools me into writing something I’d rather not have revealed lyrically.

 

The spark of a song can come at the oddest time. Maybe at a stoplight, a meeting, or in bed at 4 A.M. For me, there’s usually a subtle glow in the air just before the notes start to come. A sense that something is around the corner. Like the farm animals in a disaster movie right before an earthquake, who seem to know what’s coming before the humans do, It feels the way light often looks at ‘magic hour,’ before sunset, when suddenly it seems that anywhere you point the camera will make a good picture. That’s the kind of feeling that tells me to watch for some music. It’s coming soon.

 

If freestyling onstage teaches us that you can always turn on the faucet and that some kind of music will always flow, then songwriting in solitude confirms that the water can sometimes flow muddy brown. Non-potable melody. You have to let it run for a while, until it begins to run clear. Yes, it hurts to hear the brown ideas coming from the center of your soul, but you don’t have to show them to anybody. Don’t let brown get you down. Here’s a common bit of advice I’ve heard from every songwriter I’ve ever met: Just keep moving.

 

I personally do not believe there’s such a thing as writer’s block. It’s just that we don’t like everything that comes out. When our self-judgment takes over, it shames us into submission and we shut off the faucet. We say we have no ideas. No. We have ideas, but we aren’t willing to fess up to how bad they might be. But, really, who gives a damn? Own them. They suck, and they came from you. Fine. That’s not a crime, that’s normal. Take it easy on yourself. Remember that you can always write something, it’s just that sometimes it’s shitty. Let it be so! And then follow that brown until it runs clear.

 

A great musician and producer named Pat Leonard told me that it’s important to know when to send your inner editor away. His advice is another version of my faucet metaphor. Maybe it works better for you. When you’re creating, make a deal with your inner editor – that judgmental but necessary part of your psyche that keeps telling you what sucks. Tell this trigger-happy editor in your mind that you need them to step out of the room while you create. You need to be free to follow all ideas, bad and good. You need to create with impunity – alone. However! The other half of the deal is that the editor gets to come back the next day – with a chain saw. Your editor will get to go to town on what you’ve written. The editor may even throw the whole song in the trash. But not now. Now you must create.”  

 

His advice also applies to speechwriting. On March 23, 2015 I blogged about how Writer’s block is like getting your car stuck in mud up to the axles.