The Writer-Musician

You know what's been bugging me lately? Plenty of musicians become actors and plenty of actors become musicians. Writers and directors end up on stage/in front of the camera, and actors end up behind the scenes too. Or you'll find musicians who are talented visual artists and do their own cover art. All kinds of crossovers within the arts. (No need to even mention dancer/singer/actor crossover types) They're everywhere. But you know what you don't see? Musician-author crossovers. Actually, you don't really see author-anything crossovers unless it's a book about the business/art. In other words, no one writes fiction and makes "pop" music.

This bugs me. I don't necessarily want to make pop music, but I'm not talking about scores or Broadway numbers or anything either. I'm talking about radio music. Stuff you'd go to a music fesitval or concert or gig to see. I want to make some of that music, have relative "success", and then still have relative "success" in the apparently completely unrelated field of fiction writing.

I don't have a role model for that. I have musicians I love and admire, and I have writers I love and admire, but I can't seem to find a musician-writer to love and admire. It's like they don't exist. No one seems to make good music and good fiction, and it just doesn't make sense to me.

At this point, I just realised that one musician I love is also a passionate writer: Alison Sudol. But of course, she hasn't published anything yet, so I can't go, "Look! Alison Sudol has some awesome music, and look! this book is cool, unrelated to her music, and enjoyable! Proof that someone else can do it, and thus I can do it too!" just yet. Maybe soon, but I doubt it. I'll probably be shoving Stella Novela (That's my band's name, by the way. We have a Facebook, a MySpace and even a website, but there's nothing up yet, really. We just finally found a drummer on Monday. His name isn't even on there yet.) CDs into people's hands at the same time I'm chucking Call Me Lux (in case you missed it, that's the book I'm revising right now) at them.

But you know what? It bugs me, but it's also incredibly exciting. Imagine being one of the first people (I know I'm not the first, but it's not common at all) to do something. It's scary, but thrilling! When I do manage to live out my dreams of being a total artist extraordinaire, crossing over arts that have never been crossed quite the way I cross them, I'll only be that much prouder of myself.

And, honestly, I don't see why the crossover between music and fiction writing doesn't happen more. To me, music is just one way of telling a story, one medium. I'm not so much a musician or writer as I am a storyteller. I live to tell stories, and that's exactly what I want to do with my life.