Make it your story, make it your song

Early in my professional writing career, I was assigned the task of writing a feature story about the residents of the Soldiers and Sailors Home in Baltimore, Maryland.

This Soldiers Home in Dayton, Ohio is
 one of many across the United States.

After several hours of touring the grounds and interviewing dozens of aging members of "The Greatest Generation" as some of them rocked in unison on the veranda outside their home, I went back to my motel room and wrote and rewrote throughout the night.

I returned home the next day with what I thought was to-date, one of my finest pieces yet in my new career. I anxiously went to the office and submitted the story to my editor and waited as he read through the pages and then casually he tossed my blood, sweat and tears on my desk and declared, "Kender, I have every one of these words in a book in my office, who the hell are you trying to fool."

My jaw dropped, my heart sank and my body went cold...how could that be, these were my words, my thoughts, my magic that I transposed to the paper.

He saw my bewildered look and a broad smile bloomed across his round face.

"I've been waiting to pull that on you", he said, " IT'S THE DICTIONARY, you rookie. All of those words are in my dictionary!", he shouted.

It's a sight and sound I keep with me always.

With the passing of "Prince"  and the way he always wanted to do it his way and the recent passing of other great artists, both musicians and authors, I'm reminded of how I evolved from putting words on paper to putting feelings on paper. Words are just words in the dictionary. What turns them into great stories, epics, into masterpieces, is simply the order in which they appear. I'm no where close to ever having anything of that magnitude come from my mind or soul but it does help me realize the brilliance of gifted people.

A piano is like a dictionary for music. There are 88 keys all laid out in the same continuous pattern from the lowest of lows to the highest of highs. But one note can have two different names.  "G" sharp is the same as  "A" flat yet it is the same note and sounds the same. What makes it unique is how it is played in sequence to all of the other notes.

Which brings me to the conclusion of this conversation with myself.

We all have a gift. We all have the same resources available to us. Now, all we have to do is put the words, put the notes in the right order. Not other people's order, but your order. Tell your story. Sing your song.