In a long ago conversation with a friend, salsa vibraphonist extraordinaire George Rodriguez of the New Swing Sextet, I ruminated about my disappointment over jazz legend Miles Davis, whose trumpet transformed from playing sweetly melodic and soulful tunes to wildly dissonant, herky-jerky compositions in his later years. George prescriptively responded, "Artists are always trying to invent something new, and sometimes they reach new places that no one understands, not even themselves. Maybe whether it's good or not to others doesn't matter to them as much as being in the moment of invention, whatever the outcome."
George beautifully summarized what writers do. They should always be ready to change their course, fearfully perhaps, but willingly, moving in new directions, reinventing their craft, trying a different sentence structure, establish a unique setting, creating an unexpected story line, reaching for an unfamiliar character. If writers are to reflect the times in which they live, they need to acknowledge that their times are always changing, so they must change with them.
George beautifully summarized what writers do. They should always be ready to change their course, fearfully perhaps, but willingly, moving in new directions, reinventing their craft, trying a different sentence structure, establish a unique setting, creating an unexpected story line, reaching for an unfamiliar character. If writers are to reflect the times in which they live, they need to acknowledge that their times are always changing, so they must change with them.
