Rock Reading Tuesdays

Calling All Rock Reading Enthusiasts,

My name is Yesenia and if you love all things rock and reading related this is the blog for you. Each Tuesday evening, I will be sharing with you either a song or reading that I have been enjoying for the week. I know reading sounds very vague but there is a reason for that, because I could be reading anything fanfiction, a book, manga, web comic, and or graphic novel throughout the week. Its one of my favorite hobbies and I love that I get to share with you some amazing authors and some of their works. I am all for the blending of musical genres and or reading materials, so some weeks will not fit fully in its respective category. For example, manga and comics of any kind are both a literary work and a work of art or in music alternative- rock.

This is our first day together so I will be covering my thoughts on the song Monsters Remix (feat. Blackbear Demi Lovato) by All Time Low, it is a great example of 2020 pop rock with a mixture of alternative-hip hop. The song itself is about self-reflection on why they keep going back to a toxic person, they know that this person is bad for them, and yet at night they are the only one they want. The writer is wondering they keep running back to this person as if they don’t mind the destruction, they cause them emotionally. It is a great song to think back on and remember your own toxic ex, friend, or family member that you can’t seem to help going back to. The singers here sang their hearts on this track and it shows that they have all been hurt on this level before. This is a song where you can sing along and scream out your hurts while jamming out to some great guitar riffs and drumbeats. I recommend everyone go check this song out and get rid of some of the unspoken pain they have been carrying around and jam out to Monsters.

Next week I will be covering a reading of some sort, but fair warning my reading materials can cover some tough topics, so warnings will be placed at the beginning of each blog. Thanks for reading and I will see you all next week, have a happy evening.

Thomas Benke: Looking Around In Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott, in the Chapter “Looking Around,” says this: Now, if you ask me, what’s going on is that we’re all up to here in it, and probably the most important thing is that we not yell at one another. Otherwise we’d all just be barking away like Pekingese: “Ah! Stuck in the shit! And it’s your fault, you did this …” Writing involves seeing people suffer and, as Robert Stone once put it, finding some meaning therein. But you can’t do that if you’re not respectful. If you look at people and just see sloppy clothes or rich clothes, you’re going to get them wrong. She goes on to speak about empathy for other people and also, as an extension empathy for yourself. So, in a sense as you try to write believable, relatable characters, you will come to forgive people their trespasses—because no one believes they are the villain of their story, so you have to write “bad,” or “evil” characters from a point of view where they rationalize what they are doing in such a way that it is the right or only way they see is possible. By extrapolation, then, if you begin to forgive and withhold judgment from your less-than-desirable, or annoying characters, perhaps you can extend the same courtesy to yourself and forgive your own trespasses and sins. This, for me, starts to enter the realm of “writing as therapy,” and though I am a firm believer in that—I practice it to this very day—I think I would caution anyone who thinks that simply writing through things is going to lead you to a place of light and love. I am not saying it can’t by any means. What I am saying is I have wrote through my thoughts and my problems and my desperation and depression for decades and I still had enough baggage on my shoulders to supply an army platoon with rations for a year. In any case, when thinking about craft, it is very important to step into the shoes of all of your characters, especially those characters that you see as antagonists and villians. I believe there are very few universal maxims in writing but one thing is virtually certain: every character you write is your version of that human being. Confucius said “everywhere I go, there I am,” and that is never more true than when you are writing. So if you are writing a character that is distasteful to you, it might be effective for you to ask yourself why that is the case. I wrote a blog for Obscura last semester titled, “The Puppy Had It Coming.” The gist of the article was to pose a puzzle to writers. How can you write a scene where an adult human kicks a puppy across the room and the reader at least understands why. I am not saying there is any way to justify the action or for the readers to be on the human’s side unless they are sociopaths. I am saying you need let the reader know how dark the place is in the character’s mind that he is capable of doing that.

Rock Reading Tuesdays

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