Why Create?

I guess I started really (and regularly) writing songs when I was 15. I had dabbled in it previously, but I call 15 the real start point. (There's a particularly cringe-worthy ode that I wrote about my dog when I was 6 years old ... but let's leave that one alone ... or for another time.)

I remember vividly the very first time I sat at my piano with a set of lyrics that my dad had penned. It was late 1990, and the news was full of the Iraqi war. My dad had dared me to write some music to a poem he's written about what was happening. Actually, I didn’t know a hell of a lot about it — I was just some rural teenager who was pretty much a loner and found his solace in music. I was struggling to find myself - I wasn't the sporty type and definitely not part of the "cool" set at school. Sure, I had my friends, but I was probably most happy just being in my own space. Still, sitting at that brown polished Kawai piano in 1990 with a set of lyrics in front of me gave me a purpose. I was about to create something that hadn’t existed before.

Some 20 minutes later, I had written the music for my father’s lyrics (and I'd won the challenge!) The song was called "Remember Life", and it started me on a life-long journey. It had 4 chords, was written in C and stuck to the tried-and-true verse/chorus structure - Sondheim it wasn't, but it was the starting gun that fired my love of composing.

Less than a year later, I began writing musicals, combining my short-story writing with my new-found passion of composing. My first musical was called "BackStreets", and was about something I knew nothing about and had never experienced (homeless city kids - because, that's edgy, right?) Still, my high school drama teacher encouraged me to continue working on it, stressing the importance of research, and then workshopped it in 1993 when I was in my final year of high school.

While neither of those pieces were necessarily ground-breaking (and possibly just a little embarrassing now I look back), they were the beginning of where I am today.

While I was in high school, a friend of mine asked me what I wanted to do when I left school — and I told her that I wanted to write musicals. When she asked what my back-up plan was, I told her there wasn’t.

It was the only plan.

Now, the weird and wonderful thing called "life" obviously takes us on different roads and journeys, and between my high-school dreams and today, there’s a lot of “life” that’s happened. But that original dream remains, and it’s one that I continue to work on. The goal posts might be a bit different, but original end point still exists. Sure, there’s been times when I’ve been tempted to put all the crayons away and leave the dream behind (yes, I have my times of hissy fits and "I'm gonna take my ball and my bat and go home"), but I haven’t been able to.

It’s who I am. In the immortal words of "The Greatest Showman", this is me.

Why? Why have I hung on to a goal that I had when I was some näive and bright-eyed kid? hy do I continue to work towards it now? What’s the point?

Seriously, why bother?

It’s a big question, and one that doesn’t have a simple answer. But I guess I can break it down into a few different "parts", so here goes.

Part of it is in my guts — It’s not a head thing, and it goes beyond a heart thing. I just know it’s what I am meant to do. It goes beyond what I feel I should be doing and enters into the very core of me (however clichéd that sounds). Even when (in my darkest moments) I try and deny it, I can’t. The music, the lyrics, the story calls me back. I constantly find myself thinking about and searching for new ideas and possibilities to create with. My ‘eyes’ are always open, trying to locate that spark of inspiration that hints at something bigger. My mind is always in the process of creating.

Part of it is in hope — It's the hope that one day I will write something that people sing for years to come, beyond my own time on this planet: a legacy that perhaps doesn’t make me “famous” as the world would have it, but “known” enough to be recognised for it. It’s a hope that, somehow, I help affect the lives of others in a positive way; to inspire, to spur on, and also give hope to. There really is nothing like having someone tell you that what you wrote touched them.

Part of it is because I love it — even when it’s difficult and frustrating and exhausting and it hurts, I still love it. Yes, I know that I am climbing a mountain towards a summit I may never reach. I get that: I'm not delusional. But here's the thing: getting there isn’t necessarily the final goal. It’s the journey, the climb — and the love of the climb — that drives me to do what I do. Certainly, I want to create some milestones along the way. Don't we all? And I've already been fortunate enough to have done so, and I look forward to more in the future. Yet, chances are I’ll never get to the “top” — whatever that may be! I compose and write because I love to.

Part of it is to have people join me along the way — mine is not a solo journey. No person is an island. It is not just about me and what I do. I’m not motivated by selfish desires. This is about others too: those who sing, dance, act, perform, design, create, build, costume, paint, direct, and more. I create for an industry that shouldn’t struggle with disconnection, yet can sometimes feel isolated and lonely. We are all in this together - we all have similar desires and aims, but sometimes we get caught up in working against each other rather than for. I absolutely love seeing other people succeed. I’m passionate about bringing people together and supporting others in their dreams, in their endeavours, and in seeing them reach their goals. We should be supporting each other, because ultimately we can’t do what we do alone.

And finally, part of it is because it’s a big part of who I am — in all of my imperfections and idiosyncrasies. I am full of contradictions and I have my quirks. But, don't we all? We are by no means perfect - not by any stretch of the imagination. I love to say that we are "perfectly imperfect". It’s our differences that help us create the way we do. Again, we are NOT perfect. None of us are — and that’s probably a very good thing. As an educator, I hear parents demand their children to be perfect: but that's not possible. And if you can't demand that of yourself, you can't demand it of others. After all, it’s our differences that make us unique, and able to tell the story in a way that others can’t.

If you’ve read this far, maybe some of this is resonating with you.

I hope so.

We do what we do because it’s in our makeup; it's a part of our DNA. And even though there will be a ton of other things you do in life, the desire to create will always be in and with you. It always will be.

When the road is tough, awkward, muddy and slippery; take heart. Keep the faith. Be strong and endure. The things you create and the way you do it have purpose and meaning. We don’t always know the outcome of what we do — oftentimes, we never will.

But one day, when you least expect it, there’ll be a moment when someone taps you on the shoulder and tells you their story of how what you did changed their life for the better.

And that’s something that makes everything totally worthwhile.

If that’s not a reason to do what you do, then I don’t know what is.

Until next time.

Drew