I was riding in the car the other day and a familiar song came over the radio:

“No New Tale to Tell” by Love and Rockets from their Earth, Sun, Moon album.

At the time, my brain was hopping around like a frog trying to avoid capture.  (Like the tree frog that got into my house the other day, and it took me several tries to get it back out again.)  I was thinking about my recent writing and marketing efforts when the following verses played:

My world is your world
People like to hear their names
I’m no exception
Please call my name
Call my name

My mind jumped to the thought:

Is that why I write?  Is that why people do crazy things on the internet, or in life?  Are we all just trying to be recognized? (For the record, I don’t know.)

Then came the refrain:

No new tale to tell
No new tale to tell
No new tale to tell

That is exactly what I wanted to tell a person the other day in one of my online writers groups.  They were worrying about sharing their work with other writers for fear the other writers would steal their ideas.  I just wanted to shout at them: No new tale to tell!  There are no new ideas, just new versions of the same old stories.  How many times have you seen The Lord of the Rings retold in the fantasy genre?  Let them have the idea, just write it better.

Then came the verse:

When you’re down
It’s a long way up
When you’re up
It’s a long way down

It’s all the same thing
No new tale to tell

Yep, it’s long way up, and down.  Everyone started somewhere and will end somewhere. Hopefully, I’ll end with several readers.  It’s funny how songs sometimes just hit the mark on where you’re brain is currently hopping.

If you’ve never heard of Love and Rockets, you should give them a listen.  They are an alternative rock band from the late eighties.  I own three of their CD’s, and like all the songs.  Here a a few of my favorites:

“Here on Earth”, “Welcome Tomorrow”, “An American Dream”, “No Big Deal”, “So Alive”, and “Holiday on the Moon”

Look them up, check them out, and enjoy.