An Author's Pledge to his Readers - Old Geezers Part 2
"I just need to tell my story. I could not leave it grinding inside of me." - Gate Lepine
Gate describes his writing style:
“I use fragmented sentences. Lots of sentences. Fragmented. A lot. Quite often, this is the way I actually speak and, in songs and in poetry, it works well for me.”
That explains the appeal of his songs. None of the 5000+ songs in his catalogue are aria’s by any stretch, but they all have one thing in common - they’re singable. For example, in “I’ll Do It For You” (presented here), it only takes him 5 words to not only make his point, but to compel his audience to sing along. The shape of a 5-word phrase completes the song…”I’ll take an old dream…I’ll give you my heart…I’ll give you my promise”…and so on.
The listener can’t help themselves. They’re drawn instinctively to the next phrase, and the next phrase… as they hum the melody and sing the words.
When I first recorded it and sent it to the netherworld of the internet, the response was immediate. The comments expressed much affection for what they just witnessed. This rarely happens in a medium that flooded with content.
In a previous post (Old Geezers Have Much to Say - June 24), I uploaded the first part of the Forward to Gate’s book. There he lists three reasons why he wrote his book. Here is the second part of that Forward.
With these three intentions as my inspiration, I will tell my story honestly and from my heart and not for my own fame. In fact, I walked away from fame when it knocked at my door once. All I had to do was open it. Money from a publication would be a welcome asset but it is not in my primary list of intentions. I just need to tell my story. I could not leave it grinding inside of me. I know I’ll feel better once it’s all down on paper whether or not anyone reads it. There’s the good, the bad, the ugly, the funny and the sad.
The best part for me is that someone might read it all. I’ve written it the way I think, the way I talk, the way I walk and the way I am. I pull no punches and I won’t stretch the words into something you and I would not understand. It’s from the heart of a hard-knocks graduate.
I use the present tense in most of this narrative but I must explain that my writing weapon is double-edged. The present, for me, exists in two ways. I use the “present of ‘NOW’” in the telling of my entire story and I use the “present of ‘THEN’ in the stories I tell within the story. I intermingle the “NOW” and the “THEN” liberally throughout the narrative and I go back and forth with it from one moment to the next. I’m not sure if this style is acceptable in the literary world but I am invoking the law of poetic license with it. I trust that all mature readers already possess the mental ability to recognize what’s happening when my story suddenly shifts from “the present now” and “the present” then.
Another thing I do a lot in my text is to use fragmented sentences. Lots of sentences. Fragmented. A lot. Quite often, this is the way I actually speak and, in songs and in poetry, it works well for me.
Some readers may not like it but I hope most will tolerate it. If not, well, I won’t say, “Tough shit!” but I won’t change my style and I won’t offer any apologies. Not then, not now. People who know me already understand this and people who might want to know me, or know me better, will get to understand this (I hope).
Gate Lépine