Martin Spitznagel Pianist. Composer. Writer. Filmmaker.

Writer’s Weekend 2009

Dear Reader,

Apologies for disappearing. I was in the wilderness, foraging for food and sleeping in primitive huts. Okay, actually I was in a swanky cabin in Chautauqua, NY, but I was away from the internet, reachable only by cell phone, and that counts as “roughing it” as far as I’m concerned.

The occasion? Writer’s Weekend 2009, an annual event with my friend Mat that is currently in its third year. We started Writer’s Weekend as an escape where we could devote a couple of days purely to our stories. Mat has already completed a novel, a 120-page fantasy adventure, and is currently working on its prequel. I am working on a novel called “The Last Darkstrider,” which features a Huntress, an Illusionist, and copious amounts of deer-on-deer action.

For the past three years, we have managed to escape our workaday worlds and venture out into the great white wilderness, two men in silk pajamas trying to draw down the muses. Here’s a sample conversation to give you an idea of what exactly this brilliant meeting of the minds consists of:

Martin: I heard this amazing CD with Chick Corea and Bela Fleck called “The Enchantment.”
Mat: Is she from Korea?
Martin: Who?
Mat: Chick Korea.
Martin: She’s a he.
Mat: Oh. So Chick Corea is neither a chick nor Korean?
Martin: No.
Mat: [pause] It’s all coming together.

Seriously, the weekend is as much for writing as it is for just hanging out, especially since I moved to D.C. I realized that, as worried as I was about sustaining our friendship, that it was really my move to D.C. that made things more challenging. Mat and I share a special bond over our stories, though. I’m one of the few people with whom he shares his writing, and vice-versa. I have a lot of creative endeavors pulling on my time, but none are quite as satisfying as crafting a chapter in TLD, mostly because it’s so damn hard. These people who whip out fully realized fantasy worlds? Geniuses. Not exaggerating. It’s amazing. The amount of work that goes into building a new and convincing world with three-dimensional characters is shocking.

The weekend started out with an adventure. I-79 North was a winter wonderland. I-90 East was closed, and we got rerouted through Nowhere, PA, in order to get to I-86, which was so snow-covered that it was like driving through somebody’s backyard. Mat’s car, an early-2000’s model Elantra named “The Waitress,” handled the situation with aplomb, but it definitely added a layer of stress.

We arrived at the cabin after nightfall, and had to drag the suitcases across a frozen tundra of a yard to get there. The cabin, a steamy 50 degrees, took awhile to warm up, but the whole thing felt like a great adventure. After a few hot showers and usage of the toilet, the septic system was working as good as new, and the heater, called the “Munchkin,” got to work quickly on making our stay more temperate. By the second night, I was able to sleep in my usual nighttime attire of a t-shirt and boxer briefs, unlike the first night when I had to nearly wear my coat to bed.

We spent the next two days in a haze of writing and mildly homosexual references to bananas and peanut butter. I got more than 20+ pages written in my novel, and came to a number of revelations. Mat was also productive, adding pages to his 11th and 12th chapters.

The real luxury, however, was the fact that we had nowhere else to be. I’m realizing, as I get older, that real luxury for an adult is not feeling like you have anywhere else to be, anything else to do, anything else to take care of, etc… When you’re a kid, luxury is experiences and adventures and time doing fun things. When you’re an adult, luxury is the absence of responsibility. My only job this past weekend was to write and eat and write some more. It was heavenly. And it helped that there was nothing else to do, so when I’d hit one of those “what should I do?” moments, my answer was invariably, “Well, I suppose I’ll keep writing.”

A friend of mine called me a Renaissance Man today. I think that’s the best possible spin on what I think of as creative ADD. One day I’m a pianist, the next I’m a writer, the next I’m a filmmaker, the next I’m a composer… on and on, I spin around these different interests, devoting time to each. It makes for an exceedingly rich life, I’ll give it that, but it drives my wife freaking nuts. I can walk in a number of circles – among pianists, writers, graphic artists, filmmakers, but the challenge, I suppose, is focusing on one thing other than ragtime piano, which is the only thing in my life that no one has to ask, cajole, or encourage me to do. My default setting is “ragtimer,” so that’s easy-peasy. It’s making anything out of the other interests that’s hard!

Speaking of the ragtime life, while I was gone, a wonderful thing happened. Rob Bamberger, host of “Hot Jazz Saturday Night” on WAMU 88.5 FM in Washington, DC, talked about and played selections on his December 12th show from my “Tricky Fingers” CD for 22 minutes!

I’ve never been featured on the radio like that before, and I was shocked at how nice and complimentary and excited he was about my music. The recording is only going to be up for a little while, but you can find it here: http://wamu.org/programs/hjsn/ Scroll to the 30-minute mark to hear where he starts talking about me!

I can’t tell you how surreal it is to think of my music (my music!) transmitted over the airwaves like that, and for that long. It’s crazy. It’s nuts. And then to read from my liner notes like that, and tell the story of the recording like that, is just amazing. Like most good things in my life, I owe this seminal event to my friend Bryan Wright, who sent Rob a copy of my CD nearly two years ago.

One of the coolest things about making a recording is that you never know where it’s going to lead you. I’ve had folks from around the world purchase my CD, and it’s amazing to think that I might be playing right now in someone’s CD player.

It’s the same kind of pleasure as having someone read a chapter or a story that you wrote. There is nothing more satisfying for me than having another human being experience and enjoy something that I’ve created. It is immensely satisfying, one of the few times that I really feel like I’m in the flow and doing what I’m supposed to be doing on this planet. I don’t get to experience it as much as I would like, but the challenge for me is to continue on, keep working at it, and power through those times when I don’t feel like I have any new music in me (music in the broadest sense, i.e., products of the Muses).

That’s hopefully why we’ll still be having Writer’s Weekends in 30 years. You’ve got to make time for your music, no matter what form it may take.