Creating and schlepping

Allee Willis died back on Christmas Eve. You wouldn’t know her name unless you’re deeply into songwriting, but you know her work. She wrote or co-wrote “I’ll Be There For You,” the “Friends” theme; “Neutron Dance,” the Pointer Sisters hit; the music for the Broadway show “The Color Purple”; and best of all, the Earth, Wind and Fire classic “September,” which you have now started to sing in your head by reflex.

Willis led a big life — she was known for wild parties, and she filled her house so full of knickknacks and doodads that she turned it into a Museum of Kitsch. But when I was reading her obit, something she said about her songs stuck out:

“I, very thankfully, have a few songs that will not go away, but they’re schlepping along 900 others.”

That’s one of the keys to a creative life — knowing that not everything you do will be a hit.

Sometimes you grind out a piece of work, pour your soul into it, put it out into the world, and … crickets. But sometimes a little thing you toss off in 20 minutes becomes what you’re known for.

Don’t discount those little tossed-off things — they’re often the result of years of prep work that your subconscious did to prepare you for that moment.

And don’t grieve too much over the hard work that didn’t find an audience — sometimes the work itself has to be the reward.

Success is a fickle thing and not always up to you. The one thing you can do is keep creating, building a whole body of work that keeps schlepping along, the hits and the duds and the in-betweens, but every one of them yours.

— TT