When I haven't been sick I've been working on writing quite a bit. I am trying to write songs without thinking TOO much about it. I often worry, 'is this too bland?', 'is this too obvious?', 'is this too obscure sounding?'. I avoid certain chord progressions because it might sound too poppy, or too jazzy, or too SOMETHING. I am tired of worrying. I want to just write what I like and be honest. So that is what I am working on.

I craft the chords and melody until they sound good to ME. I'm sure many of my songs have similar 'vibes' but I think any songwriter deals with this. It's not necessarily a bad thing. These songs are reflections of me, I have no desire to make a well rounded album, only an honest one. I don't want to write the exact same song over and over again, but I don't think I am. Each song is taking it one step farther, one step deeper into myself.

My art will be more pure if I can break through these insecurities. I think.

This winter has been a winter of endless illness. One virus after another has kept me from making as much progress as I would have liked. Still overall, things are going pretty well. I still need more time to write/practice. I have 4 shows booked at this point, and more on the horizon I'm sure.

I am tempted to write a review of a show I went to last week. It was a woman who neither rocked hard nor did anything truly artistic, but the crowd was enraptured by her beauty and quirkiness. But it will inevitably turn into a complaining rant, so I'll just leave you with that teaser.

More to come...

Woe is (not) me.

The show went great. Now I'm onto new material.

Where do I want to go? I really want to rock more. I write ballads, sad songs, etc., but I also want to rock. I want to write something musically intriguing and totally 'groovin'. That is the tricky part, the more stuff you add the less it tends to rock. I have a handful (or more) rock songs I've written in the last 10 years, but most of them are dated. I am ready for something NEW. I have 2-3 songs I am sticking with that need a band. Drums, bass, another guitar possibly....but let's face it, it's SO much easier to practice by myself and perform by myself. The whole process of teaching someone my songs and the little voice in my head constantly saying, 'they probably hate this. Why am I so selfish that I expect other people to care about my songs?' etc. etc. I need to kill that voice. Who cares? I play with 3 other acts and I don't think that about them. I might not always love what they write, but I never think that it's a total waste of time. I like the challenge, I like contributing.

Telling myself each day, there is no time but now. Do what I want with this moment. So far giving up the self defeating mentality is working alright. I still think the world sucks, but refuse to be under it's thumb.