Amicus.

It has been brought to my attention that I apparently have “no plan”. This information comes from someone who was once very close to me. I still consider this person a friend, but it seems as though whenever we get into any sort of serious conversation about our chosen field of the arts their side just turns into: “you know I think you’re the most talented person I’ve ever met but I’m still better than you”. Obviously not verbatim but that tends to be the typical sentiment. I do love this person dearly and think of them as one of my soul mates, but honestly, it just gets tiring to hear the same implication in their words after all these years.

To be perfectly honest I do have a plan. I just haven’t figured out all of the details yet. I know what I want to accomplish and in what order and at the moment that’s all that matters to me. I’m not going to plan out every minute action that I will take over the next 12 months because, a) that would take forever just to plan, and, b) circumstances change from day to day. This does not, however, mean that I am simply going to try and achieve my goals without planning anything in advance. It simply means that, for now, I am going to take each day as it comes. I will complete each task in the order they need to be completed. And, when the time comes, I will start planning for the next few stages. Stage 1 is the main priority. Without it being finalized, or at least close to, there aren’t any other stages.

Let’s look at it this way: You’ve decided to bake your own bread. With this bread you would like to achieve the ultimate goal of making a perfect sandwich. You have all of the ingredients, tools and necessary accoutrements to complete this task, but you still have to bake the bread first. So why would you spend the whole time that you should be concentrating on baking thinking about how you’re going to prepare all of the other ingredients for the sandwich? Currently you have no bread, and if you don’t pay attention to what you’re doing while making the bread and do it properly you may never have any bread. And how are you going to make a sandwich without bread?*

My point exactly.

*I don’t want to hear about how you can make a sandwich without using bread. I do realize that there are people out there who are diabetic or have gluten allergies or have some other reason to not eat bread who would probably make a wrap using a large leaf of lettuce or something of that sort but let’s be honest, the moment you get rid of the bread it ceases to be called a “sandwich”. Look it up.

Somnium.

There was a girl with a smile that could brighten anyone’s day. We sat in a coffeehouse, talking. It was a pleasant conversation. It reminded me of the old days. I first noticed the song playing over the sound system not because it was a punk rock song, which seemed a little out of place during normal business hours, but because it was a song from a band I was once in. But it didn’t strike me as odd that it was playing even though we had never made a decent recording of it. What was so strange was that it wasn’t us. It sounded like a completely different band had recorded it. It was somewhat slower and sounded so professionally polished and produced. I liked it. I looked it up on iTunes to see who it was and found that there were a few different versions by different bands on there. The song I had thought was an original of ours was actually written a few years before we were even a band. I had never realized we were playing a cover.

And then it happened.

There was a deafening sound that echoed through the coffeehouse. It was a sharp, scratching, cracking noise that didn’t belong. We caught a brief glimpse of each other’s faces, a look of terror burned into place where just moments ago there had been smiles and happiness. The entire scene went black and then bright and unfocused. - I opened my eyes just in time to see the shelf above me tipping down in my direction, showering me with its contents of vintage toy trucks. I jumped to the side as fast as I could to avoid the falling debris.

It was then that I realized I was no longer sleeping. The dream had ended the instant I figured out that the cracking sound should not have been there. The moment everything went dark and then light and I focused on the toys falling at me. That was the moment that I knew I was awake.

Thirty seconds later my alarm went off, not knowing that I no longer required its assistance to end my sleep cycle…

What a hell of a way to start your day, huh?

Primoris.

I failed before I even had a chance to begin. Well actually I simply forgot to write last night. And I didn’t really forget so much as I remembered way too late and was already starting to fall asleep. So I’m just going to kick this project off tonight, a day later than planned. Which means instead of finishing on Sunday evening I’ll extend my deadline to Monday. Now that that’s out of the way I can get into something more interesting than my short-term memory.

I’ve almost finished preproduction for my new demos. The drum tones sound pretty good so far, so I’ll begin recording drum tracks tomorrow (or later today, rather). Everything is shaping up nicely though, I must say. I was worried about what little material I would have to work on but I managed to pull together more ideas than I’d hoped. For now, it looks like I may have anywhere from 8 to 12 songs in the works.* You have no idea how much this excites me. Again, I worry about the lyrics, as many of the songs have none at the moment. But that’s why I started this project: to get the creative writer side of me working again. Hopefully this journalistic writing will help.

Tonight I’m working on a little bit more preproduction. Getting the recording sessions prepped and ready to go; recording a simple, “scratch track” guitar for each song as a guide to play the drums to; getting all of the click tracks adjusted to the proper tempos, et al. I’m sure it sounds very boring to anyone other than myself. But to me this is fun. For one thing it means I’m doing something productive with my time instead of watching teevee or something. But also it means I’m taking steps towards achieving my goals. And that, to me, seems like the most important thing anyone can ever do. So instead of sitting here typing I think I’ll get back to work.

*Honestly I have way more songs that I could work on. It’s just that some of the other stuff doesn’t blend quite as well with the vibe of the songs I am working on and others are ideas that need more time and concentration to make them into better songs. But don’t worry, there are plenty more songs I will be working on throughout the year.

Exertus.

I’ve wanted to write for a while now. It’s been far too long. I seem to always get into this mode where I think that I can only post something if I have something to say. And then when I do have something to say it’s been so long since I’ve posted that I completely forget that I have somewhere to say the things I want to say. But it’s not always about having something to rant on or having to speak your mind. Sometimes it’s simply about writing. Having an outlet for creativity. And whenever I actually write in something like this it always seems to help me regain some creativity. And I need that right about now.

I’ve been working on some new music lately. But the one part that always slows down my writing process is the lyrics. And I’ve found that simply writing about anything and everything helps to get all the nonsense out of my head so that I can hear the words and phrases that could be lyrics for a song. Sort of like a Spring Cleaning for the mind. Getting rid of all the crap that has accumulated in my brain so that I can be eloquent with my writing instead of just using clichés. So I’ve decided on a project. This undertaking will involve a minimum of 250 words per day, for seven straight days, beginning this Monday. I will post every evening for a solid week about whatever comes to mind. Hopefully this will help clear enough space for me to be more productive again. I’m sure it won’t be very interesting, but who knows? Maybe I’ll write about mundane things, maybe I’ll write a fictional short story. Whatever happens I am convinced that it can only help.