FAWM 2011 Recap.

It’s nearly 5pm on March 1st and I’m wiped out. But I feel like saying some stuff about FAWM, before I forget it.

I am grateful to FAWM this year for being a welcome distraction from the emotional stresses I was under at the beginning of the month. Even though I do write and play in the “off season,” it had been a long time since I had done either.

And it was satisfying enough to be writing again in a focused way. But I was feeling quite lonely in my FAWM. And then I called Errol on the radio show. We had a grand ole time talking, and I also got a taste of all the great music I hadn’t had the time/mental space to start checking out. Things turned around for me at that point, when I remembered my place in the community.

Any FAWMlings reading this, this is the best I can tell you: Sure, writing on your own is important, getting to 14 is (kind of, if you want it to be) important, but the heart of FAWM is in these things:
Forum,
Chat Room,
Radio Show,
Skirmishes,
Commenting on other people’s songs.

Acknowledge yourself, a sparkling droplet of water in an ocean of musical brilliance. Dive into the community and it WILL hold you up.

I ended up with 16 songs, the highest number of songs I’ve achieved since I started FAWMing in 2007. (I think.) Got to do a most excellent collaboration with The Cow Exchange, one of my favorite humans. In an unexpected bit of awesome, a supremely talented, first-rate, large-hearted person donated to give me my rock hand. With me in my current precarious work situation, his generosity was more appreciated than I’ll ever be able to tell him in words.

The FAWM shenanigans were fantastic as usual, including the metal take on the whole boy/girl-band explosion from a couple of years ago. There was also a country song about a guy coming on to a dentist, a burst of lyrical cleverness. Fun. And: Sleepient Napwork wins the whole Internet. (A brilliant collective effort; FawmToronto is not messing around.)

So how did I do on my personal goals?

Shall I take them one by one?:

*********Overall, I’m looking to simplify. Musically, lyrically, process-wise, all of it.
Did I manage to do this? Heck, I don’t know.

The time from turning-on-the-computer to recording-the-song seems to have been minimized. There weren’t many technical issues once I got everything up and running, but I also know for a fact that I’m not using my equipment as fully as I could…And, my live guitar sounds feel muddier this year. Grr. Need to figure that out. (someone told me I have noisy preamps…) Could also learn a little more about EQing. In the past it was customary for me to boost low end on EVERYTHING, because that makes the sound louder in my headphones. But, I’m thinking it also makes the signal muddier, so I stopped doing that about a week ago.

*********I’d like to record at least two songs that feature piano. The piano freaks me out. Would like to get over that a bit.
This did not happen.
I did write a song on piano that didn’t end up making it (see below).
And I did end up adding piano to one of the songs.
Need to work on this goal.

*********Participate in at least two skirmishes, and do what I need to do in the allotted time. The shortest amount of time I’ve been able to manage thus far is two hours.
I am becoming a big believer in skirmishes. I never thought this would happen.

Skirmishes make me physically queasy. I’m in a high state of insecurity/anxiety for the whole hour, and this has a weird physical effect on me. But skirmishes do something beautiful by removing the time I usually spend hemming and hawing over songs. There’s no time to question my decisions.

I stayed away from them for most of the month. Saw the titles chosen and thought “I’d never be able to do anything with that…” But I threw myself into the breach in the last couple of days and did end up participating in two. I did, pretty much, stay within the hour time allotment. That feels huge. And you know what? I don’t hate the songs!

*********I’d also like to write a I - V - vi – IV song, just ‘cause.
I’ll tell you a secret: I did this. Gave myself the goal of writing the easiest, cheesiest thing I could think of, using the Four Chords to Rule the World (that’s Jodes’ terminology). And, I wrote a song. On piano, even. It was SO cheesy that there was no way I could inflict that song upon my FAWM compatriots in good conscience.

*********And for extra credit, I’d like to demo the three songs from last year that I finished writing, but did not post recordings for.
No dice. Couldn’t even get near it.
And that’s a lesson for me: From here on out, all FAWM songs will be recorded during FAWM. There’s very little chance I’ll get back to it later.

Key Takeaway 1: Leave Room For The Unexpected And The Unknown.
I’m a listmaker, a planner in the extreme. I’d made several lists of the exact FAWM songs I wanted to achieve for the month. About a week in, I realized that that kind of micromanagement is not going to do for February anymore. Case in point: my final FAWM song, “Folly.”

When the Week 4 “Through-Composed” challenge was issued, I was interested right away. Had an entirely different (complete, old) lyric slated, and a different, ready made musical bed. But I felt a little dead inside, just carrying out (my own) orders. I wanted to feel a little more inspired. Threw the old ideas away on the morning of the last day, and started from scratch, keeping the challenge goal in mind.

“Folly” was born entirely in the last 20 or so hours of FAWM. Nearly blew a fuse shuffling lyric lines around, figuring out different guitar bits. Harmonically, this song is more varied than anything I usually do under my own steam. I think it contains my highest recorded vocal notes. (I mostly sing in my head while I’m writing, so when I went to sing “Folly” into a mic, I realized the part was WAY too high for me to deliver comfortably. So I delivered it uncomfortably.) Mentally, I did more work on that last day than any day I can remember. And I like the way it turned out.

Creating something from nothing (no thing) is important. And necessary. It reminds me that 1, I can do that, and 2, Occasionally, good things result.

Key Takeaway 2: The Lyrics Are Always Worth One More Look.
Normally, I put a lot of stock in my words. Earlier in the month I wrote that FAWM songs generally feel throwaway to me. Because of how quickly one has to work, I’ve been okay with putting down first-off lyric ideas. But I figured out this month that there’s always lyric sweetening that can be done. And the sweetening makes the songs feel less disposable.

So I got things still to work on: Playing piano. Getting better sounds. I also need new guitar chords – I fall back too much on E minor. It would be great to collect some new instruments (including a ukulele, apparently).

Don’t want to dwell on that stuff, though. There's a higher proportion of songs I wrote in February that I'm getting enjoyment out of listening to, even now. That's unusual.

It was a great FAWM, yes indeed. I’ll be on the site listening daily, at least through March.

Right now I want a nap.

FAWM. Day 28. Still One More.

Have been working on a song all day.

Still not finished.

Am exhausted.

Skirmish in 7 min.

Hopefully that will do it, can finish the other thing later.

Am waking up from a nap, having trouble putting subjects in my sentences.

Hopefully my next note will be that I'm done...

FAWM. Day 28. One More.

One more.

I'm headed to bed at nearly 4am on the day.

One more song left.

One.

FAWM. Day 27. Three More.

I'm at 11. Three more.

I'm hungry, but I just ate.

I think my body is balking at the effort that this evening will require.

I have been in worse positions, though.

Perhaps more caffeine is required.

Spent some quality time in the chat room this afternoon. I should have done more of that this month.

Okay, enough stalling. Off I go.

FAWM. Day 27. SO MUCH to do today.

It's just gone 10am here.

Just made myself a healthy breakfast. SO much to do today.

Five songs left. TWO collabs in the works.

I'll check in later. Want to achieve a few things before the songskirmish. It was my goal to do two, I suppose I should get at least one in. I haven't traditionally been good at doing things in a short amount of time.

Bringing it on home.

FAWM. Day 26. Technical Difficulties.

Last night I was beset by technical difficulties that prevented me from finishing the song I was working on.

A friend tried to help me out. My poor friend. I send him tracks and am constantly exposing the "not rightness" of my recording methods.

(At least I'm using the colors now, friend. I learned from the last time you had to help me.)

Anyway, he pointed out a few things and now things seem to be okay.

No sleep until I'm done with the next four.

FAWM. Day 25. Strong Words. Weak Words.

Today is a day when words are flying in out of nowhere to stab me in the spine. Here are just a few.

From Middlemarch:

"Marriage is so unlike everything else.
There’s something awful in the nearness it brings.
Even if we loved someone else better than
Those we were married to
It would be no use.
I know it may be very dear,
But it murders our marriage.
And then our marriage always stays with us
Like a murder.
And we are weak."

From Jonathan Carroll's blog:

CUTTING LOOSE

Sometimes from sorrow, for no reason,
you sing. For no reason, you accept
the way of being lost, cutting loose from all else and electing a world where you go
where you want to.

Arbitrary, sound comes, a reminder
that a steady center is holding
all else. If you listen, that sound will tell where it is, and you can slide your way past trouble.

Certain twisted monsters
always bar the path—but that’s when you get going best, glad to be lost, learning how real it is
here on the earth, again and again.

~William Stafford

(I don't know *where* Jonathan Carroll finds his gems; at least twice a month I find myself sobbing from the beauty of the things he posts.)

These beautiful words make me sad that I'm going to have to say "okay" to some weak lyrics. There are only a few days left to FAWM, and I'm going to have to start finishing, no matter how unhappy I am with the words.

Breathe in, breathe out. Get on with it.

I got rejected today. It's a little twinge, not a big one.

There are still many, many things to be done. Going to practice saying hello to strangers.

FAWM. Day 24. Crap.

Argh.

Drat.

Frig.

There's this one song, see. I have two verses that I'm really happy with. But it needs a prechorus/chorusy refrainy bit. Something to tie it all together.

I was most worried about getting the percussion right (this song is closely modeled on another that has SLAMMIN' percussion). After three hours tinkering around with drums, the percussion is just about there.

Now I just need a *song* now to sing over it.

This is so frustrating.

There are still SEVEN to go!!!!

And I might be called in to work tomorrow.

Today it started to bother me that I haven't written a strummy song at all this year. I don't write strummy songs usually, I must admit. I get a little strummy song envy when I hear people's well-executed strummy songs.

Walked around all day with words written on my arm, a particularly insightful piece of criticism posted on the boards that I wanted to have with me at all times. I wrote it in Sharpie over most of my forearm.

Heh heh, work will be interesting tomorrow.

FAWM. Day 24. Preamble.

It's 5am.

I am too restless to sleep. Too groggy to get up and do something.

Listening to hysterical British women in a BBC drama.

There was a battle at a mill!

And an envoy with a note at the door...

A good friend of mine is completing her first album project. I am so, so proud of her.

So, so proud.

FAWM. Day 23. Unhemmed.

Somehow, I am at work.

This time yesterday I was not expecting to be here.

I am sleep deprived. It's way past lunch time and I am nothing like hungry; it's weird when I don't want to eat food.

Last night I called in to the radio show and spoke with Errol. There are people like warm summer breezes, and then there's Errol. It's amazing to me that I've never *actually* met him.

Listened to my FAWM 08 stuff. 2008 was a great year, a fun year. I wrote some of my favorite FAWM songs ever that year, even though I barely knew how to use my equipment. Other songs I had no memory of writing or recording, some of that stuff came off surprisingly well.

Talked to a friend yesterday for the first time in *ages*. Did me good.

I think I'm finally ready to get out of the strange little boat I've been in, on the choppy seas of Trying To Figure Out People and Things That Don't Want To Be Figured Out. Got shit to do. Those who want to be around, will be around. And those who don't want to be around can Fuck. Right. Off.

I got a wonderful note from a major-writer-author-woman. A Badass. I wrote her so long ago I had forgotten about it. Among other things, she said to me:

Think big, and don't let the world hem you in. If you can make it work, then it will work!

Yes.
Thank you.
Message received.

Maybe some collabs in these last few days?

Right now I'm feeling that FAWM is a lovely gift from the universe.

FAWM. Day 22. All Nighter.

I pulled my first allnighter last night for FAWM. Track #7 took way longer than I wanted or expected it to. I blame Drums on Demand. I found the perfect group of samples and then used, like, ten of them, wanting the tension to build all the way through. I even played fake bass. There are definitely some wrong notes in there.

But when you have drums, bass feels good.

It's still a weird time. I will, at intervals, make a decision to snap out of it, but bad news keeps *finding* me, in the most unexpected places.

Finished the track around 7am, but couldn't sleep in this morning. Had to go to the city and fill out a timesheet for work. I sat in a cafe and had lunch. Elton John's "Someone Saved My Life Tonight" played over the loudspeaker and I wept into a tuna sandwich.

Fuck, I love music.

And, Holy Shit, February's almost over!

Better put some speed on. I WILL get to fourteen.

FAWM. Day 21. Broken heart? Check.

I have written a song that breaks my own heart a bit.

I don't think this has ever happened before.

This is not to say that it will break anybody else's heart. Or even that it's worthy of being heard by anyone else.

This is just to say that it made me sad. I'm not sure that I've ever made myself sad before, even with all the tragic little dirges I've written up until this point.

Seemed a moment worthy of marking, somehow.

Hm.

FAWM. Day 20. Some Observations.

For me, there is such a thing called "song readiness."

I am suddenly song-ready. Like, all the time. I am ready to put pieces together and see connections that I didn't see a minute ago. At some point, I was just song-ready all the time, and then I was not, and now I am again.

If I stay like this for a month or so, I might be ready to do some truly deep work.

There are lots of angels in my songs this year. Angels running and hiding. Angels lurking. I am not a religious person. But I'm thinking a lot about all the stuff bearing down on me that I can't see.

There are a few things I listed as goals that I probably won't get to (songskirmishes - I'm not sure what I could do with the titles that have already been offered up; last year's songs). Will try not to stress myself out about it. Will just try to get to 14.

I keep forgetting to eat dinner and pay bills (song-readiness might be to blame; I'm spending a lot of time tinkering with lyrics). MENBAH!'s songs are ripping me apart. A leetle too close to home right now, his stuff is. It's slightly agonizing. And amazing that it can even happen at all. He's good, that MENBAH!.

I think I just wrote a song called Turpentine.

FAWM. Day 18. Step back!

Woah, step back!

I am in the midst of making every cheesy musical impulse I've ever had into actuality!

I-IV-vi-V is next.

February's going to end in some horrible train wreck, I know it.

FAWM. Day 17.

Do you ever have one of those days
when you're not satisfied
with anything?

I'm having one of those days.
It will pass, perhaps.

FAWM. Day 16. Ghosts.

Doing vocals right now.

There's one little part that has an unbelievable 30 tracks in it. Crazy.

Looking to get that one and another simpler one done tonight.

Hm...

FAWM. Day 15. Vortex.

Oof. Fell right into the vortex there. Mm hm, the void.

So, I have four songs I could finish for FAWM right now at this very moment, if I weren't at work. But they're all about emotionally turbulent spaces. I'm irritated that these songs are reflecting exactly how I'm feeling right now. Why say what's so friggin' obvious?

I'm boring myself, is what it is.

Valentine's Day: Hm. It's over, at least there's that. I stayed quiet and kept my hands still. Mostly.

I spent yesterday polishing the beginning of a new short story I've been struggling with. I can't tell if I'm making it better. Had a GREAT meeting with my fiction critique group last Saturday; I wasn't even being critiqued. They are a smart, sensitive group of people. There was one guy in particular who took me aside to give feedback on the story I submitted a month ago. He said the story is a draft or two from being publishable and that he's going to bother me about it until I start sending it out.

I'm not sure he's right, but it was really nice to hear that depth of feeling and level of belief in my work. And I'd forgotten that the point was to send stuff out. That is the point.

Does anyone else think it's not right for Columbia to charge a fee to submit a Financial Aid application?

(Not that Columbia has accepted me yet...)

Motivation=flagging. Big time.

Perhaps a falafel sandwich will fix everything. I'm off to get one.

FAWM. Day 9.

Today was difficult in ways I can't even describe to you.

Going to sleep. Will try it all again tomorrow.

FAWM. Day 8. Tummy PTSD.

Food Poisoning episode=over. My poor tummy is going through a bit of PTSD and doesn’t want to consume a lot right now, but there’s no more pain. Thank goodness.

My flash of insight today was that I’m spending too much time trying to finish a lyric that may not come together this month. I have one verse and a chorus, but additional sections aren’t showing themselves readily. I don’t think I know enough about this song yet. Wanted to finish it for the numbers challenge, but it may not happen. So I’m moving on. To a song called Ghosts. I made this decision and my enthusiasm jumped significantly.

I feel bad about not having so much time to listen to other people’s songs.

Jennifer Egan is my new hero.

Today at work was (is) cruddy. Ick.

I’m assuming I’ll get out of here at some point. Want to go home and start on Ghosts.

FAWM. Day 7. Ugh!

Last night, I got food poisoning.

The culprit was a spicy turkey with provolone sandwich from my corner deli. I had had one a couple of days before, and had a little tummy twinge, but didn't put two and two together. Last night, I was full-on SICK, and couldn't get to sleep until 4 o'clock in the morning.

Ergh. Horrible. I was doubled over in pain until about 10 o'clock this morning.

The one good thing about being that ill is that the world feels shining and glorious now; I am appreciating every moment that I don't have stomach pain.

I'm going to think about putting lyrics/loop tracks together for songs 3 and 4, but I plan to mostly spend the day appreciating that I don't have stomach pain.