FAWM - Day 8.

I wanted "unexpected," and I got it.

Dan Wallbank posted a track, and I'm shaping a lyric to fit it. It might be too late at almost 9pm, but I'm going to try to record it when I get home.

It has lots and lots of vocals. I hope I can sing til midnight or so.

I'm kinda excited!

I might check in later or maybe not, depending on what time I get finished.

Drat - AGAIN I forget to eat dinner! What am I going to do with myself?

j.

FAWM - Day 7. End. Tired.

I managed to finish a song today.

I thought it was cheesy, and a little too folk pop, but some nice people said some good things, so maybe I'll rethink that.

It started with a guitar part I've been plunking at. My thin body guitar, my "bedroom" guitar, has crud on the strings, but I used that anyway. Had to do four or five complete passes before I got one without an obnoxious amount of string noise.

(Guitarists, if any of you have any tips for lessening string noise, I would be very grateful to know them.)

I thought the guitar was kinda naked, so I added a pad and some plonky piano. It doesn't sound half bad, actually.

I fully planned on starting at least one more tonight, but I laid down, then opened my eyes two hours later, unable to lift my head. I think it was because I hadn't had dinner, and my blood sugar was past bottom. Ack! I got some coffee and a couple of table spoons of peanut butter.

So.

I had the other two songs I wanted to work on, but I kinda want to pull something out of thin air, for my next trick. The one I did today was kinda mellow, I feel like I want another surprise rock song again. I wish I could rap. Oh my god, the boys at the FAWM site can rap. I wish I could do that.

Work tomorrow. And I must start my reading and critiquing for class on Wednesday. There's a LOT to do.

g'night,
j.

FAWM - Day 7. In the Wee Hours....

It's very nearly 3am on Day 7.

I stayed up to finish a lyric. I've been staring at it obsessively for the past four hours, and I just couldn't go to bed until it was done. Well, it's done. And I plan on recording this song and two others tomorrow. They're all going to be acoustic songs, simple. As quick and dirty as possible. I have some catching up to do.

This is a way cheesy pop song. Ack.

I was on Charlie's online podcast show tonight, sounding like a goofy, giggling sorority girl. I talk way too loud. But, he played my song, and he read out the notes I've been passing around, so I had to call in. Charlie's coming to town next week, can't wait to get together.

I think I may have signed myself up for mini torture next week: 14 songs in 3 days, a gauntlet thrown by Dr. Burr and Tim Wille. Ack! I hope it will serve to focus me. Just have to lower the bar. Even lower than it is now.

j.

FAWM - Day 6. Um....

...Um.

We're midday here.

I'm not quite sure what to do with myself. There are about four songs I'm working on at the same time. None of them are particularly interesting, and I know that's not the point, but it's hard keeping that inner buoy up long enough to finish any of them.

Bad news - I am actually working Sunday. So I have today and tomorrow to do as many songs as possible. Hm. I was shooting for another four, but I'm kinda stalling right now. It would be great to finish two or three.

I had a lovely chicken pesto omelette for breakfast this morning. I'm not the best cook, and am mildly suprised when something I make is really good.

My spelling is getting really bad, along with my handwriting. I pulled out some old songwriting journals, the writing is crystal clear. The current journal is much worse. There are things I've written down that I have just not been able to decipher.

Decline? Is it?

(More importantly, is there a song in it?)

4pm. Lunch?

j.

FAWM - Day 5. (or: *Now* we're cooking with gas.)

So: Today things went right.

I poked a paper clip in my disc drive until suddenly it popped open. Yay!

So I put in a loop CD and went to work. A few hours later --> track.

First song up at the FAWM site, just a few minutes ago. Something completely new, that did not exist before a few hours ago.

Hm.

To my reader in Switzerland who responded to the last post:
Hi. Nice to meet you.
The sign of your exhaustion at reading my blog was, perhaps, a signal that I'm great at communicating how exhausted I was? I hope it passes, too.

Next: Oh god. Could be anything.

I gave a song today to Nancy Rost, a little jazzy thing. I don't do jazz, usually; Nancy is Jazz queen on the FAWM board. I have high hopes.

j.

FAWM - Day 4.

I am so tired. It's not even 8pm yet.

I did finish my story. Turns out I was just warming up on it today. There were a couple of last minute things that came out today that really would have been a basis for improving things if I had thought of them, say, three days ago.

I finished the story, literally, an hour and half before class. I didn't even have a final read through, and there were typos and errors. Not a lot. But a few. That's what happens when you don't have that last look through. I am really embarrassed.

And deflated. I have been reading through the two other stories for Booth next week, and they are really, really good. Complex, layered, lots of action going on (not a lot happens in my story). I have a feeling I'm going to get slaughtered next week.

I will be a brave girl, though. Because that's what I am.

I can't think about FAWMing tonight. I just want some rest.

j.

Ack!

My writing project is due at 2pm.

It's 10:42am, and I have about 1 and 1/4 pages of readable text.

We're hitting eleventh hour here, considering I've still got to get this thing printed.

Okay. It's rock and roll time.


j.

FAWM - Day 3.

Well.

I got a few pennies from heaven in the form of five days straight of not working - some crazy upgrade means that no one can be on their computers this weekend. I decided to take a day off.

There is the not-so-small matter of my story for Booth, which is due tomorrow (I actually get to hear what people think about it in next week's class). I'm nearly proud to say that I'm about two hours of concentrated work away from a bad first draft. I managed to put the pieces in some kind of order while at work today. Now I have to read it through and fill in the holes.

Why am I trepidatious about doing this?

I hate, hate, hate turning in bad writing. But, that's why I signed up, I guess.

But, I turn this puppy in, and I'm not in the Booth again until one month from now, 3/11. That means I can focus on FAWM.

Again I fight the nasty feelings around demoing mediocre songs. But, that's why I signed up, I guess.

It snowed today. It coated everything just long enough for me to get a glimpse of the whitened wreckage outside the World Financial Center. Did a two and a half hour pre training training session that made me want to stick an ice pick in my eye.

Feels good to know that I can hole up at home for a few days.

j.

FAWM - Day 2.

Exhausted.

By work. By thinking. By a lot of things.

The songs started today. They began, with their peeking and poking, prodding and picking. Something's brewing. This may be a radical move, but I think my first song for FAWM will be a song loosely based on one of my favorite films, The Wicker Man. Odd. Odd, odd, odd. I don't write songs like this, ever. But maybe that's what I needed, to get out of my own puny little head and focus on a story that's not my own. Give myself a break from myself.

The Wicker Man. Heh, heh. Again I am thinking of M. We watched it together in a little house in London's East End. It's an incredible film. Lots of great music. He made me a copy of his vinyl of the soundtrack and I forgot it, left it at his place. I have half a mind to write him and ask for my copy....We weren't together long, M. and I. But it was quality time. There are quite a few things he shared with me that became mine.

But, back to the present day.

I am a little worried about my story for Wednesday's class. It's still in pieces all over the place. I've made a play at organization and divided it up into six parts, and will work on it one part at a time.

There are some kick ass artists doing FAWM this year. It's the same every year, but man, am I ever reminded what a talented group of folks that is!

I nearly had a fit at work when I thought I'd lost my scarf. My seven foot long magenta scarf that I knitted myself. It wasn't anywhere to be found as I was packing to go home, and it brought me almost to tears. But. I never put it on this morning. And I'm trying to figure out how that's possible.

The world's going crazy, or I am.

j.

FAWM. Day 1.

The key word of the month is - FLOW.

Say it with me....FFFLLLLLOOOOOOOWWWWWWW.

I went home last night from work, late. Intended to pick a loop from one of my loop CDs and build a track, as quickly as possible. Actually forced myself to turn my equipment on, around eleven.

And...my disc drive wouldn't open.

The drive has stuck before, but it would usually open after one or two (or two or three) presses of the button. This time, no dice. Instead of letting the frustration rise, I resisted my impulse to throw the machine out the window, and I just pulled a loop from one of the songs already on my computer. I happened to be a 6/8. I thought, "I can work with that."

Well, turns out, I couldn't. I played electric guitar until about two thirty in the morning, tried three different chord changes on the electric, NOTHING stuck. I can't really force myself to finish something I don't have my heart in. If the words aren't there, it's hard.

I went to bed and woke this morning, got a couple of song ideas on the acoustic, almost as I was heading out the door to get to work. Yes, it is a touch frustrating. But from my FAWM entries on the blog from last year, I didn't post my first song until Day 6 or 7. There's plenty of time yet.

Then there's the story for Booth on Wednesday.

I printed out the fragile remnants of story I've come up with, and started to handwrite the edits. The story is edging its way toward sense, bit by bit. I just want it to make sense, sometime BEFORE I have to hand out fifteen copies of it on Wednesday.

j.