Studio Log #11

Jun 4, 2017

Plot totally lost at this point. There’s been a little bit of socializing & nice weather & subsequent exercise and outside activities to blame. But also a whole lot of laziness and lack of discipline and sheer inertia at its heart.

It become pretty clear late last year that jumping from project to project and track to track was not really moving anything forward in a satisfying way. I have, in fact, actively avoided some tasks while pursuing others. So I started picking a track and advancing it as far as practical/possible/until I ran out of steam/whatever before I picked another to work with.

I worked a piece called “Cyclone” from The Pile, and got it to a point I think of as ‘complete’. (I may listen back to it in a couple months and decide it needs to be totally reworked, but for now it’s complete.)

Next up is a Triptych piece code-named “Doubtless”, and that’s where the hold-up really began. The music’s not totally done - some decisions need to be made - but I’m running into that wall of needing to write lyrics and just not wanting to. I’ve been trying several tricks to try to get my brain to not regard lyrics as a chore and a bummer.

One trick is the old Artist’s Way 3-pages thing. Not in the morning - I just can’t get my ass up early enough to do that. (And if I were to start doing all of the things I would like to be doing first thing in the morning, I’d be getting up at 3am every day). So, I’m just trying to fill 3 journal pages every day, generally not in one sitting, and I generally don’t make it to 3 pages, and it’s not actually happening as every day as I would wish. But I’m journaling again, which is having positive results elsewhere in life even if I’m not getting awesome lyrical content out of it.

Anyway, JUST DO IT. Make them terrible. Make them nonsensical. Just put SOMETHING to paper and make it good later.

“No.” – My Brain

My brain can be a petulant child sometimes.