I started working on some music for you this week, and it’s shaping up to be epic. Seriously, don’t drink too much liquid before stopping by tomorrow or you might pee your pants with how awesome it is. I’m considering quitting my job and selling all non-musical items in my possession and creating music all day long forever.
Yes, I am this excited. You should be, too.
See you tomorrow!
We had a couple of interesting writing prompts at writer’s group last night, so I’ve decided to share my results with you, starting tomorrow. As always, Friday will be new music.
I never put much stock in writing prompts until last night. They always reminded me of the daily journals that some of my grade school teachers made us keep. Maybe I should have put serious effort into one or two before dismissing them.
I don’t plan on editing these stories when they go up, so what you’re getting will be rough and unpolished. There may be cliches. The point isn’t to show off my literary brilliance, as that takes dozens of revisions (time I don’t want to spend) to become apparent, but to make a case for the occasional use of writing prompts.
I want to take a minute and draw your attention to all of the ways you can stalk my online activities.
1. Subscribe to the RSS feed. Click here and add it to your favorite reader. I’m a fan of Google Reader because I pretty much blindly follow whatever Google is doing, except for Buzz. I even set up Sketchup once, and I have absolutely no use for it.
2. Follow me on Twitter. Go here and click “Follow”. If you don’t use Twitter but still want to follow my tweets, that is also possible with your RSS reader of choice.
3. Like me on Facebook. I hate Facebook, but I also understand that some people hate RSS feeds and Twitter, so I have a weak solution for those people. My Facebook page does nothing but pull in my blog posts. There are no secret contests there or extra goodies for signing up, but you’re more than welcome to spam your friends with me as revenge for all of the Farmville posts you wake up to every morning. Like me now!
The last three years are kind of a blur. Sometimes they feel like they were a blip on a radar; sometimes I swear more time has passed. There have been good times, bad times, and a whole lot of absolutely average times to make the good and the bad more memorable.
I’ve acquired a cat, been flooded out of an apartment, and been turned down for two jobs out of state. I’ve dabbled in dreams, dozed off at the wheel, and let an old man’s lies dictate the course of my life. I’ve learned the meaning of discipline and rekindled old passions in an effort to reclaim the identity I thought I’d lost.
It’s been a hell of a journey.
It’s a journey I wouldn’t have made alone. Left to my own devices, I can tell you exactly what would have happened.
For starters, I would still live in my parents’ basement. The money I made at my job would finance some really sweet gaming rigs and a stack of video games that would largely go unplayed. I would have purchased the Stargate roleplaying system while it was still on the market, and it would be resting beneath my video games. There is a good chance I would have bought myself a new guitar, and I would sheepishly quote the scene from This is Spinal Tap where Nigel insists that a specific guitar “must never be played”… assuming, of course, that I didn’t sell all of my musical gear in a bout of depression.
Ladies and gents, I would have a ton of useless crap cluttering up my space, living a life utterly devoid of ambition, if not for the woman I married three years ago.
Thank you, Sarah, for believing that there was more to me than bitterness and broken dreams and pushing me to become something far greater than I thought was possible. I don’t know what things will be like a year from now, but it doesn’t matter as long as you’re by my side.
Happy anniversary.
New music will be up at this time tomorrow, so make sure to be here!
I’ve been doing this for a little over a month, now, and I’d like some feedback from you on how things are going. Specifically:
What do you like to see here? Doodles? Music? Deep thoughts? Shallow musings? What do you look forward to? What else would you enjoy?
What time do you do your reading? I don’t have a real reason for posting in the middle of the day. Most of the time, the entry is ready a day or more in advance, so it’s not a time crunch issue. If it makes you happy to read something new in the morning, I can kick the post time back to midnight so it’s ready when you wake up.
How is five days a week working out for you? Personally, I like it because it keeps my brain from turning to mush because I have to use it every day, but I also want to make sure I’m only producing things that are actually interesting. That’s a bit more challenging, and a disadvantage to more frequent posting is that it’s often hard to assess how interesting something is because you’re focused on getting it out the door. On the other hand, when you’re posting all the time, you have more chances to strike a chord with people.
Anything else? If you have any questions or comments that aren’t covered by those three questions, let me know!
Go enjoy Memorial Day by eating burgers and/or hotdogs with your friends/family!
