Category Archives: Music

Too busy? Me?

05 Monday Mar 2018

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I read an interesting article on the saying no to the Cult of Busyness yesterday. It advocates doing only one thing at a time, and I can’t say I’m completely on board with that, but I do think that our society undervalues down-time.

I’m particularly bad at this, juggling a few competing priorities; social contact, work, creative activities, outings and rest time. I have a bunch of projects on the go, including a couple of writing projects, two music projects, and one theatre project. I like to get as much value as I can out of my time, but last night as I lay in bed not sleeping I felt oppressed by the sheer number of balls I was trying to keep in the air. It doesn’t help that my day job is particularly busy at the moment either.

I will be able to take a bit over a week off around Easter, partly because I am working a bit more in the lead up to our big assessment. I’ve arranged to go to a little cottage near Lake Eildon for four days, just on my own. I plan to go for walks, get coffee, eat out, write in my journal, read a nice book, and possibly get some ‘proper’ writing done.

I will never be able to do one thing at a time, that’s not my style. I think I operate well when I can give things time to stew in the back of my mind while I’m doing something else. I can get better at scheduling in times for resting, and exercising.

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Here is a photo of one of my favourite bands, a local Melbourne crew called Destrends, who I saw yesterday at the Sydney Road Street Party. Apologies for the quality of the photo, they kept moving (and I didn’t get the drummer, sorry Nathan). I’m glad I went, but after a really intense Saturday I didn’t have the energy to hang around and soak up the atmosphere.

Once work is less busy, I’ll be heading to some Melbourne International Comedy Festival shows, and getting stuck into a week off! While I’m doing that I’ll practice saying no to (some) things.

Hello 2018!

01 Monday Jan 2018

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I’m writing this a few days early because I’m going to a music festival over New Years. If you’ve read my Reflections on 2017 you’ll know that I’ve had a pretty productive year.

There were some ups and downs, especially this last week around Christmas. It’s always a weird time when people go away, have family commitments and there’s sort of nothing to do. It sounds relaxing but I find it hard.

My family lunch was good, my grandmother was mostly inoffensive. I was given a hammock and stand which I’m taking to the festival – it’s books in the hammock in the morning and music in the afternoon.

What are my goals for this year then, I hear you asking. Well, here they are:

  1. Win NaNoWriMo 2018
  2. Enter 5 writing competitions
  3. Redraft ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ and publish it online (from 2017)
  4. ‘Fleur & Alexandra are Out of This World’ Melbourne Fringe Festival Show
  5. Edit ‘The Discovery of the Franklin’
  6. Submit ‘My Mothers Secret’ and ‘We Can’t Have Nice Things’ to publishers
  7. Perform with the new band regularly
  8. Two blogs per month

The big one in terms of time commitment is the Fringe Show. The show I did last year was a six-months-long intense project. We’ve already started work on the new show; we have a plot and we’re ready to start drafting the script. We’re already way ahead of where we were last time.

I’m also considering entering a self-published box set with a contemporary romance story of ~25k words. I think I could use the project I did for NaNoWriMo in 2017 for this, so that will be another job to put on the list if I commit to it.

I’m thinking of taking some evening acting classes. I’m a pretty confident performer and there is always room for learning and improvement.

On top of these goals I will do my best to make time for exercise, good eating, friends , live music and all that other normal stuff.

My blog activity over the last year has been a bit slack. I’m going to aim for two posts per month, but I also want to have good content. If I don’t have anything good to post, I won’t put anything up, but with all the projects I’m working on, I’m sure I’ll have material.

As always, 2017 had it’s highs and lows. It’s time to close that door, learn what I can and move into the next phase. I hope next year I’ll be in a more stable place and that stability enables me to create more consistently.

All the best for the new year. Bring it on 2018!!

 

Reflections on 2017

17 Sunday Dec 2017

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I’ve been thinking a lot about what I’ve done over the year even though there are still two weeks left of 2017.

If I made a list of what I did this year it would be sort of inadequate to express what I’ve achieved. I’ll try to make this an interesting reflection on the things that went well and the things that didn’t go so well for me in 2017.

Writing

My commitment to my writing this year has had a few challenges. I finished a manuscript that I started last year in NaNoWriMo. It was 104,000 words at the end of the first draft in July. I pitched the manuscript to three publishers at the Romance Writers of Australia conference in Brisbane in August. Of those three, two wanted to see it. I thought I was finally getting the hang of this writing thing.

Since then one has come back to me with a no, the other hasn’t yet replied.

I participated in a weekly workshop for much of the year. Unfortunately that workshop became something I dreaded and sucked the joy out of my writing. I suspect the other members didn’t like my style, and so looked for something positive to say, but it felt forced. As a result, I felt like a fool even when I got positive feedback.

I’ve also written about 50,000 words on a new story, this year’s NaNoWriMo project. I’m considering using it for a self-published collection coming out next year. The story is reasonably solid, and it will need a bit of work to get it into shape.

Finally, I entered three writing competitions. I had aimed for five, but it didn’t quite happen. Perhaps I could count my pitches as competitions.

I’ve learnt the valuable lesson that I can’t listen to all criticism all the time. Not least because it depends who you ask. Editing is a skill I’d like to improve however I became so disheartened trying to please everyone that I didn’t even want to read my own story. From now on I’ll try to be more discerning in taking on critique.

Music

I joined Hello Volume in September of 2015. The three band members and I got on well, we were great at improvising and jamming out new material and I really enjoyed the process. One of my goals for 2017 was to get Hello Volume performing regularly, as well as working on new material.

Unfortunately, as of last month, I am no longer the bassist for Hello Volume. My priorities for the band were not the same as the other members, and I chose to move onto another project which was more in line with my personal goals.

Hello Volume played a number of cool gigs while I was involved: the Bendigo Hotel and the Workers Club, and open mics at Cherry Bar and Mr Boogie Man Bar. Thanks for jamming with me.

I wish the band all the best for the future and I’ll keep you in the loop with regards to my new project.

Day Job

I’m slowly coming to accept most art creators have a day job. There are lucky humans out there who make their living from their art, and that gives me hope. Most creative people I’ve met over the last year have jobs in the ‘real’ world.

It doesn’t make me any less of an artist that I have a job. I keep telling myself that. Artists have to make opportunities for themselves, self-publishing or putting on an independent show, or finding music performance opportunities, for the love of the art. If there’s some monetary reward then that’s a bonus.

It saddens me the world is structured like this. We are a society who doesn’t like paying for art. I’m as guilty of it as anyone else. I work hard for my money and I often don’t value art with my dollars.

My day job has been going along pretty well since my new boss started in late July. It’s probably sadistic of me to say I feel validated she’s getting frustrated by the same roadblocks I was before she started.

 

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Relaxing with my backyard banana lounge and a book (not pictured)

Overall, I think I’ve achieved a lot and learned a lot this year. I’ve done many things I’d never done before. I coped with some pretty difficult life crap too, like being evicted from my home with three days notice (the building was unsafe) among other things.

I think I’m starting to get a handle on the things I need to do to keep myself happy. I’m allowing myself to sit with my feelings more, particularly anger and loneliness. After having four good friends move away from Melbourne last year I’ve been looking for new people to hang out with. It’s a slow process.

Next year is looking busy and exciting. I’ll be doing my annual New Year’s Goals soon so stay tuned!

Everybody Knows

17 Thursday Nov 2016

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for Leonard

They signed this agreement
That nobody else
had to die

Now what can I tell you, my brother, my killer
What can I possibly say?

And even though
It all went wrong
I’ll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue

And I can’t believe that time’s
Gonna heal this wound I’m s
peaking of
There ain’t no cure for love

The last time I saw you, you looked so much older
The boat is leaking, the captain lied
Give me back my broken night

If it be your will
That I speak no more
And my voice be still
As it was before

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.

 

 

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Image from Facebook

Ten days ago, we lost another musical legend. I listened to ‘Famous Blue Raincoat’ on repeat and wept. This is my tribute, using only his words. He was a poet first, musician second. He touched my life in profound ways, I was introduced to his work by a lover and I was lucky enough to see him perform twice.

Thank you for letting us share your beauty.

The Business of Creating

29 Sunday Nov 2015

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Last night I managed to get to the 50,000 word target of my fourth year of NaNoWriMo. Huzzah! I was so pleased to have been able to get it done, two days early, and with only a couple of thousand words worth of story to go. I’m going to wrap it up today and tomorrow and then put it away for a little while to stew.

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I’ve had some conversations in the last little while about my plan for the future. The only problem is I don’t really have a well thought out and detailed plan. What I want is a job that I like well enough, that’s part-time so that I can do my creative stuff on the side, and possibly one day I’ll get a job where I can use my writing skills, but maybe not. That’s the plan.

At the moment I have a job placement which is three days per week doing Human Resources. It’s a refreshing change from the basic office admin job placements I’ve been doing recently so I’m really enjoying getting stuck in. It’s only until the end of the year though, and then I’ll be back to looking for ongoing work.

So here’s the new plan. Starting from now I’m going to work one day per week on my writing. Now that NaNoWriMo is finished for the year I really need to start doing something with my older manuscripts. The one I wrote last year, in particular, needs a whole bunch of structural edits and additional sections.

I’m going to do what I’ve heard other professional authors do, for example Dawn French and Fiona McIntosh, that is set myself a proper 9am to 5pm day of work for my writing. In the morning I will spend my time researching writing opportunities, applying for jobs, finding writing competitions, magazines and periodicals and blogs that are taking submissions and do that. This will be my time to work on this blog. I will also look into networking possibilities in the industry and short courses in writing that I might like to do.

In the afternoon I’m just going to write (and rewrite). I’m going to start with the manuscript from last year’s NaNoWriMo, which needs some big stuff done to it, and spend a couple of hours a week just going through it and fixing it. Editing has never been my strong suit, I’ve always be much more interested in coming up with new material, but I must spend the time revising and reworking. Maybe I’ll set myself a deadline of the end of January to have it done and I can start sending it to publishers.

Some of you may have noticed that that only adds up to four days work. You’re right, and the other day I’m going to keep for my band. We meet once a week usually, and rehearse for 4 or 5 hours. That takes up most of one day of the weekend. I will spend some of the time on the other weekday practicing and the rest of the day getting the chores and life admin stuff done that I would have done on the weekend. We’re also going to start looking for performance opportunities in the new year so I’ll schedule those in too.

My aim in this is to get myself into a routine. I’m not studying anymore and I hope to have a solid, ongoing job by early next year. It’s time to get serious about the business of creating and make sure that going back to uni was not just a frivolous escape from being at work.

Panacea

23 Monday Nov 2015

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– the cure for what ails ya!

This weekend I went up to a spot called Riverview in the bush near Tatong, Victoria to Panacea. It was part music festival, part yoga festival and all awesome. Organised largley by Chloe, who brings experience from Folk Rhythm & Life, and Stefan, this was the first year Panacea was run.

There were fifty something bands, two stages, a yoga space and a discovery space. I went up because the band that I’m a groupie for, Destrends, was playing and I had to. I took along the big camera to get some shots of their set, but I mostly left it in the car the rest of the time.

It’s the sort of festival where there’s no phone reception and no power. There was a creek to bathe in but most people went for the baby wipe shower (or not at all).

I took two videos of the boys playing:

Epic Entrance – why walk on stage when you can be carried on in a coffin?

“My Friend”

I had a fantastic time, bonding with people, having human conversations, getting back to nature, getting covered in dust and flies (so many flies). It’s important to just exist sometimes, unplug from the digital world, sit in the grass, and talk shit with strangers. It’s the perfect place for that.

I obviously didn’t get any of my NaNoWriMo stuff done, and it was really nice to have a few days off from thinking about it. I have 11,000 words to win and seven days to write them in. I think I’m well set up to do it!

I’m looking forward to seeing Panacea find it’s feet in the music scene, I really want them to run it again so I can go back next year. But right now I have to go try to get some writing done on my Choose Your Own Adventure (which I am procrastinating by writing this post).

Rock out!

Edinburgh Fringe Brain Puddle

19 Wednesday Aug 2015

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I’ve spent today so far hanging out at my accommodation because yesterday I slipped on the cobbled streets of Edinburgh and hurt my right foot. This is my fourth day at the Fringe. I’m pretty devastated.

Since arriving I’ve seen so many amazing things. I’ve been filling my brain with all sorts of art and I don’t really how, or if, I’m going to be able to keep it all straight in my memory. I feel like there will be things that be pushed out when I try to fit something new in. That being said the idea of having an immersive experience where everything sort of blurs together into one abstract blob sounds kind of amazing too.

Maybe I’ll start last night and work backwards. I saw Beardyman, who is a sort of musical improviser. I have seen a bit of his stuff on YouTube and he was one of the few people who wa on my list even before I got to Scotland. The show, One Album Per Hour, is made up of song titles suggested by the audience before the show and he sort of makes up a genre and song based on those titles. My suggestions wee “Vampires on Speed” and “Watermelon Floyd”. I was really excited when he read out the first one and proceeded to make up a song which started with organ like massive chords and a dodgey Transylvanian accent through a dancey rave party high section, coming back to the organ chords at the end. It was pretty cheesy but I don’t know what else I was expecting from a suggestion like that.

I wanted to show off a bit about that last one, but I’ve seen too many shows so far to give them all a review. I’m also quite tired as I didn’t sleep very well, my foot kept hurting, so I’ll make a list and of the ones, so far, that are worth seeing:

Unfortunately some of these have already finished. Three plus weeks is a pretty long time to do a show. Apparently this is the point at which people start to go a bit insane which should be interesting. I’m hoping that I’ll be up for a short trip into the centre tonight for a show or two. It seems like a waste not to go out at all with so many things to see and so little time.

I’m feeling a bizarre combination of inspiration and brain fart. I feel like I really want to be able to produce something as great and mind blowing as some of the shows I’ve seen here, but I also feel this crippling sense of intimidation. I guess it’s that thing of comparing oneself to others; sometimes you come out well sometimes not, but usually the comparison is not worth drawing and is completely unhelpful. As much as I know it is unhelpful, I none-the-less am compelled to do it.

Perhaps this experience is a bit like being in India; you realise it’s true scope and effect on your mind only much later when you’re at home and have had time to assimilate the information properly.

I am learning, however, that I really struggle to respect someone if I don’t like their art. Strike that, I don’t have to like it, nor do I have to completely comprehend it, but I must respect the art if I am to respect the artist. Comedians who are dismissive or insulting to groups of people fall into this category. That isn’t art, it’s being a jerk.

So I have more than a week more here to drink in all the things, and hopefully venture to a couple of the other parts of nearby Scotland. I hope my foot will be more up for walking soon too!

Don’t dream it’s over…

20 Saturday Jun 2015

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Sorry, I know that’s not my line, but it seemed appropriate. Just a small update post, I feel like that’s all I’ve been doing lately, but maybe I’ll get inspired to do some more substantive posts soon.

1: Poetry

I recently attended a new poetry workshop/group in Melbourne’s CBD. This group is organised by a woman called Vicki, and I heard about it through my other writing group. I went along, I took two poems, one called “Crush”, which I’ve posted here and one which was an homage to Paradise Lost, which I wrote a couple of weeks ago. It’s always a bit of a risk going to a new group because you’re never sure how strong the criticism is going to be, and whether it will be delivered in a sensitive manner. There were nine people there, five who were new to the group. We went around the table and I was a little bit nervous because there was this one guy, (everyone I’ve spoken to about it seems to feel there’s always this one guy), who was very opinionated, talked over others, and who seemed to insist on getting the last word in. I read out “Crush” and was a bit concerned about his response to my work, but he wasn’t as bad as I thought he would be. I had some interesting feedback from some of the other poets, so that’s good. I haven’t decided whether I’ll keep going to this group but I’ll go once more before making up my mind.

2: Music

The band I was involved with disintegrated recently, I guess I should be sad, but I think it had had its time. I’m looking for other opportunities to play bass, but in the meantime I got a piano keyboard (a present from Mum), and have joined a choir, so that’s keeping me busy till I find another band or regular jamming session to be part of. I may have to re-evaluate my goal of performing before the end of the year, but I’m going to try to do it anyway! If you’re a band looking for a bassist let me know!

Here is a picture of me with the photographer Meiki’s bass and my new haircut.

This is bass face

This is bass face

3: Writing

I’ve finished the initial draft of my third NaNoWriMo manuscript. It’s pretty dark and I really need to start going through it, but I’ve been feeling a bit avoidant. Part of me is worried that when I read it back I’ll hate it, but hopefully I’ll be pleasantly surprised. I’m setting tomorrow morning aside for it.

4: Work

I’ve been offered full time temping work for the next little while, so I’m enjoying the inflow of money, and given that I’ll be travelling in August I’m trying to earn as much as I can. I’ve been applying for ‘real’ jobs, mostly in HR, but I’m not going to take one just because I’m offered one. I think the temping will see me through until I can find a permanent job that really speaks to me. I’m not 100% sure what that means just yet, but I’m sure by being open to opportunities, one will come my way that’s just right.

Multi-disciplinary art

22 Monday Dec 2014

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According to a guy I was talking to on an online dating website, Joni Mitchell used to think of creativity as being like crop rotation. If you worked in more than one artistic discipline there would be periods where you would spend a lot of time on one form and the others would lie fallow, as it were. You would ride the crests and troughs of each type of art so that they would each have time to mature and regenerate between periods of high productivity.

I’ve been feeling bad about the amount of time I’ve spent on the novel I started for NaNoWriMo this year since November finished. I made it through the challenge, and I won, but since it’s been December I’ve written very little. The reason I guess I’m feeling a bit guilty about it, is that the story isn’t finished.

I don’t like the fact that the story isn’t finished. It niggles at my brain but I’ve been really really not feeling like writing. I know this isn’t surprising, NaNoWriMo is not a sustainable way of writing, and the last two times I’ve done it, I’ve finished the work within the month. I’ve never had this feeling of unfinishedness hanging over me.

There are other contributing factors too. I’m not studying currently because it’s not semester time, and since I’m a full-time student these days I don’t have a ‘proper job’ so I’m sort of not really doing anything which means I’m floating around and floating around feels directionless and feeling directionless is a bit of a vicious cycle in which you feel like you don’t achieve anything so you then don’t feel motivated to achieve anything and therefore don’t achieve anything. I think you can all see what I’m getting at.

I have been spending a significant amount of time on my bass guitar playing, so that’s good. And I’m sure it being right before Christmas isn’t helping with the generally weird feeling of forced frivolity either. I don’t really know what this post is trying to say but y’know, maybe I’ll take myself on a photowalk tomorrow or write a couple of thousand words and then I’ll feel a bit more like I’ve done something.

Guilt + New Projects = Neglected blogging

27 Monday Oct 2014

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I feel like haven’t blogged for a while (even though it’s only been a couple of weeks), perhaps it’s just a part of the cumulative guilt thing that I seem to have going on at the moment. I’ve recently been feeling incredibly busy and part of the reason for that is that I’ve been taking on new creative projects and meeting new people, and I guess I feel a bit like I have a lot of balls in the air and I’m really worried I’m going to drop one of them.

I’m sure that quite a lot of the stress I’m feeling about the new projects is misdirected stress about uni assessments which have been looming large for the last few weeks. Hopefully that source of tension will settle down soon, I’ve finished all the assessments two of my subjects, and the other two will be finished by this time next week (oh god, I have to write 4,200 words by then). But back to reason for my blog, I wanted to tell you all about my new projects! Writing things down makes them feel more real, right?

1. NaNoWriMo 2015

If you’ve read my blog for a while you’ll know that for the last two years I’ve been involved in NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. The idea is to get a whole bunch of people together, both in person as part of local group activities and online as part of the NaNoWriMo global community, to encourage each other to commit to writing 50,000 words in November (they also run Camp NaNoWriMo in April and July, but I haven’t participate in either of those sessions yet). It sounds like complete, unachievable insanity, but I’ve successfully completed the challenge the two times I’ve been involved, and I feel confident I can do it again this year.

My current working title for the novel is ‘We Can’t Have Nice Things’ and I’m using characters from a short story that I wrote a little while ago and expanding them into a longer work. The idea is that it will be dark – an exploration of the way people’s lives can go wrong. I’m thinking of it as an anti-romance, I don’t really know if it will work, but I’m going to give it my best shot!

2. I joined a band.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned it here before, but a while ago, on a whim, I bought a bass guitar. I’ve played it a bit here and there for the couple of years I’ve had it, but I never really prioritised it. Then I met Seth at a party and he asked if I wanted to be in his band, and I thought, why not? And now I’m in a band. That was about six weeks ago. The line-up is still being worked out, and we’re really still trying to find our feet, but I feel really good, conceptually, about being in a band. Since joining the band, I’ve been out to see a bit more local live music and I’ve met some fantastic people, in particular the boys from The Destrends, who are not only phenomenal musicians and performers but also super amazing human beings. I hope to continue getting out to gigs and meeting people in the music industry and really immersing myself in a culture I never felt part of before.

3. and 4. Drawing and Photographing

There are also two other things I’ve been spending time one, but they’re not really taking up as much time/brain space as the novel and the band so I’ll mush them together into one paragraph. Firstly there’s drawing. I’ve been life modelling with the Life Model Society for all of this year and I’ve been meeting fantastic artists at every group I’ve worked with. Meeting these talented people and seeing the beauty they can produce has inspired me to spend more time on drawing. I’ve been to a couple of life drawing classes, the results of which I’ve put on my Instagram account, they need some work, but I think there’s a solid foundation of ‘looking vaguely human’ in there. The second thing is a couple of friends of mine, Woland and Gabrielle, who have appeared in this blog before, have been doing some really outstanding off-the-wall performance art at local events in the last couple of months, and I have been privileged to act as their stills photographer for these performances. It has been challenging, not just artistically, but personally, as their art pushes boundaries in all the best ways, you can watch their latest performance, ‘A Mermaid’s Tale’ here, but I should probably put a (fake) blood trigger and NSFW warning on it, just to be safe.

So that’s what I’ve been doing. I hope I’ll be able to spend some more time on this blog over the summer, without the constant demands of university I hope I’ll have a bit more space in my brain for this, and I’ll have to bring you updates on all the amazing creative adventures I’m having! Every day I’m grateful to the people in my life who encourage and support me in my meandering search for a meaningful and fulfilling life, and every day I am rewarded with what I create, and with what people around me create, and I know that I wouldn’t go back to where I was three years ago for anything!