The Writer-Musician

You know what's been bugging me lately? Plenty of musicians become actors and plenty of actors become musicians. Writers and directors end up on stage/in front of the camera, and actors end up behind the scenes too. Or you'll find musicians who are talented visual artists and do their own cover art. All kinds of crossovers within the arts. (No need to even mention dancer/singer/actor crossover types) They're everywhere. But you know what you don't see? Musician-author crossovers. Actually, you don't really see author-anything crossovers unless it's a book about the business/art. In other words, no one writes fiction and makes "pop" music.

This bugs me. I don't necessarily want to make pop music, but I'm not talking about scores or Broadway numbers or anything either. I'm talking about radio music. Stuff you'd go to a music fesitval or concert or gig to see. I want to make some of that music, have relative "success", and then still have relative "success" in the apparently completely unrelated field of fiction writing.

I don't have a role model for that. I have musicians I love and admire, and I have writers I love and admire, but I can't seem to find a musician-writer to love and admire. It's like they don't exist. No one seems to make good music and good fiction, and it just doesn't make sense to me.

At this point, I just realised that one musician I love is also a passionate writer: Alison Sudol. But of course, she hasn't published anything yet, so I can't go, "Look! Alison Sudol has some awesome music, and look! this book is cool, unrelated to her music, and enjoyable! Proof that someone else can do it, and thus I can do it too!" just yet. Maybe soon, but I doubt it. I'll probably be shoving Stella Novela (That's my band's name, by the way. We have a Facebook, a MySpace and even a website, but there's nothing up yet, really. We just finally found a drummer on Monday. His name isn't even on there yet.) CDs into people's hands at the same time I'm chucking Call Me Lux (in case you missed it, that's the book I'm revising right now) at them.

But you know what? It bugs me, but it's also incredibly exciting. Imagine being one of the first people (I know I'm not the first, but it's not common at all) to do something. It's scary, but thrilling! When I do manage to live out my dreams of being a total artist extraordinaire, crossing over arts that have never been crossed quite the way I cross them, I'll only be that much prouder of myself.

And, honestly, I don't see why the crossover between music and fiction writing doesn't happen more. To me, music is just one way of telling a story, one medium. I'm not so much a musician or writer as I am a storyteller. I live to tell stories, and that's exactly what I want to do with my life.

Anxiety

Last night was one of those nights. I just couldn't focus. My head was all over the place. I couldn't play guitar during rehearsal. I wrote blog post after blog post of incomplete ideas, never actually finishing.

I'm a mess. It's "last night" as I write this, and I've just given up on writing anything meaningful. I'm too anxious. And it's not even for auditions tomorrow. I could care less. Tomorrow could have already gone by, and I wouldn't even notice. I'm just senselessly anxious.

Actually, I'm just anxious to have my degree already. I want to be done with college, done with worrying about my grades. I hate worrying about grades. I want to worry about my learning and my impact on the world, not pointless validation through percentages. I think I'm going to fail all of my classes this semester. Maybe I should just go join the circus. Or the army.

Part of me wants to just skip the college because, hey, who needs it? I'm a freelance awesome person! But the idea of any of my students blowing off college like I'd sure love to scares me. A lot. I don't want them thinking being a lazy bum is the way to go. And if I ever want to be a doctor or vet or lawyer or teacher or just about anything other than a freelance awesome person, I need my degree.

And that's the problem. I need it. I'm terrified to fail because failing isn't an option. I hate that. Failing should be a requirement; you learn from failure. Oh boy, do you learn from failure! But the way GPAs and admissions work, failure might as well be the end of the world and the end of your hope to get into any kind of decent university. There is NO WAY that USC is ever going to accept me after they see the terrible grades I'm doomed to get this semester.

I can't function without a car. I haven't done any homework since having a car. It's horrible. I just need a car, and then I can beg my teachers to let me make up for sucking so much the past two weeks.

I have a headache. Oh, anxiety.

The In Between

I didn't even notice I missed last Tuesday. And yesterday! I'm in the in between right now. I'll probably miss at least one more in the coming week or two. All because I'm in the in between right now.

I function best when incredibly busy. I get things done incredibly fast. I do anything and everything. I am superman.

I can be laid back too. I can relax and just let things happen. This was my late summer/early autumn. I had things to do, and I got them done when necessary, but I spent a lot of time just relaxing, laughing, not doing anything too incredibly important or time sensitive.

I am in the between right now. Half of me is laying on a beach somewhere, just listening to the sound of the rebellious waves crashing upon the sand and then receding right back into the ocean. It's so beautiful and peaceful the way the ocean always lets the rebellious waves back, always welcomes them with open arms no matter what. But half of me has no time for the beach, no time to contemplate metaphors about waves and sand and vast oceans which have little to do with what is happening right now. That half has more important things to do, and it's doing everything at lighting speed.

I think you can see where this is going. My head is chaos right now. The conflicting halves are undergoing a power struggle, a change of leadership. The busy half needs to get the relaxed half in gear and moving. Add in the effects to my cognitive function of what shall henceforth be called That Friday, and my head is just everywhere now. A complete mess. A missed blog post is completely unsurprising and not the only thing I've spaced out on or missed. I'm not even really sure what I've missed.

And my body is fatigued. I'm physically not used to functioning at this speed. I'm out of shape. I'm questioning whether I have put too much on my plate. Clearly, my mind can't handle this, my psyche can't handle this, and my body definitely can't handle this.

But soccer taught me a lot growing up. The first week or few of a season would be hell. I'd feel like giving up all the time. My body wanted to quit. "Hell week" seemed to burn worse every year. But then my muscles would learn, and I was stronger, faster, tougher. Hell week paid off, and each year I was a better player.

The in between is real life hell week. I have to push myself beyond my current limits so I might grow and learn. I have to put more on my plate than I can carry so I can learn to carry all I have on my plate. More than full time student, director of a high school theatre program (that's only in its second year), novel editor (I'll tell you guys about this later), member of two separate families, lead singer of a band, church goer, and a member of society. It's a lot to handle, but I'll push through this transition and learn to handle the new pressures and requirements of me.

Monday and a Half

Third week of school already! Wow. Also, have a good first day of school tomorrow, PHS kiddos! I am wonderfully NOT sick this week. Hurrah!

Another PHS play update: Yep, I went on Wednesday, talked with Mr. VL, and confirmed what I already knew: the only person who will make sure this program happens the way I want it to is me. I returned on Friday with new resolve: to talk with the new principal and make this happen myself. He wasn't there, but his secretary had me email him, to which I got a positive, "Yes, let's meet and talk more!" sort of response.

Band stuff is band-y. We did record, and my bandmates have been emailing with quite frequency with song ideas while I quietly don't respond much because I'm very focused on this play right now. I will have to pay attention to them again soon. Not that I don't want to, of course. But the play is quite the time-sensitive matter, whilst band things have not yet reached any sort of "OH MY GOD TICKING CLOCK" sort of phase.

I've been reading Hyperbole and a Half, so I feel like my writing for this post has taken on a very sarcastic and ridiculous tone in comparison. Is this good? Do we like the sarcasm and ridiculousness? I'm sure I'll be embarassed by my lack of maturity when I re-read this later.

Godspell was amazing, by the way. I think I shall post about it this week. Maybe. I'll be seeing my friend Daniel perform once again this Tuesday, so it's probable that I'll blog about him again. Then again, I may not have anything new to say. We'll see.

Have a very splendid Monday and a super splendid week!

P.S. If you haven't seen yet, I'm giving away stuff for free. Yes. Do it. Enter. There's going to be a wonderful surprise for everyone who enters. I'm quite sure you'll like it. :)

Late Monday

As mentioned yesterday, I'm sick. I've been a groggy mess, but I plan to be back to normal, including regular 5AM PST blog posts, by tomorrow. Anyway, onto our regularly scheduled Monday stuff:

First, last week's riddle hasn't been solved yet, so go here to read it and see if you can solve it. The prize is still the same: "an unreleased (even to my closest friends and family) free-verse poem called "Step," hand-written, decorated, and signed on plain 8.5" by 11" paper."

So as far as updates go, I'm going over to PHS on Wednesday to start setting dates and reserving the theatre for auditions, rehearsals, and eventually performance of Where the Wild Berries Grow and work out some some fiscal concerns. Assuming all goes well, I'll be ordering cast scripts quite soon.

In other news, my band is recording music (nothing too terribly fancy; just Garage Band) this week, and we're getting close to deciding on a name, which means photos, Myspace page, website, etc. And which all means we're that much closer to trying to get some shows booked.

Speaking of shows, I highly suggest that if you're in or anywhere near L.A. County, you go to see Centre Stage's production of Godspell. I've only seen one of the numbers in the show, but Centre Stage has never disappointed me before. Despite being "children's" theatre, Centre Stage never fails to put on professional shows. In fact, Centre Stage's productions even go beyond what other "professional" theatres do. Godspell is only around this weekend, and then it's gone, so don't miss out!

And that concludes my update. (First week of college was great, by the way!) Have a wonderful week and see you at our regular time tomorrow morning!

Band Rehearsal

Hey! I'm in a band!
Really?
Really!
You're kidding.
Nope! Dead serious!

It fell out of the sky, like I mentioned in last Friday's post. (Shoot, tomorrow's Friday! I need to learn something!) Last night was my first ever band practice with the band, and it was QUITE exciting. I don't know how other bands function, but if every band is like this, what on earth have I been doing NOT being in bands?

Joe, the guitarist, had already written lyrics and a little guitar for one and a half songs, but it was just a sort of "rough sketch," so we started out with those two. Cutting to the chase, it was basically just a jam session. Our tireless drummer (He's a machine! Literally.) kept the beat going while Joe and Yves, the bassist, fiddled around on their guitars, and I worked out how the vocals should go. And played guitar in one song, actually. Simplest chords ever, but I couldn't have done anything more complicated; I was thinking about lyrics, inflection, notes, harmony, etc. just for my voice alone, and my fingers were not down to do any crazy fretting, having only touched guitars every once in awhile thus far in my life. (Funny thing about guitar, you kind of have to practice.)

I make it sound like singing is just sooo hard. It's really not, but I've come to realise how much actually goes into being a GOOD vocalist. Some people are just lucky enough to have incredible voices at birth (not me, heh), but I'm pretty sure they have a lot to consider when singing too. My background in theatre has already proven to be one of my greatest assets; the improvisation skills and willingness to step outside my comfort zone it's given me apply to just about everything, and singing is no exception. According to Joe, it's very rare a vocalist can "jam" with the band. If it's not scripted, they can't do it. Kind of blew my mind.

Anyway, Joe's songs started coming together as we jammed, and I came up with the missing verse for the half song while we improvised. Two rough songs down! On our way to enough for a show. So I pulled out my phone, grabbed lyrics I had written, and we started figuring it out too. Let me just say that it is SOOOOO different writing via jam session with others than just sitting on a piano bench trying to make something decent with my lack of ridiculously awesome piano abilities. And hearing YOUR song suddenly come to life with all these different sounds? It's incredible.

Three rough songs down! That's almost enough for a show! Hey maybe we'll play a show soon! Oh, wait, we probably need a live drummer for that though, don't we? Yeah, so if you know or are an incredible drummer, we're on the lookout for one; get in touch with me!

P.S. I finally bought a ukulele yesterday. I am in love.