The End of FAWM

And I am done.
What a long month it has been. They say that as you go, your personal style eventually emerges. I have no real songwriting identity yet, so I tried to approach each tune as a different sort of exercise, to see what felt right, like trying on different skins to see which characters I felt most comfortable inhabiting. Listen to the demos and you can probably name which band I used as a point of reference for each song; some of them are derivative to the point of absurdity.
Like Nanowrimo, I worry that being done will create this vacuum where I fall back into inactivity and despair; post-nano blues they call it. Let me tell you, it is Real.
One thing that will rise up to fill the hole left by FAWM's ending is more freewriting practice, a la Natalie Goldberg. It's really the only tried-and-true way to cut through the shitty writing and get in touch with the heart again. All this time I've felt more or less like a fraud whenever I managed to write something good. It's an unfortunate reality that I've always been able to fake it and turn out something passably decent without having to do the real ground work. Anyway, I'm going to be doing that more nowadays, which, if past experience tells me anything, means that my blogs will become much rawer for a time, but eventually they'll be far better for the practice. Hell, I may even start writing poetry again (much as part of me finds the idea repulsive). I'll just be focusing more on writing copiously, and less on whether it's good or bad.
So with that said, I'm going to tend to a few personal things that went completely neglected during this frenzied month, like basic house maintenance and dish-doing. Here are some demos from my FAWM experience. Keep in mind that most of them are not really finished; sketches, if you like (read: feedback is welcome) If you want lyrics to any of them, you can find them on my FAWM profile. For some reason the files on the website are cut off 30 seconds into each song (perhaps because the month's almost over) so I've made them available for download via YouSendIt.

love love love

~D

O Stella
On the Frustration and Futility of Second Hand Shopping (Punk Song)
Already Fucked
Sitting Still
You, Radio
The Spy
Song for Fishes
Sutures

p.s. my internet has being acting funny lately, so let me know if any of the links are broken.

Aaand We're Off!

February! Already!

This can only mean one thing: February Album Writing Month.
That's right, it's the musical equivalent of that equally breathtaking and insane quantity-over-quality venture, NaNoWriMo. I've gotten off to a good start so far, with one song finished on the first day. We'll see if I can keep it up for the rest of the month...
I promise to write an honest-to-God Real Blog soon. In the meantime, I'll be sharing the songs I've recorded (to save you the trouble of having to go track me down on the website). Any feedback is appreciated.

As always, headphones make it sound better (this kind of goes without saying, don't you think?)

xo

~D


Doubtful Guest - On a Sunday Night