Ordinary People

Dear Tumblrites,
I turned forty last week!
As a fully fledged adult, I think it’s time I pulled my metaphorical socks up and posted more often to let you know where I go and what happens in the previously quiet, but from now on documented, moments.
I’m back at school for my second year, studying music theory. I have a terrible study ethic and I’m constantly late for class. This must change! Because I find what I do for a living so enjoyable, I sometimes struggle to take it seriously. This manifests in me not making the time to make music, study music and generally move forward with my craft.
Hang on a minute! Wasn’t that what my 30 project was all about? I learned so much from that month and moved like a dynamo towards my goal of being a better, more prolific musician. So what happened?
Well, February happened and it seems that March is happening right before my eyes.
Confession: I have hardly played the guitar at all since my ‘30 days’ ended. Sad face, times one hundred.
I have been making, playing and being music, but my old habits didn’t just creep back in, they never left!
As I said, I learned so much…
Hmm.
I did learn a lot. I learned that I need to do music every day, or as often as I can, even on my ‘day off’ (musicians don’t really have days off). I learned that the only reason I can’t play guitar in front of an audience is that I don’t practice. I learned that I still have lots of time left for other things, if not more, because when you’re motivated and achieving, it’s infectious. I also learned that I like to get down on myself for no good reason, in spite of, or in direct opposition to what I am creating and conquering personally and/or with my music.
That last one’s my biggest waste of time. It’s sooooo boring. It’s also sooooo last three decades.
I’m forty now. I don’t have time to bully myself into failing. The trolls in my head have no currency in this grown up day and age. Begone, beasts of blah-dom!
On that note, I am off now to spend the day recording in the studio with Blood Red Bird. I’ll take photos, I promise.
Ang x

‘30 somethings in 30 days’

Day 30! -

It is done. I have reached my thirtieth day.

Seeing as I have not been nominated for any kind of award for this feat, I will spare you the speech that I had prepared for such an occasion, but I would like to give some thanks and credits out to those that travelled with me on this bumpy ride. Well, I wouldn’t say ‘bumpy’. It’s been more like an upwards journey that spent it’s time looking down.

Each morning of these thirty mornings, I rose from my slumber and began with an optimistic outlook, which was more often than not followed by a sharp downturn in my perspective as I realised that I had not become a songwriting super heroine overnight. I still had only the hands and the mind of a mere mortal. The guitar was still a lump of wood with strings attached, that sounded only as good as it’s beholder. Some beholder I was, I couldn’t even fool myself! The pen was still just a vessel of ink, with which to relay nothing more than the thoughts in my head. The thoughts in my head resembled one big glob of unmolded clay, that was sorely lacking in colour or form.

A transformation of goddess-like proportions had not overcome my muse. In fact, most of the thirty days, she sat there looking sullen. Her crossed arms and the occasional yawn suggested to me that we might not be getting along as best we could. A few minutes into each fresh and promising morning, I was left wondering how I could be so bereft of talent and ideas.

We all know by now what came next.

To all the people who have followed me and my blog-journal for this ‘30 somethings’ project, I would like to begin by thanking you for being there. Some days, you were the only reason I had to ‘write anyway’. When I couldn’t find a reason to do it for myself, I did it because I promised you that I would. You responded with a rousing round of support, in cheerleader-like proportions. That felt really good (still does).

I’d like to give special mentions to a few ‘30’s that I have made themselves known to me (I know there are more that I am not even aware of). It’s been such a privilege to be the recipient of your private ‘30’ and to those that made theirs public, we have all enjoyed reading about them. You have inspired and motivated. Inspired me for one, and judging from the snowball effect of those first few ‘30’s, I can tell that you’ve reached many others out there with your journey.

Andrew Mah’s 300kms in 30 was spectacular (wingsofadragonsnake.tumblr.com)! Andrew, where to now?

Lily Mae Martin’s ongoing berlindomestic.wordpress.com was a great inspiration over my ‘30’, as she upped the ante on her sketches and blog-journal. So beautifully honest and raw.

Bec Jessep’s ‘Tiny Wonders’, began in the last few days. It’s earnest and true accounts already have me hooked (loveremovals.tumblr.com).

Kristine Balfour is in the middle of her ‘30’. She is doing ‘30 Things To Make My Life Better’. I am the lucky-duck that receives this photo journal-blog directly to my inbox. To say that I am humbled would be an understatement.

My mother, whose blog is over at talewaggercreations.tumblr.com, has been posting every day and then some! She’s already an active blogger, but took up the ‘30’ as a motivator to post more regularly. I love you, Mum!

Renee (who likes her privacy also, therefore she will remain singularly monikered ala Beyonce or Kylie) has been posting on twitter and emailing a short newsletter to a select few (I get lucky again here!) over her ‘30’. Highlighting her two darling children as the objects of her admiration.

Ben Morris ate something he’d never tried before each day for 30 days (all edible food matter, by the accounts he posted on twitter)! What was the most unusual, Ben?

These are just some of the amazing ‘30’ers. I know there are more of you out there. A round of applause! Hip, hip! ‘Ray!

To complete the final post, I will tell you briefly about my last day on ‘30 somethings in 30 days’. My project has been 30 Days Of Music. I ended the month by spending the afternoon with Bill McDonald (myspace.com/fourhourssleepau). He has a bucketload of new song snippets that he played to me in my lounge-room today. It was so refreshing to listen to some new ideas and think about songs in a collaborative way after being in a music vacuum, for the most part. I have lots of ideas that I can add to his ideas! Writing every day for a month has definitely loosened up my writing muscles. It felt good to be able to just jump in. It’s always confronting to bare your creative ideas to someone else. Seeing as I have been making a general bumbling fool of myself for days on end in my own company, the impact of exposing myself was not quite so severe. I played him some of my tunes, too. Unfortunately my hands got shy and forgot how to strum altogether! Once I had gained my composure, the moment was somewhat lost, but he liked what I had to share, regardless. Thanks Bill!

After he left, I spent the afternoon playing my songs on guitar (with no problem at all, as is the law of nature). I even practiced my scales! Now that can be called a transformation. Are you listening, muse? I’m always here when you want me.

So, I guess that’s it.

I’ve got a phone full of voice memos, three books (my poetry/lyric, my morning pages and my lyric book proper) laden with the written word in various forms and some serious progress made with my guitar playing! I am proud of myself.

What’s that?

Excuse me while I have a private word with myself.

Grateful Me - “Thanks me.”

Begrudgingly Grateful Me - “That’s okay, it was nothing really.”

The Me That Learned Something And Is Very Grateful - “Well okay, it wasn’t nothing… it was really hard, but I enjoyed it.”

Congratulations to all of you for your 30! To those that followed, thank you so much.

See you for some regular stuff in here soon!

Ang x

p.s. I promise to keep you posted on my ongoing progress… just not every day!

‘30 somethings in 30 days’

Day 28 and 29 -

Ah, holidays (if you can call a long weekend that), so relaxing and so leading me away from my centre. I thought I would romp these last few days in with vigour and fervour. I feel that the wheels have somewhat fallen off.

Before I go on, I would just like to mention… one thing I have noticed from these entries is that I often begin with how disappointed I am in how my day went. Phooey to that, I say. I re-read the post previous to this one and I feel I have been doing myself a disservice. I had a great day of writing and playing, in spite of any distractions, including the big one, whether I felt like it or not. I should be proud of myself, not dissing my natural urges to lie on a couch. I played anyway, I wrote anyway and I wrote about it, even though I thought I did averagely. I’m going to be nicer to myself from now on. I’ve been miserly with my feelings.

Enough.

Okay, now where was I? Ah, yes that’s right, I was admiring my strengths and accepting my other traits as they are.

Sunday, our last day on the beach, I woke up crying from a horrific dream. It took me some time to shake it. I wrote for over an hour in my morning pages, then continued into my poetry/lyric book. I won’t share and lay bare my subconscious with you for Jungian analysis, but the upside of my bad dream, was that in the dream I spoke my mind in spite of what I felt was the worst thing that could possibly happen to me. Even though it was terrifying at the time, I suspect it was actually a really good dream that was just difficult to have. I wrote a lot about it.

Because it was our last day, there was the final swim to be had (would you believe, the sun came out!) and a clean up of the house that we had been lucky enough to stay in. Then there was the drive home. I was on the brink of sleep for the entire journey, as the car guided us back into the sauna that was Melbourne last night (I was not driving!). When we arrived home, we unpacked in a daze, showered and went to bed with the fan on low.

I did not play guitar.

Today, I did not want to get out of bed. I think I have just wound down and would be ready for a proper length holiday, but it is not to be just yet. I rose and took myself off for an appointment with my dermatologist, as all good Australians do, to check for long-term sun damage and any suspicious blemishes (I have had a couple of melanomas, so I go often). Nothing worse than seeing your skin doctor right after a trip to the coast! Even though I glowed an eerie iridescent white at the beach, due to a severe dowsing of sun screen, I still had a few rosy patches that somehow missed my vigilant slathering. She didn’t bat an eye. She’s good like that.

Back to a neighbourhood cafe for some blunch with Joan Didion for company, then it was home to do some practical work, like emailing, phone calls and general Monday-style behaviour.

I didn’t stop.

I picked up the guitar about an hour ago (it is now 9.30pm) and ran my songs. By then, I REALLY didn’t feel like it. I played anyway. Perversely, it sounded good and I really enjoyed it. I can hear the progress I’ve made, my tone is better and my hands are keeping a steady rhythm.

I did not write.

That’s okay.

Ang x

‘30 somethings in 30 days’

Day 27 -

Wow, I really had to drag myself over to the guitar today. Last night, we sat up late around the fire and talked and sang and danced. It was so much fun! Today, I am hungover, tired and wanting to indulge myself and my slothful thoughts. I’ve been swimming in the ocean and reading Joan Didion in the sun, when it has graced us with it’s tepid glow.

We arrived back at the house after our beach jaunt, and while folks showered and generally freshened up, I forced myself to write. My heart was not in it, but that doesn’t matter. I wrote anyway. I thought about how cold it has been down at the beach and how we always swim, no matter what the weather. I wrote about what a rough and tough breed us Melbournites are. How we love the outdoors, but it doesn’t always love us. It was a quite silly and irreverent piece. For instance… ‘with heads like The Olgas, we’re a ruddy old bunch, even though we wear sunscreen, our sun packs a punch’.

Then on to the guitar. Trudge, trudge, trudge.

Do you know those days when you wake up and you can’t make a fist with your hand? My hands have declared themselves a republic in their own right and refuse to talk to the motherland. I couldn’t even get them to strum up, then down. It was one or the other, but it could not be both. Interesting.

I pushed on and played all of my songs, while my friends prepared dinner in the open plan kitchen. It took a lot for me not to be self-conscious and I was, but I still gave it my best shot. They think my songs sound great. That feels good. I’ve realised I’m going to have start staging some ‘mini-concerts’ soon, in order to take the next step with my playing. I’m nearly there!

How has your weekend been treating you? I hope you’ve been able to indulge your inner-sloth. It needs to be acknowledged sometimes.

Ang x

‘30 somethings in 30 days’

Day 26 -

This ‘away’ time has encouraged a new element to my practice. In the past, I have been very private about my writing and even more so about my playing, as it’s quite a vulnerable state to be in for me. I have even kept it from my husband, for the most part! That was until I began this ‘30’ project. Due to the necessity of having to put out something every day, I have had to do away with shame and just pull out the guitar and be average and unsure in public. I have also found it difficult to concentrate in the past, but I think that was a confidence side-effect as well. Overall, I am finding it easier to create on the spot, without waiting for the perfect environment or the right time.

I dive deeper in a shorter amount of time, too. As I near the end of my ‘30’, I am noticing that I slip into the creative mode more easily. A good reason to continue with this beyond the month. It has definitely proven itself to deliver. I began early today, as I couldn’t be sure what the day would hold and I knew I should embrace any opportunity I got. It was a relief to skip all of my procrastinatory obstacles and just get down to it. I wrote a few pages in my poetry/lyric book.

Today seemed to focus around mortality and seizing the day. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the movie ‘Big Fish’, but there is a recurring line spoken by the lead character who knows exactly how he is going to die. Whenever he gets into a tight situation that looks like it might spell the end for most mere men, he would calmly say, “This is not how I go”. I like to reference it myself in moments that seem doubtful or scare me. I did not come any kinds of croppers today, I just pondered my existence, as we do at times. It’s not a bad thing to occasionally have a look into your fears or just face the fact that you are a breakable thing and see what’s there. I wrote about cleansing the body of it’s poison with my pen.

Then back to the song I am working on… Have I already mentioned to you how much I am loving this song? I know I have, and yes, it’s the same song. I have taken to working on it every day. I tweak and tune it. It now has everything that a song requires, but I feel like I would like to go through it once more with a fine-tooth comb before I call it done. Today I found the key line, that I believe makes the chorus strong and gave it two more verses (that’s four in total). It has a bridge and a few repeating themes that vary just a little each time, both in the chords and the lyrics. I began with a whole lot of metaphors to do with balancing the scales. You can’t have love without pain, etc. A very heavy-handed lot of words. I have all but scrapped them and now it seems to be metaphors about being near death at any time (and you thought the first batch were heavy!) It is about love and how scary it is. Who would put themselves in a situation if it felt like that? No wonder we struggle.

Then I went to the beach via a rambling and demanding walking trail and dipped my hot head into the cool ocean. Yeah!

Are you asking any big questions of yourself right now? Do you like to look at those things that make you uncomfortable or would you rather stab yourself in the eye with a fork? I feel both things in equal measures (like looking and not looking, all forks aside). I guess that makes my quests a little perverse at times. So be it.

Ang x

‘30 somethings in 30 days’

Day 25 -

My first of the ‘away’ posts, I have arrived at my friend’s beach house in Lorne, after spending the day at another friend’s BBQ that was on the way. I am fed and beered and not much feeling like making music. My husband and our friends are preparing dinner while I steal away for a short while to play guitar, write my journal entry and then call it a public holiday on music day for the most part. I can hear them all talking and laughing amongst the clink of plates and the sound of a knife repeatedly hitting the chopping board. It sounds like fun.
My songs sound like songs. Three in particular. I am made aware of this by being slightly self-conscious of the sounds I am emitting through the bedroom door. My playing is all stops and starts, as my motor skills have suffered a little from the days events, but I can hear these songs being performed on stage. It’s a good feeling.
At the beginning of the year these songs didn’t exist!
Tomorrow, I’ll find a little quiet space to be noisy.
Until then,
Ang x

‘30 somethings in 30 days’

Day 24 -

I love this song! It’s still like a choose your own adventure at present, especially as my music day was quite severely abbreviated today. I added a chord to the chorus. The end.

I know I am blessed to be able to pretty much be a full-time musician, most of the time, so I am being completely ungrateful if I complain about not getting time to do my music. I get lots of time! Today, not so much. It only serves to emphasise how lucky I am almost every day of the week. A word to my complaining self, if you’ll excuse me for a minute, ‘Shut it, hot stuff.’

Okay, I’m back, sans old whingey-pants that you will not hear a pip from anymore.

I taught yoga this morning, then I had an appointment directly after that which went for a good hour, so by the time ‘blunch’ came around, I was cross-eyed with hunger. I don’t fare very well when my blood-sugar drops. I know this, so I am very gentle with myself at these times. I treat myself like a child that hasn’t had their afternoon nap and needs coercion towards the right decisions, i.e. ‘that’s a good girl, just keep driving the car (yes that’s right, preferably on the road) to the nearest food serving outlet and we’ll get some yummy din-dins into your tum-tum’. Okay so, I don’t use baby talk, but it’s hard to capture the tone in print, so I exaggerated a little.

Once fed and watered, whilst reading a few of Joan Didion’s essays in, ‘The White Album’, I had an immediate flash of inspiration. I was still eating my toast, which I save until the end of my meal (I have a lot of eating idiosyncrasies, one of them being that I like to eat all of one kind of food completely before I begin eating another on the plate and they all have a preferred order, but we’ll save that for another time shall we?), when I began to think about the landscape of the face. I am now making a habit of leaving the house equipped with my poetry/lyric book and a pen, so when this caffeine infused rant hit me, I was prepared. I wrote a ‘four seasons in one day’ weather forecast, using the face. My favourite, which is what had me diving into my bag for paper and pen, was the ‘tempestuous storms over your forehead that never break, they just die between the eyes’. There were ‘earthquakes of laughter’, ‘the taste of salty seas in human miseries’, making me realise in the end that,

‘the country of your face,

is an unpredictable place,

I’ve travelled it often so I can firmly say,

I will never know every city and every state’.

I’ll be going away for the long weekend (it’s Australia Day, for all you good people living in the Northern-type places), but I’ll be posting from there, somehow. Expect songs about cheese, rose (the wine with the accent over the ‘e’), and chocolate. There’ll be salad and steamed vegetable songs too, I’m sure.

I hope you have been finding out about your strengths and that you are respecting your fragilities. 

Ang x

‘30 somethings in 30 days’

Day 23 -

Having completely lost it the moment after I last thought that I had found it, I once again feel like I’m getting the hang of this thing. Swings and… well, more swings, I’m guessing; with the occasional roundabout thrown in as a curve ball when I get too complacent.

So, my daily method seems to be thus:

I begin my day with a cup of tea, this is accompanied with one of three things, listed in order of desirability –

1) I write morning pages, 2) I catch up on emails, or 3) I stare into space or into my computer screen at nothing constructive.

Then, I move on to my next choice of three things, also listed in preference (note the ‘a’ and ‘b’, denoting equal importance on the list) -

1a) I practice yoga and meditation, 1b) I teach yoga and meditation, or 2 (aka ‘the worst possible scenario’) on a non-teaching day, I think about accomplishing 1a on my list and take too long to get up and get on the mat, then become too hungry to be able to sustain an hour practice and give up on the idea.

Whichever of the multiple choice boxes I tick, the next thing is always breakfast, which by now has become lunch, so I call it ‘blunch’, because it is more substantial than brunch and often is also my lunch. I combine the time pleasantly, with reading or catching up with a friend over food.

Here’s where it gets tricky… read on.

The first metaphorical fork in the road of my day comes at this point, when I decide whether to be practical and knock off some emails and any pressing organisational type things, or whether to dive straight in to my music day proper. I must admit, that the further I have gone into my ‘30 days’, the more often I have opted for the first option out of a surmounting fear of failing (I often think things have to get worse before they get better and I try to be kind to myself about this, but of course it makes me more anxious no matter how kind I try to be).

One way or another, eventually I concede that I am ready to write, or that time is running out and I have no choice left and I write.

With all that pre-emptive palaver out of the way, this leads me to the method that I seem to be honing and fine-tuning as the ‘30’ becomes a way of life -

Step One. I kick off by opening my poetry, slash, lyric, slash, rant book. I write from one to maybe three pieces in here and perhaps lift a segment that I am pleased with from there, to go onto the next step.

Step Two. I open my A4 songbook, the one I write and rewrite my ideas into, and turn to a fresh page to begin the idea I just imagined, or if things weren’t so fruitful in the ideas department, I turn to a page that contains an existing song idea and try to get a little further with it.

Step Three. I play what I have of that song on the guitar and then proceed to work my way through the ‘back catalogue’ of song ideas’ on the guitar, stopping if I am inspired to embellish some more on what I have found.

That’s kind of it.

Within the coming up with ideas and embellishing old ones section, there are many variations. Anything from just lyrics, or just melody, just chords, to building a song carefully with each component being added in a ‘song-building round-robin’ of sorts, no one element able to continue without the other.

Today, for instance, resembled the latter. For that, I needed a lot of help. A combination of the limited theory knowledge I have, combined with some soul-searching through my fingers and onto the fretboard, alongside my trusty Guitar Toolkit app, to verify the names of the chords that I don’t pass the first two courses of action. Brick by brick, lyrics and melody and chords all at the one time, can’t have a chorus until you’ve finished the verse, etc. Everything in it’s right place.

I love days like this. Most of the song (this is the one from yesterday) is still in my head, even though I have two verses and three-quarters of the chorus on paper. It’s safe. I know exactly how it goes, I just have to slowly draw it out, so as not to miss anything.

It’s not often I get to feel like a ‘tradey’ at my craft, all refining tools and exact measurements. I can really sink my teeth into songs like this and I do. Chomp.

Today, I feel very satisfied.

You? Frustrated or sated? Are you being kind to yourself? You know this is the most important thing of all, don’t you? Screw accomplishment if you’re not having a good time doing this…

‘Loving hating it

Enjoying not enjoying it

Taking comfort in discomfort

It’s so quiet it makes me nervous

I’m suspicious of the obvious

I’m looking for the light in the darkest of places

When I wanna get up I go down and I dig for ages

I punish myself ‘cause I wanna be good

I hate myself for always wanting love

It’s a tough way to live but the rewards are s’posed to be enough’

Ang x

‘30 somethings in 30 days’

Day 22 -

I’ve been worried that all of this ‘futzing’ around on the guitar might be compromising my usual way of finding a melody, seeing as my chord vocabulary is limited. I usually write by singing a capella, and rocking the old pen and paper. Lately this method hasn’t been very forthcoming, but in the past I would be struck with the words and often an accompanying melody, before I even think about picking up an instrument. At the very least, the rhythm and lilt of the lyrics would suggest where I was heading musically and I would pick it up from there. Since I’ve been predominantly starting my songs on guitar, they have more roots-y feel, as is the nature of my basic strumming style and my mastery of pretty much only G, A and D. Okay, I know a few more chords than that, but you get what I’m trying to say, I am just speculating about the compromise and my limitations. Perhaps a new method has been added to my repertoire. This has yet to be proven.

Having all but abandoned ‘the old ways’, I was pleasantly surprised by a song that did not birth itself from the sound-hole of my Maton. You see, I have acquired one of those burning questions about life that has set me on the path of needing to answer it. This is where all my finished songs, the kind that end up on my albums, come from. A burning question being something I am going through that I wish would make sense, or something that someone that I love is wrestling with, that I find painful to watch and wish I could make better.

When I am ‘struck’ like this. I can afford to let it breath, but only after writing down as much of it as I can. So today, I wrote, then ate, then wrote, then ate again, then wandered the house, then wrote some more, then ate some more (it’s hungry work, this writing business!)

I could be wrong. It could be a dead-end that I am running towards, but I think I have one of those songs coming through. Very simply, it’s about pain. The pain of daring to love and the pain of being afraid to love. The theme is strong enough to play around with lyrical options and not break it, and the melody is going places that I like.

I didn’t even pick up the guitar. I am lyric crazy! It’s all recorded into my voice memos.

I look forward to picking it up again tomorrow, as I’ve officially lost perspective for the time being.

How has your discipline been treating you? Any rewards? Are you feeling proud of yourself? I hope you are continuing to be patient and kind to yourself. This is not for the faint-hearted. Wherever you are at, be sure to look at the positives and remember to find some amusement about those things that are making themselves difficult right now.

Ang x

‘30 somethings in 30 days’

Day 19, 20 and 21 -

My fingers seem to belong to someone else today (can you see my calluses?). I am playing guitar like I know nothing at all. I have heard about these days, but seeing as mine used to be all like that, this is the first one I have actually noticed now that I play regularly. It is disheartening, but I know that it’s just a devilish mood that my hands are in, rather than my skills backsliding. I know I’m continuing to make progress. For instance, I am trying lots of different finger picking patterns and more chord shapes than I knew before. As my confidence grows, so does my adventurousness.

As you may have read in the post script of my previous entry, I played a wedding in Phillip Island on Friday. That was my music day. Simon Austin and I performed as Frente to an intimate group of family and friends of the wedding party. We really enjoyed ourselves, as it is still a rare thing that we get to play together. The informal setting was particularly pleasant and our banter was more personal and carefree as a result (if that were at all possible. I didn’t think we could get more personal and carefree with our banter). Happy rest of your lives together, Nicole and Paul! It was a great day.

Saturday, I was Wiped! Out! Totally! With a capital T! I didn’t expect that. I think I may be fighting some bug. I did very little. Played minimum guitar and wrote some lyrics towards a song from the batch. I only played at all, because of my commitment to the ‘30’, or I would have absolutely flaked. I did write my morning pages for an hour, first thing, which was very fruitful. I wrote about being a part of a community of artists and how people have been sharing their journeys with me online and in person, and what a privilege that is. I also wrote about remembering that all I need to do to be a part of that community is to continue to try towards laying it all bare, each time I write. To remember that it’s not a performance or something where I need to have it all together. Falling apart (the good kind, not the running through the streets naked, screaming kind) is where it’s at. Good things can come of it.

Today, even though my fingers are not communicating with my brain (or is that the other way around? Hmm, an indication of how I see things today…) I had a satisfying practice. I didn’t write anything new, well actually I did, but not a song. Well that’s not exactly true either. I did work on an existing song, just not a new one. I also wrote another rant, This one was about real solitude and the lack of it in our busy lives. About how “compassion is ‘uncapitalistic’, and we can’t be seen to be weak”. How I want to lie in the grass and make out shapes in the clouds and shadows on the ground. I referred to myself as ‘a cavewoman living in a carpetted womb, with curtains and couches and remote control murals’. Time for a walk down by the creek, I think!

Have you been making enough time to lie in grass and stare at clouds? It’s not bad for you, you know. It’s like nature’s television.

I hope your weekend has been a bit of what you need, or even better, a lot of it.

Ang x

‘30 somethings in 30 days’

Day 18 -

I’m completely losing it! What happened to that great thing I found just a few days ago? I know it’s there. It’s like I’ve become afraid of it.

I have done very little music today. I did anything but sit down to write… and then I wrote anyway, as is the way, but I tried very hard not to!

I wrote some new verses to a song that I’ve been working on for a while and tried a new way of playing it to suit the way it’s heading. Something’s happening there, just not quite yet.

Once again, I think the little things that I am doing every day are adding up and they just might not seem very fantastic to me. Come on big day and amazing song that’s in you, I know you’re watching me type this right now. Show yourself!

In the spirit of being open about the process. I thought I’d share what some of my drivel looks like. This is today’s rant. Maybe you can relate?

I’m going down

I’m letting go

I’m getting human

I don’t know

I would rather do anything else

Can’t a machine do the loving and the loss?

A calculator for the plusses and lesses

A kissing computer to catch all the viruses

I don’t know

I know I don’t know

that’s all I know

I know not to think that I do

I’m civilised if you count that I eat with a fork

and can hold a knife… but not the right way

If there is such a thing

I have my doubts

I have plenty of them

You could say I am rich

In doubts and in debts

A millionaire

I don’t know I know I don’t know

I cover myself like a decent great ape

I conceal my flaws

or I try to I do I try to I do I try to I do I try

Can’t a power transformer turn this thing around?

To a currency I favour

A ‘what’-age a wave length

What? I don’t know What? I don’t know

What? I don’t know I know I don’t know

I’ve got more thoughts than sense

More feelings than a centipede has legs

I’m more or less restless most times

Can’t settle won’t move

I lie about the truth

But I’m only trying to help

I try to I do I try to I do try I do try

Can’t a machine repair these ill pairings?

Despairing disappears

Ball bearings and gear

Elastic precision built

Mechanical and free from guilt

Hardy but hardly even there

Outerwear and tear

Not one scratch or scar to bear

No need for stories or heroes

Just ones and zeroes

And the odd touch up or service here and there.

Ang x

p.s. I am playing a private gig tomorrow for a friend’s wedding in Phillip Island! That means there may be no blog until Saturday. See you then!

‘30 somethings in 30 days’

Day 17 -

A lot of the time, when I sit down to write, that’s the first moment that I actually wonder what I might write about. Sometimes something comes, mostly it doesn’t and I rabble on about drivel. Every now and then I get a theme going, or a question that needs answering in my head, then I have a subject for a song. I have one of those right now, but I am struggling to get it out of my head and into reality. Every time I try, I kill it and have to set it aside and write some more drivel.

Yep, pretty exciting stuff here at Project 30 – category, Hart. I’ve written a fair bit today, if you count a fair bit of shit as something to count.

On the upside, I toyed with a guitar line that has a lovely ascending bass line through it. I believe it will be the basis for my song (the one that won’t be written). Hmm, maybe my lyric will be about the song that didn’t want to be a song. I’m going to try that tomorrow. It could be my ‘in’. I played this line for quite a while and enjoyed it the entire time. I may be improving on the guitar, god forbid!

I just need to work out what the chords are, exactly. I’ve been drawing Miro-esque fret guides, so I don’t forget what they look like, then I can work backwards and spell them out into their correct chords. I think I might enjoy nerding out on chord naming.

I have been falling prey to procrastination over the last few days. When that happens, I try not to get frustrated with myself, as it only makes it worse. I figure there must be a super-dooper song on the way and I’m afraid to write it. Everything points to that, at the moment. I’d better be right.

Do you procrastinate? If you do, what do you think you might be avoiding? Do you procrastinate by doing other things? What’s your ‘dealing with procrastination’ tactic? Mine is to try to remember to do one thing well, instead of doing too many things badly. I don’t always manage either of those!

I hope you are having some fun with your ‘30’ and on the days that aren’t so much fun, that you are being kind to yourself.

Ang x

‘30 somethings in 30 days’

Day 16 -

Today is not yesterday. I am glad of that. I’ve been meaning to shake things up by sharing my music day with a friend. Today, I spent my music day with my sister. She came to see PJ Harvey with me last night (I’ll get to that in a minute) and stayed the night, so it was a perfect springboard to make music together today.

I pulled out the melodica for her and she accompanied me, as I ran through the songs that I have. We played solo breaks and extended bridges, vocal-free rounds of some chord sequences I have, and talked about the songs and their structures. Besides my long suffering husband, I have not played my songs for anyone. I never just pull out the guitar and play in front of anyone as I’ve always been too embarrassed. I don’t have time for that kind of behaviour anymore. It was liberating.

And I played okay! Not great, not bad… very little swearing between chord changes.

She showed me some new ways to think about the chords. I now have a whole new place on the neck to write from! I look forward to trying out some ideas in this new tone over the next few days and see where that takes me.

Seeing PJ last night was a total shot in the arm. The timing couldn’t have been better. I may have wept during a few of her songs, but don’t tell anybody. The song, ‘England’, in particular. It really got me. I felt her sorrow, I felt her passionate plea, and it touched my own. Her belief in something so strong that she had to write about it and share it with all of us. That is what it is all about. What else is there? It translated undiluted. Sigh.

Today, I wrote words that will hopefully become a song. I wrote about love falling apart to give us space to breath. I wrote about patience. I let my heart spill onto the page. I’m going more deeply, as the days go on. It takes less time to get there.

Today, I’m grateful.

How are you today? What are you feeling about your ‘30’?

Ang x

‘30 somethings in 30 days’

Day 15 -

Remember how I said there is no success or failure? Well, that sits okay with me when I can say that my day was a success, if one were counting. If one were to be counting, one might say that today was very much like a failure. Seeing as the rule is not to be counting and seeing as no matter how my day goes, I still have to play something, I had a last ditch attempt at redeeming myself for the day.

Yes, I wrote anyway.

It went well! I have another verse for one of my songs that I was stuck with and I practiced guitar, even though I hadn’t left any time to do it in and really didn’t feel like it.

In other news, I have clean laundry, the trash is out and I’m up to date on my emails. Oh dear.

Tomorrow is another day. I am pleased with myself for trying against self-imposed odds.

As Bon Jovi says, ‘We’re half-way there!’.

And you?

x

p.s. might I add that I am seeing PJ Harvey tonight? Now that’s a great closing to my music day.

‘30 somethings in 30 days’

Day 13 and 14 -

I’m pleased to say that the magic of Friday has stayed with me in the form of a new outlook on what I do. Something has clicked. No great new songs, or even any breakthroughs, just one long good feeling about what I do.

I’ve been listening back over the ideas that I have so far and I think I’m onto something. I am happy with where it’s all heading and the fact that it’s all heading somewhere at all. There’s a common thread running through the songs, a motif, if you will. I know there will be more days of abject blah ahead of me. There always are. I expect them. I also expect days like the ones I’m having right now. If I’ve managed these few, then I can be assured that there are more where they came from. That’s all I need to know.

I am enjoying the repetition of a proper working discipline. In fact, I’m beginning to feel a little silly that I have never enforced any kind of a regime previous to this. What the fuck have I been doing all this time?

I did read a great quote from @Quotes4Writers recently, “What no partner of a writer can ever understand is that a writer is working when staring out of the window.” B Rascoe.

That explains a little about me and my methods.

I really have left my inspiration up to the muse and then hope that she can find me when she has a great idea. If I can’t write, I don’t. So, this is a really different approach for me. Now, I have been writing whether it’s great or not. Working when I feel like it and working when I don’t.

I always thought it was my style, and to some degree it is, but after this ‘30 days’ I think I’m done with that style.

The last two days have been weekend style. Husband is home, friends are present in abundance, the house and garden could use some love. Yesterday, all I did for my ‘30’ was play all the ideas I have so far on guitar. That was a really positive experience. Up til now, I’ve had my head down and have been in the middle of this whole thing every day, without any perspective. It was really valuable to listen to and play the songs I have. I was really encouraged by what I have and it made me want to write more.

Today, I was a little more disciplined. I wrote in my morning pages book for over an hour (something I’ve been doing on and off since my early twenties. I used to do it every day!), did yoga for about the same amount of time, and after a leisurely brunchfest out at a cafe, I returned to write some lyrical ideas, try out some new chords I’ve discovered (new to me) and play all the song ideas I have so far on the guitar.

I wrote about having the courage to be boring and being unwaveringly mundane. I also wrote a sunny piece about Sunday afternoons. I rarely write that kind of thing. A piece about having the doors and windows open, letting the sounds and the smells in and letting the sounds and the smells out.

Since I had my Saturday review of everything, I am feeling more confident to experiment.

I hope you’re having a sunny weekend, whatever the weather. If you took a step back from your ‘30’ right now, what would you see? Are you being patient and kind with yourself? Are you open to seeing changes, no matter how small? Even changes that might not be the ones you asked for? I hope so.

Ang x