Snippetwriter

I've had a lot of great breakthroughs this year. For one thing, I shocked myself by getting a regular, twice-monthly gig at Momo's.  And it really does get better and better, more and more fun, each time.  A couple of weeks ago, I met with a music publicist, Cash Edwards, who gave me a ton of great advice and suggestions about working with the local press to get more folks on my bandwagon.


I also have some great stuff coming up. In early October, for example, I'll be attending Tom Jackson's Live Music Performance Bootcamp in Nashville.  It's my first trip to Nashville, and since I'm a songwriter, I feel a bit like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, heading off to the Emerald City.  Only it's me who's green!

I'm writing away, fantasizing about having a purseload of new songs, with which to knock off everyone's cowboy boots.  But I find I'm just not finishing songs right now.  I don't really like that.

The other night, I had my Songwriter Date Night, and I took some time to look back over my big songwriting notebook.  As I flipped through it, I saw that I have a ton of snippets--ideas, unfinished bits, etc.  I also saw a few instances where I worked on songs for awhile, several times, before I managed to "finish" the song.  These are songs I play live now, and I got to go back and see how I started them four or five different times before I came to the version that turned into the "finished" one.  Each time, I added more depth and exploration and came to a clearer sense of what I was trying to do with the song.

I'm choosing to embrace the snippets.  To see myself as a snippet writer, not a songwriter, and trust that the snippets will lead me on.  If I get all freaked out, I put pressure on myself to finish things.  But I don't want to miss out on the depth.