Metal Head

One of the reasons I'm currently writing a musical is because my friends have always teased me that my songwriting seems well suited for the stage. "Andrew Lloyd Webber has left the building" may or may not have been uttered during the recording of my last album. That's the kind of music I write.

So am I the only one who finds it ironic that, now that I am *actually* writing a stage musical, I am for the first time writing - for that same stage musical - a heavy metal song?

I have to go now - I'm listening to heavymetalradio.com's stream and I can't string words together while this is happening in my ears.

The question of the month:

Will I have the patience and persistence to write an entire screenplay? I'd like to say yes. I'm pretty sure I've got it in me somewhere, it's just a matter of finding it just at the moment.

Then, of course, there's the other question: Will it be any good? That remains to be seen, but perhaps I'll post an excerpt on here and all you millions of readers can tell me what you think, no?

Apparently I Think I'm a Writer

I'm not sure how this came about - if it's from reading so much dooce.com and being inspired, or from such a large percentage of my communication the last four weeks being in written form (thank you, instant messenger), or if this is at long last the manifestation of my childhood dream of writing novels - but apparently I fancy myself a writer. The funny thing is, I don't do much writing.

That's unfair, actually. I have quite a few songs that would argue that I do write, just in a particular (short) form. But I have nevertheless concluded that if I can't even manage to update a blog more than twice a month than I'm really not much of a writer. And since I'm toying with the idea of tackling my first book, I should probably prove (to myself, at least) that I am, in fact, *actually* a writer.

Of course, I realized some time ago that a label such as 'writer' is not something one must earn by getting published or publicly recognized in some way, one must simply write and then one is a writer. I discovered this when I caught myself thinking and saying that I was "an aspiring songwriter," and then thought "wait a minute - what's aspiring about it? I write songs, don't I? What does a songwriter do besides writing songs? I AM A SONGWRITER." I might not be a famous songwriter, or a published songwriter, or even what some would consider a professional songwriter, but I am, in point of fact, a songwriter. By that same token, I am a writer, just as much as I am a student or a Mac user or a Toyota owner. I am not rabid about my Toyota ownership, but I own a Toyota and so it is a valid self-classification.

So I hereby publicly declare that I am, indeed, a writer. I write. Words. With punctuation. And sometimes even proper spelling and grammar.

Now that I've made this declaration I am free to begin my book. (BookS? Give me time.) All I need is a subject, and I've got tons of ideas. The trick is choosing one I can.... scratch that. The trick is beginning to write. I am beginning here, now, with this blog. I don't know that anything I've written here - or will write here - will ever turn into a full fledged publishable kind of ouevre, but as Kate so kindly pointed out, by publishing myself here on the internet I am inviting book publishers to discover me and offer me lots of money to fill many pages which they can put on shelves and market to unsuspecting Barnes & Noble customers. And as I pointed out, there are perhaps three people that read my blog. But maybe if I start writing here instead of just keeping this glorified placeholder on the domain......

That's, Like, Sooooo Meta

I have two excuses for not writing very recently.

1. I can barely find time to sleep, much less post here. (Why am I still up now? Good question.)
2. After writing that last blog about all y'all who are reading it - or not reading it, as the case may be - every time I've thought about posting I've found myself wondering what on earth to write about...and gotten stymied and given up.

I think I was better off not thinking about my audience, but simply blathering on about whatever was in my head at the time. Now I find myself censoring every idea as (mostly) completely uninteresting to whomever might be reading, or else some degree of pompous and obnoxious.

This leaves me at a bit of a loss. I mean, I guess I could write about the weather, and sports teams, and that sort of thing. I could start writing nothing but movie reviews (though that would require seeing a lot more movies than I currently do). I could let this become a completely 'meta', self-reflective blog about blogging, but I think we've seen from Jason Mraz's songwriting that writing about nothing but your own writing gets really boring (and irritating) really fast.

So.... I don't have a solution. I suppose I'll just get over it and go back to blathering like before. In the meantime....I'm going to get some sleep.