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WHOLEHEARTEDLY

The whole thing is out today! Our entire EP is now available on Spotify, Apple Music/iTunes, Amazon Music and YouTube Music. We really appreciate any time you’re willing to spend listening to these songs! We worked so hard on them and we’re so proud of the results. We’d also very much appreciate anyone who might consider coming out to the release event Sunday evening! We’ve got a great band and a great opening act and a bunch of great music, and I think it will be fun.… Read More »WHOLEHEARTEDLY

The Ups and Downs of Knowing Your Limits

It’s been months since my last post. I haven’t really felt like I have anything to say, or if I do, it’s in the form of a song or a story. And I promise, there’s movement on the album and the novel. But recently I realized I did have something I wanted to say, and it wasn’t going to fit neatly into either format. So here I am, back in the blog. My younger self didn’t know what my limits were. She would go running… Read More »The Ups and Downs of Knowing Your Limits

What I Love

I’ve written a lot of things. Stories, essays, poems, songs. Typically, these have ended up in one of two categories: “this is garbage, I hate it,” or “someone else says this is good so I guess it’s good.” I’ve also made a lot of music. Mostly amateurly, though on rare occasions professionally. But these performances have tended to fall into the same two categories: “this is garbage, I hate it,” or “someone else says this is good so I guess it’s good.” But increasingly, over… Read More »What I Love

Mood Music

Twenty years ago, or thereabouts, I had a collection of mix CDs which each bore a label according to the mood of the music contained on the CD1. I can’t remember all of them, but I’m pretty sure they included things like “Giddy,” “Silly,” and “Angsty.” Nowadays I keep my music on Apple Music playlists. And although I do often listen to entire albums, I have two main playlists that I will turn to when I’m not in the mood to do that. The first… Read More »Mood Music

Out of My Depth

Imagine this. For the sake of argument, you are not a very strong swimmer. But you do like to be in the water, so you get yourself an ENORMOUS flutter board and you take it out to the lake or the pool and you flutter your way out of the shallows. Then you stand on your enormous flutter board. And it’s a bit of a struggle, as anyone who has tried to stand on a flutter board will tell you, but eventually you get yourself… Read More »Out of My Depth

Quiet

I wouldn’t want to lose a number of the things I own. My wedding and engagement rings, obviously. My signed edition of Terry Pratchett’s The Wee Free Men. Certain pieces of clothing or jewelry. But one of those things that a lot of people might not guess holds such importance is a pair of headphones. A pair of comfortable, Bluetooth-capable, noise-cancelling headphones. Typing. Chewing. Floorboards creaking above my head. Excessive bass from the car down in the apartment parking lot1 or some kind of noisy exhaust situation from the… Read More »Quiet

Fire

You ever feel on such creative fire because you’re more than 30,000 words into a manuscript and almost through the demo process for your second EP and then you started a writing workshop facilitated by your favourite teacher from high school and you forget about your blog and don’t write anything for six weeks? Maybe? No? Well, that’s where I’m at. Let’s break it down by project. First off, the novel. I’ve done NaNoWriMo (https://nanowrimo.org) twice before and, although fun, the output from that has… Read More »Fire

Bear Hunt

You may (or may not) be familiar with some version of We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, by Michael Rosen. The story begins, We’re going on a bear hunt.We’re going to catch a big one.What a beautiful day!We’re not scared. The terrain is varied and difficult, and at each point the children have to decide how to tackle it. I learned a variation as a chant at Brownie camp and didn’t even realize it was a book until, years later, I did a search for the… Read More »Bear Hunt

Trouble with Things

I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but I have an extremely hard time doing two or more “big things” in one day, especially if I’m wholly responsible for getting them done, and even more especially if they involve leaving the apartment. This means, typically, appointments, shopping trips, any [currently theoretical] shifts at work, any significant cleaning tasks, they all get their own days. This may sound like a mild annoyance (maybe, I’m not really sure how it sounds from the outside), but I have a lot of… Read More »Trouble with Things

Spark

I’ve been reflecting on my creative output over the last year. Yes, we put out an EP and we planned and executed a release event. But as far as writing, which I consider kind of a core aspect of my personality and sense of self, I only wrote about 30 non-EP blog posts, and I don’t think I finished a single new song. Not to say my creative self didn’t get any exercise, between putting together arrangements and recording and rehearsing and performing, but it’s… Read More »Spark

Christmas Makes Me Cry

I really like Christmas music. It’s probably my favourite (genre-crossing) “genre.” I like the sleigh bells and the half-diminished chords and the general preoccupation with nostalgia. I like the self-indulgent arrangements just on principle. I like that Christmas songs pull at your emotions, especially because, at this time of year I tend to get a little1 overwhelmed and sometimes have the impression that my emotions are stuck or even missing altogether. So I have a lot of favourite Christmas songs, including (I’m not ashamed to admit)… Read More »Christmas Makes Me Cry