Category: Drunken Owl

What if…?

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The other day while I was working on Theadia I got to thinking: what if I just…stopped writing for a while? I mean, not because I’m stressed out. or emotionally exhausted. or out of ideas. or held down by Real Life Issues or any other external reasons. It’s not as if I’m getting sick of it or feel I can’t hack it anymore.

Or to clarify the question: what if I choose to select a different creative output to be my primary focus at this point in my life?

You all know that I’ve always been drawn to the triad of writing, music and art. Three things I’ve always been interested in and loved in equal measure. But it was writing that took the driver’s seat, way back in the 80s. The bug hit me hard when I started writing the Infamous War Novel as a teenager and I just kept working at it for decades, and, well…here I am. Seven self-published books with an eighth one on the way.

And it seems that, somewhere in the back of my head, I’ve decided that I truly want to immerse myself in music again. I mean, I’m already far past immersion when it comes to listening, collecting and having my creative output inspired/influenced by it; it’s more of a clinical obsession at this point. But I’ve always kept the musical creative output at a distance these last two decades, leaving it as merely a hobby. I’ve learned enough to be Not That Bad (still with a lot of room for improvement), but in the last several years, there’s been that itch.

An itch that I want to know a bit more. To expand on my musical curiosities and see where it takes me. To finally learn how to home-record music without spending a fuckton of money doing it. I don’t even want to be a guitarists with multiple axes; I just want to try being some kind of quirky indie one-person project you find on Bandcamp. [Hell, I already have a name for it that A and I came up with ages ago: Drunken Owl.]

Mind you, this does not mean completely giving up the writing. I don’t think I’d be able to do that, anyway. It just wouldn’t be my everyday creative outlet like it is now. For a while.

Allowing those other creative avenues to open up wide and shine certainly sounds tempting to me these days.

A creativity rethink

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No, I don’t plan on giving up this writing gig anytime soon. I’m seven books in, one I’m currently working on and a few future ideas on the back burner, and I have no plans on letting them fall by the wayside.

I’ve been thinking — again — about other creative outlets lately. More to the point, how I haven’t allowed myself to give them any proper focus and practice to be anything other than passing hobbies. I’ve often said my other two creative outlets would be art and music, but I’ve spent so long working on writing novels that I rarely ever have time for either of them.

Why is that? Well, part of it has been just not allowing myself the time. Balancing the novel writing and the Day Job (and spending some time IRL with A.) often leaves me with very little time to do anything else. I still have a habit of carrying a notebook with me at all times so I could easily spend a few moments doodling. I have enough time outside of the Day Job that I can pick up my guitar and noodle for a bit. And I’m better at both than I used to be just ten years ago.

What’s stopping me? I think it’s that my creative brain gets stuck on the ‘well, you’re not bad, but there’s at least 9,000 more hours of practice and experience before you’ll be good‘ and I put it aside for a later time. And that later time keeps getting pushed further into the future.

I think I’m perhaps also a little daunted by seeing so many musicians and artists relying on computer software nowadays, and simply I don’t have the money to spend or the PC memory to eat up (or the desk space, for that matter) for it right now. And then I start thinking that maybe my art and music should remain a hobby.

But if I’m going to take either of them more seriously, I realize what I should do is take the same route I did with my writing: Do It Yourself.

I mean, my inspiration for having a DIY writing career is based on music, so I’ve got the knowledge to go that route anytime I want, right? Why should I worry about trying to learn the technology when I have the Beatle-based inspiration of pushing a button, saying ‘oh hey this sounds neat’ and running with it? I’m not a synthpop based performer that needs all the doowackies; Drunken Owl is more something you’d hear on Slumberland Records than a hipster indie label, and would be right at home on Bandcamp.

As for art? Who knows what would come of that. A webcomic? Storyboarding? Something else? And as for photography, I really just need to give myself the time to properly edit the pictures and make them saleable on stock footage sites like Shutterstock.

The net is vast and infinite, as Major Kusanagi says. I just have to make the time to explore it.

Future View

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Here we are at the last Welcome to Bridgetown entry of 2022. It’s been a busy year of change here: getting a new Day Job, being in-person social again, putting multiple novel projects on indefinite hiatus, and allowing myself to focus on personal needs. I’ve already gone over most of what’s gone on this year in previous entries here so I’ll spare you the details, but I will say that all told, 2022 has been a rather positive one.

So what will 2023 bring?

For starters I will be focusing most of my creative time on the MU4 project and the Bridgetown Trilogy Remaster. It’s been a long time in coming, and I’ve put it off for long enough. The Mendaihu Universe was always supposed to span several books and different generations and settings and not just stick around as a trilogy. Mind you, I’m vaguely thinking of this new project as another set of three books, but I’m not holding myself to it. If it’s a duology, or a single, or even a tetralogy, I’ll let it be what it needs to be. And I think I’m going to be sticking around in the MU for a while, filling in the blanks in its history.

I’d also like to get back to using the 750Words site on a consistent basis again. I haven’t made any decisions in to what I’ll be writing there, though I have a few possibilities. I’d also like to finally make something out of all those Drunken Owl demo outtakes I’ve recorded over the last several years. Some of them are just thirty second riffs and some are full-on three-minute tunes. I haven’t written any songs for years now and I kind of miss it, to be honest. I don’t know if these will have lyrics or if they’ll remain instrumental, but the plan is to make them more than just soundbites.

What about the personal side of things…? Well, some of that is going to stay personal for the time being of course. But what I can share is that I see the new year as one of exploration and expansion. Having spent the last two years cleaning out the mental and emotional detritus, it’s time for the next step: discovering what should go in its place. I’ve had self-built barriers up for the longest time, and after spending the last two years tearing them down and creating a much stronger foundation, it’s time to start rebuilding. What will that entail? Well, we’ll find out in the future, won’t we?

In the meantime, thanks to everyone who’s been following me here or just stopping buy, downloading my ebooks, and talking with me on social media. You’ve all been wonderful these last few years despite everything that’s gone on in the world, and I appreciate it all.

See you on the flip side.

Other creativity

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Close-up of my Gretsch Electromatic

I admit I haven’t been up on my art sketching lately due to being so focused on Theadia, but I’ve at least made it a point to pick up my guitar and noodle around with it for a bit during my writing breaks. Sometimes I’ll just play a few covers I’ve taught myself, and other times I’ll play a few riffs that I’ve come up with over the last several years.

I haven’t written any complete songs in ages, but I have at least fifty or so partial melodies that I’ve recorded on my phone over the last five years, all under the Drunken Owl moniker. I’ve been thinking that one of these days I should go through them, pick out maybe twenty of them that I think are worth expanding on, and turn them into real songs. Maybe build an album out of them.

I always say how writing, editing and publishing a novel is very similar (at least in my mind) to writing, recording, and releasing music, so maybe it’s time I made good and went in the opposite direction? I mean, why haven’t I done so already?

Part of it is the writing style, really. Writing a novel is a long-term commitment, trying to weave together several ongoing thought threads into something cohesive and complete. My style of music writing is obviously from the Beatles School of Writing It In My Head. Paul McCartney has often spoken about the reason why his early songs were so memorable was because no one in the band actually physically wrote the songs down on paper other than the lyrics; he and John Lennon made sure they memorized their new creations before they brought them into the studio. My songwriting is very much the same…I’ll get the lyrics down and remember the chord progressions that go with them by scribbling the chords above the words and making a quick note of “slow, sounds like Joy Division” in the margin.

Nowadays I write the music first, and I’m finding that I need to relearn how to write the lyrics to go with it. The fascinating thing about this turnabout is my guitar style has evolved and gotten infinitely better! Giving myself time to focus on the instrument has made me learn so much more than I ever thought. I still can’t fingerpick worth a damn, but I can kind of fake it on some of my newer melodies. And that comes from finally allowing myself to figure out the secrets of my favorite guitarists. [One of my favorite secrets was learning that some of George Harrison’s best solos and melodies are actually simple chords with minimal embellishment. He just knew how to make it sound a lot more impressive.]

Anyway, like I said, it’s been ages since I’ve written a complete song, and I kind of miss doing it. Perhaps that will be my next creative self-test: taking a half-melody idea and spending a week working out a full production plan for it. What would the song be about? What mood would it evoke? How do I hear it in my head? And go from there…finally take that SoundForge software that’s gathering dust on my PC and make some rough demos. See where we go.

And maybe get a Drunken Owl record out of it…?