I've sat down a few times over the last couple of weeks to attempt to write an entry, since I've had a lot on my mind about work, music, writing, love, faith, film and life in general. The thoughts won't fall into place and trickle down to my fingers. I just got off work a little over 30 minutes ago and I have to be back in less than eight hours. I type thousands of words a day. No wonder I want to cool it on the computer when I get home.

I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to do with these songs. I want people to hear them. I'll put them online. I'd like to get some hard copies printed up to send to radio stations, labels and magazine, and I've been considering going through a company called Indie Pool. They also have a service that would allow me to copyright the songs for about 60 bucks. For about 600 bucks plus tax, I could get the songs on iTunes and the like, plus make them available for order through HMV and Chapters.

I should chip away at that sort of thing gradually, I think. I still haven't played a show yet. I've been thinking of spending hundreds of dollars on a speaker setup so that I can practice a live show in my apartment. This music venture is costing me more money than a band normally would because it's just me, for the most part. I have to cover all the expenses. I don't know how I'd do it if I didn't have a grown-up job, and even now I'm pushing it.

It's been kind of nice, the way the job has afforded me the opportunity to grow as an artist. Sometimes I think I'm turning into one of those people who, when you ask them what they do for a living, they say "I'm an artist," but what they REALLY mean is, "I'm a bus driver who plays guitar for an open mic at this shit bar downtown once a month." Such a cliche. Is that an okay way to be? Is there an alternative?

I've been working on these songs, listening to them pretty closely lately, and lately I've found myself kind of proud of them instead of embarrassed. When I heard my voice singing on a track for the first time in about 10 years, I almost couldn't stand it. I buried it under reverb and put it way back in the mix. But I've been turning down the reverb lately and adding layers for clarity. I'm starting to not mind the way my voice sounds because it's more a part of the songs now. If it doesn't work, I can change it. I can be in the song rather than always apart from it, which is really what this whole process has been about on some level, I think.

Does anybody really care about this besides me? I've been thinking back to the things that I felt when I started really hearing music for the first time. As much as it manipulated me through the forms it took, I didn't question it or apply bullshit theories to it. I felt it through and through when I joined my first band at 14. I would show up at Darryl and Jeff's house with my bass and we'd play, just to see if we could get the songs to sound right. And sometimes they would sound exactly, perfectly right, and I'd be so happy. I'd grin my face off, and I don't know if they ever felt the same way completely. That feeling has always been something I've convinced myself into thinking is mine alone.

What are these songs I've written about? A lot of the time they're about words that I think sound good together. As a teenager I always liked the way the word "away" sounded in a rock song. A word that kept coming to me while writing songs this time around is "another", like I was joining these efforts at creation in progress somehow, as if they'd always been going on. Just more words in a long line of word-speakers, but I'm happy to take part.

A lot of the time, the songs are about the state of the world. They're about technology and worrying about getting old and marveling at how it feels to be alone in an environment that has been pulled so close together. They're about finding happiness in simplicity and finding a role to play and the enormity of the universe. And love, of course, because all songs are about that.

Playing these songs live and pulling them off is going to impress even me, if I can make them sound and look appealing. That will be the next part of this process, after I've done all I can to the songs in that little basement bedroom of mine.

Some of this is going to end up in liner notes. No doubt about it.

From Jack Endino's website, producer of bands from Nirvana to Hot Hot Heat:

"I don't know how to sell 'em or promote 'em. I'm a freelance studio guy, not a record company guy.

However, I was once in a band and learned a thing or two. Here's some steps a typical 'rock band' should follow:

1) Make a tape, any quality at all. Use it to get...
2) gigs. Play lots of gigs and get...
3) fans. Get better at playing and get...
4) lots of fans. If you get enough fans, and you play well enough, it will...
5) get people talking about you. At THAT point, not before, you can consider...
6) making a better sounding tape, and either...
7) send it around, or...
8) release it yourself on a CD, or BOTH. If you release anything yourself, you can get...
9) reviews. Send it to 'zines. People read these. If you can...
10) make enough of a buzz, the record industry will either come to you, or pathways will present themselves for you to get your foot in the door so to speak (thru people you meet, other bands that like you, etc). Good luck."

Still on step one.

I start the new job tomorrow at 10 AM. I'll be sleeping in my bed for the first time in a couple of months because I want to be ready and raring to go tomorrow morning.

I finished up the Terry Lee Hale cover. You can hear it over on the Wire and Light myspace page: myspace.com/wireandlight.

I picked up a Bond box set at HMV to start hacking my way through the films.

My updates in this blog might slow down a bit, since I'll be writing about a lot of things on the new one, but this should still afford me a space for things that the other one doesn't.

I quit my job at Senate publications today. Dave emailed me and asked me if I wanted to, and my return email was something akin to "Now that you mention it..." Working up to 35 hours a week will be enough without knocking myself out with overnight Senate shifts.

I've been working on music this afternoon, a cover of "Dead is Dead" by Terry Lee Hale. Hopefully I'll have it finished tomorrow, and then I'll finish up the original I've been working on for the last month and put both online.

I have quite apparently opted to be as lazy as possible today. I just woke up from a nap I took after working a box office shift for the Writers Festival this morning, my last shift of the week. All in all I'd call it a pretty fun experience, though one has to take serving poets in stride when they run out of hot water for tea. Austin Clarke was one of the best readers I've ever seen in terms of delivery.

ARC celebrated their 30th anniversary. I think this week had a "turning thirty" theme to it. I had dinner out with Jim and others (including Chris and Kathryn's new baby Eric) for his 30th birthday, so I've been thinking about it a bit more than usual lately. I've reached the point where I'm okay with turning 30, thankfully, and I haven't even turned 29 yet. All I care about when it comes to aging these days is knowing that I'm still capable of growth, that growing doesn't just stop. I think I spent a lot of my 20's subconsciously worried that that would be the case. Thankfully, I've grown out of it.

I talked with Glenn Nuotio quite a bit last night, who graciously let me know about a job opportunity. On my way home I wondered why when anyone asks me what I'm doing, I tell them I'm looking for a job while never mentioning that I'm also writing stories and music and trying to improve at those things. When I tell people that I'm after a government job, I sometimes get a reaction along the lines of "Really? Why?" I don't know why, really. Because the money is good, and because I live by myself paying rent and bills, and because I have a debt. Mostly, though, I suppose it's because I don't know what I want to do, nor how to go about doing it effectively.

I write stories and music. Today I started a new short story to procure another rejection letter. Yesterday I finished a cover of "Sleep Apnoea" by Buck 65, which you can listen to here: It's what I do.

New Wire and Light track: 93

And the myspace page is here: myspace.com/wireandlight

Feedback has staved off since I posted the first song, but I'm going to keep at it.

Last night Andrea and I watched Lars and the Real Girl, which was definitely unique. It kind of ran out of steam about 3.4 of the way through, but it's worth a look. Ryan Gosling is good in the movie, though I kept thinking of David Arquette with that moustache of his.

I started reading Soldiers Made Me Look Good by Lewis MacKenzie, an autobiography about his military career. Like Mistress of the Sun, it isn't the kind of book I'd normally pick up, though the man can certainly write an anecdote.

It's been a productive weekend. My first chapter is a hair away from being ready to send off to Joe, I'm continuing to motor through The Way the Crow Flies, and I just finished a new Wire and Light Track, "Clear."

You can listen to that right here, over at last.fm.

I'm hungry. I've been sitting in front of the computer for too long. When I'm working on music I forget to eat.

Has anyone else noticed that Sarah Palin sounds exactly like Mrs. Generic from Bobby's World?

The song is done. Download it here. Give it a listen. The song is called "No Time Left." I'm calling the band Wire and Light. I'm going to try hard to ensure it won't be the last song I'll record.

I think my drive to be creative lately has put an atmosphere in place in the apartment, constantly reminding me that there's something I should be reading/writing. It hangs over me, I breathe it in, whenever I'm indoors, and it keeps me active. I started reading Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee last night and I'm forty pages from the end. I couldn't put it down today.

I've been thinking about picking up a record player lately and starting a vinyl collection of my favorite records. Yesterday Matt, Carly and I went to Vertigo to browse LP's. A player is going to end up costing me about $250, so I'm not going to get it up and running immediately.

Andrea came over last night and I showed her a bunch of stuff from my college days. Apparently the college version of me was cute, even without facial hair.

The TV arrives tomorrow. I'm beyond excited.