I'm sure I have mentioned before that I often feel like I have a never-ending supply of good ideas and a severe lack of discipline when it comes to actually making many of those ideas into realities. It's been my understanding for some time that most people feel this way, regardless of whether or not the good ideas in question are album concepts, potential art installations, plots for unwritten works or a practical way to finally repair the one kitchen cabinet that doesn't latch properly. I've also been made aware that to many other people I actually look like one of the few who make many of my ideas into reality.

After completing a big project, I do take some time to be proud of it and to be excited that I've pulled it off. I do spend at least a few days reading it or looking at it or listening to it and just letting myself enjoy it, smiling because I am pleased with it and because I know I'm the one who is responsible for its existing in the first place. I never exactly lose that pride, and I can honestly say that there's nothing I've created over the years that I don't still like for some reason or other. Many things I'm still very proud to have on this website available for people to discover who might not have been around when my initial excitement was turning me into a shameless self-promoter telling everyone to please read my new comic or listen to my new album.

I am very happy with Crumple Up the Midwest. There are some things I wish I had done differently and some things I wish I had done that I did not, but almost every one of the criticisms I have about it actually could have been rectified if I had had more time to complete it or planned slightly better when I would be doing it. (e.g. I am not happy with my vocal performance on one of the songs, but I recorded the vocal part for it on the 30th, and I'd been up all night and was starting to lose my voice. Not only was I not in good enough shape vocally to pull it off perfectly, I didn't have time to approach it the other way and do hundreds of takes until I managed to piece together enough phrases that didn't make me sound like I was struggling to hit notes I can normally sing just fine.) There is nothing on the record that makes me really cringe, though. Everything is close enough to what I wanted that I've no complaints.

I have been threatening and/or promising to record and release a solo album for years now, and I'd never even come close until now. I had managed to record a handful of single songs over the years (most of which are available to download in The Vault), but when it came to actually writing (or resurrecting) a group of songs and recording them all, I'd never even made it past the "good idea" stage.

The biggest reason I never did it before is actually responsible for stunting many of my ideas in their attempts to become reality. I often get stuck in the Big Concept instead of just looking at a large project as a series of smaller steps. I worry about how 18 songs will fit into a cohesive whole rather than just writing some songs and starting to record them. It's actually ludicrous to think big at the expense of small this way. I've never figured out if it's some internal procrastination method that I'm doing without being exactly conscious of it or if it's just something about my personality with which I need to learn to work. I don't know if it's universal or if it only applies to some people. I do know that I'm not the only one who does it.

I was slowly working on a solo album before I decided to try NaSoAlMo, and I will return to it after I've had a little time to recover and do some things I've fallen behind on (like cleaning my kitchen). I have learned a lot about how I work in the last month, and that excites me more than the end result of all my work. Not only do I know that I can actually complete an album, but I'm looking forward to making one that is better than the one I just finished. I can't blame all of the things that I'd like to improve on the time limit (although a lot of them are related to it), but I can identify many characteristics of my writing, arranging and recording that I want to improve or know I can do better if I have more time to focus on them or even if I just make a point to focus on them in a short timeframe when I need to.

I observed a lot during the month of November about myself. I'm still sifting through some of it. I've been aware of the way I write for a long time, and I do know that some of the songs on Crumple Up the Midwest may not have made the cut as-is if I'd had more time to work on them. On the other hand, some of them turned out to surprise me because I did actually go through with making them instead of cutting them from the list before they could be fleshed out into something real.

The most important thing I have to think about now is something I've known for a long time, but that doesn't make it any easier for me to act on it. It's related to the Big Concept trap I fall into. It's that the desire to emerge instantly perfect will almost surely make you avoid emerging in the first place. Unfortunately, there seems to be no way to actually move toward perfection unless you emerge, learn from each appearance and funnel those observations into your next emergence.

what's on:
"π" (Ned Raggett - π)