Six Weeks into November

Not quite - we're about three weeks on from the album release, and I find myself doing all of the things I really should have been doing in the months leading up to it. This website, for a start. The online store, the gig booking, the PR. I have a real animosity towards any admin, which has sent me a cyclical pattern of wondering why my feet ache, moaning about it, and then placing another bullet between my toes. In the eyes of an industry, I'm sure my debut stands as a flop. For me, that album has done everything it needed to. It got me off my arse, and it got me believing that other people see the value in the hours I bleed away for creativity.

As I prepare to go to India for February (I'm lucky enough to be doing yoga teacher training, hit me up when I'm back - I'll be more broke than ever), the reading reminds me that the admin isn't a curse and it isn't a blessing. It stands and repeats as something to be done mindfully, with some element of detachment, and needs to be done in spite of the results. Why send a thousand emails for one reply? Because they need sent, the replies aren't the necessity. The work is. That's what the album taught me. No matter how much I resist, some things demand to be done.

This is just a short 'hi' for now, blasted out between meetings (preparations for India also being rushed at the last second). But there will be more. I've always disagreed with the term 'portfolio artist' because of it's justification of not paying artists enough for their talents, but that's the expectation now. Marketing yourself as a storyteller in music, prose, poetry and theatre has so many joys of cross-pollination, realisations that all skills are transferable skills, and enough eclectic experiences to make you feel you've lived 6 lives by the time you hit your mid-twenties. However, if you've got a finger in every pie, no one knows what filling is beneath your pastry. Jeez. I promise there's better metaphors in my poetry and lyrics. Maybe not. I can't promise flourished writing. perfect spelling and grammar in the blog, but I can promise honesty.

I'm in a coffee shop and no one knows I've just spent 4 years pouring my soul into an album. It is wonderful to be anonymous. No one knows my debut chapter collection of poetry has just won a competition. No one knows I have three novels sat on this laptop that I am trying pummel into something worth reading by someone else. But they will, one day. They will. And so will you.

If you don't know what to expect, neither do I.

I hope you're more comfortable with that than I am.

if you stay open, stay here, I'll give you everything.

Welcome.

(PS - please go check out the album)

Of love,

S x