Read this on galpod.com. I know, I know, I've done the year reflections just earlier this week. But it's also the end of the month and the term, so I'm going over the goals and setting goals for January and the Winter term. I refuse to call it Spring term because I'm not in denial about the seasons. Goals for December Finish editing LP and send to a manuscript assessment. Yes. Finish the academic paper. Yes. Blog twice a week. No. I only posted once on the week of 16/12. Run

Read this on galpod.com. My album is out live! It's exciting. A little bit of good news as the world comes crashing down around our ears. You can read about the process of making the album here and here. It's hard for me to nail down exactly how I feel about the album coming out. Proud? Sure. Nervous? Also. Scared? You betcha. Critical? Always. All of these feelings mix to become just weird. It's weird, to see the album cover (which the amazing Oli Mosse helped me create), wi

Read this on galpod.com. The holidays' rush is definitely palpable now. What with Christmas concerts and parties and pantos and lights and ice skating, our family's schedule is pretty full. We try to get everything in before we head to Israel for the break, and it's been a mad dash so far. And December is looking similar. Goals for November Go over the LP manuscript again, read aloud. Not yet, but I'm close. Should be done by the end of the week. Finish a first draft of The M

Read this on galpod.com. Last week, I did what I've been saying I'd do for a while now. I performed on stage, in an open-mic night out in Dalston. I went all the way to Dalston because my voice teacher lives there, and that's where he runs his very own open-mic evening every two weeks. For various reasons, it took about 2.5 hours from when the open-mic started until I went on stage. In that time I heard some people having technical difficulties, some people just not knowing h

Read this on galpod.com. It's been a busy month. We had half-term (a week with the kids at home), plus my son turned 10(!), so there was much celebration. And then, of course, Halloween, our favourite holiday, to cap everything up. As always, I haven't met all my goals. Here's the rundown. Goals for October Finish re-writing LP manuscript in the first person. YES! I did! I still need to go over everything and make it more literary, but it's all in the first person now. Pick f

Read this on galpod.com. It's been an interesting month. I'll jump right in with going over the goals I set for myself for September, and I'll talk a little about how it's going in the end. September Goals Progress 1. Re-write the main scenes in LP: I've done the re-write of three more scenes. Initially, I wanted to do the main ones first, but then I decided to go by order. The thing about re-writing a story is that it's never done, so I think I need to be more precise about

Read this on galpod.com. I've just finished The War of Art. I'll write a review later this week, but for now, I wanted to talk about a fascinating thing Pressfield talks about: Resistance with a capital R. Resistance is a force fuelled by our fear of change. It will do anything to keep us from fulfilling our potential, from following our calling as artists. Resistance comes in many forms, according to Pressfield. We talked a little bit about procrastination as a form of Writi

Read this on galpod.com. So, the album recording phase is done, and we're heading into the final stretch of mixing. We started talking about a title, cover art, and having a "digital release" which means putting the album up on Apple Music and Spotify. And I'm petrified. Interestingly, I fear all possible outcomes simultaneously. I fear that it would be a huge failure. That people would listen to it and hear all the imperfections I can hear in my voice, all the places I'm off

Read this on galpod.com. As I mentioned last week, I'm recording a music album. We've had two more studio sessions since my last update. In the first session, we went to RAK Studios. It's been around since the 1970s and is highly regarded in terms of professionalism and quality. It's a fairly big studio. We were in Studio 2, which has a desk from 1976. Which is a good thing, I'm told, because it gets the best sounds, particularly with a guitar. Our session at RAK included rec

Read this on galpod.com. I think it's about time I wrote about my side project. I've been dangling it for a few months now, and I apologise for that. I'm super excited about it, but I didn't feel like I was ready to write about it. I still don't, but I realised that this is precisely the point of this blog, so, yeah. I'm working on an album. A music album. I have a contract which says I'm "The Artist" (complete with capitals). My incredible partner went and got me a producer