And The Tears, They Finally Came

I'm sitting in the car, waiting for my brother to be finished with his dance lesson. He's part of a hip-hop class, and he's really good at it. He loves dancing. And I'm proud of him. But that's not what I'm thinking about.

I grab the novel sitting on the center console between the two front seats of the Suburban--I'm almost finished. I read for almost two hours today in the car on the way back from Dubuque. That might be why my stomach is churning and I have a headache. Or maybe it's because of something else.

I start reading. This book is good. The fourth book of one of my favorite series--I'm doing my annual reread of all of David Eddings' books. But I still don't feel well, and my eyes are strained from motion sickness, and so I put it down after only a few pages. I start feeling tired. Maybe I should just shut the lights off and try to take a nap or something. Not like that ever goes well for me. But I'm literally about to fall asleep, so...

I grab my headphones and start to put them in, searching through my music for some soft instrumental pieces to fall asleep to. I don't always do that, but sometimes it helps. I pick a Lowercase Noises track and close my eyes.

I can't fall asleep. The track is "Persistence", and it's one of those wonderfully nostalgic pieces that reminds me of the past and has me looking towards the future. I sigh and realize that I'm wide awake now, my thoughts racing at a hundred miles an hour. Four hours ago was the last time I saw them. The last time I'd see them for a long time. Again.

I haven't been sad about it, really. They're going to a fantastic college with fantastic people and learning fantastic things. I miss them, and they miss me, but we're all okay with the way things are. And that's pretty awesome. They have a home in Missouri now. I'm so excited for them.

We'll keep in touch. I know we will. And life is different, but life is still great, and God is still good. And I'll see them again along the road. But the music is still playing in my ears, and I feel nostalgic. So I take out the letter that she wrote to me.

I read it for the second time today. I smiled the first time I read it, after we all left Dubuque--I headed back to Janesville, and they headed back to Moberly. I smile again as I read it to nostalgic music. But this time I cry. I knew it was going to happen eventually, I'm a pretty emotional person. But it's not a sad, bitter cry, as so many have been before it. It's a happy little sob that wrenches at my heart and turns my brain to jelly as I thank God for everything that is amazing in my life.

It feels like a dam breaking loose, setting my emotions free and taking with it any remaining sense of loss I was holding on to. I finish the letter as I continue to sob. I grab my phone as a short verse comes to my mind. I start composing a tweet.

And the tears, they finally came
In between these bouts of rain
Time will tell, time will show
When this rain will make the flowers grow

I hit send.

2015 is just beginning. Life will be different. But life will be good. I know this.

My friends are still my friends, no matter where life takes us. I love them, they love me. Even if we disagree at times, even if things may drive us apart... We share something that ordinary people just don't understand. You see, we all met at this church in Janesville, and we all grew and learned and leaned on each other as we all held God's hand. And I don't think any of us will ever forget that. I still have them. I still have her.

That's enough.

When September (And October And November And December) Ends

It's been a while since I've written, so I decided to pop back in and give all the people who read this (so, almost no one) an update. I've been writing fiction, though not quite as much as I'd have liked to, and though I did finish the first draft of my Clockwork Cowboy story, it took me a lot longer than was expected, and as such, I'm only partially into my new short story, To Look Skyward. It's going to take a bit to get that short story to exactly what I want it to be, but I'm gonna work hard at it. In the meantime, people are reading my novella and giving me feedback, so by the time I get around to the second draft, I'll have some comments to work with. I already know most of the problems with it, but I want some input before I tackle it (that, and it's a good idea to distance myself from the project a little before revising).

Most recently, I've been recording demos of my music! So that's exciting. As you already know if you read the last blog post, I just got some recording equipment and an audio program, so I've been recording music like crazy over the last week. Most of the stuff I've been working on with that is either top secret or still not finished, so I can't really share it, but suffice it to say, it's been coming along great. 

As you may know, I've been struggling with whether or not I was going to go to school right away this semester, or take a semester off to work on writing and music, but that was kind of decided for me a little while ago, as it suddenly was too late to really enroll anymore, and so I am officially taking a semester off! I do have a bit of schoolwork from last year (oh, the joys of homeschool) to finish up as well, and so I'll be using this time to get that done and to focus more on my relationship with God, and my writing and music. 

In October, I get the awesome opportunity to go up to the Upper Peninsula to a recording studio with a friend of mine and record some professional music, so that's exciting. You should be seeing music from me on Noisetrade very shortly. And in November (by which time, I should have all the schoolwork leftover done), I'll be doing NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) for the first time ever. If you don't know what that is, it's a month in which you take the time to write every single day and crank out 50,000 words by the time you're done, starting a new novel on day one and having a completed (or at least 50,000 words worth, if it's going to be longer than that) novel in your hand by day thirty. I'm still torn on what I want to write for this, but I should have it figured out by November. I have two whole months after all.

That's what I keep telling myself anyway.

And of course, in December, all of my friends return from college and I get to see them all again. So that's really exciting. And you just might be seeing some new music around that time as well... More details to follow.

Well, I suppose I should go do something productive with my time. Not that this isn't. But there are other productive things I could do too. So I'm going to do those. The end.

Recording Demos and Other Audio Stuff

Well, the craziness of the summer has finally died down, and I can take a bit of a step back from constant trips and long work hours in between those trips. It's weird that summer is almost over already--but it always happens this way, so I guess I should be used to it by now.

First off, I'm sad. A huge number of my friends just left Janesville for their respective colleges, leaving me and a select few here in the good ol' hometown to keep on keeping on. Among those are my two best friends of all time, Anna and Miranda. So, yeah, I've been kind of bummed lately.

But anyway, let's get away from the sad and talk about the awesome! Before heading on this last camping trip, I ordered an XLR-to-USB cable, because, thanks to Blimey Cow, I had been getting really interested in audio production. Well, that was one of the best ideas I've ever had. Once I got back from camping, I hooked up a microphone to the computer over at church, and spent a few hours recording a song demo. My guitar even has an XLR plug-in, so the sound quality I got from it was actually quite good.

Yes, it was a crappy demo. I'm not very good at sound design (yet), and I have a lot to learn yet recording music, but it was just so cool to hear a song of mine layered with tracks and put together almost exactly as I imagined it. I'm gonna have some fun with this.

No, I will not be putting any of these demos publicly on the internet. They are very bad, as I have already said.

But, I'm starting to have a lot of fun with various audio stuff. My younger brother Chase and I made a short humorous little audio drama the other day, and I had fun messing with different sound effects and voices for characters, so we'll see what the future holds.

Oh, and ummm... I know this is kind of embarassing, but I'm still not finished with the Clockwork Cowboy story. Sorry about that. It's so close, but I didn't quite as much writing as I wanted to done. Hopefully, I'll finish it this week and be able to start on the new short story idea Trevor and I had.

Until then, have fun with your lives. I'll be having fun with mine.