The days are drawing in and the bright memories of summer music-playing are beginning to fade. I wonder what changes autumn will bring.
I've loved the various opportunities to make live music over the summer. There may be fewer opportunities to perform in the coming weeks and months, but who knows. I've got that familiar poignancy about saying goodbye to the sun's warmth and light for a while. But I also recognise the potential for positive new shifts in energy and direction.
Latest release
I released Dialogic's second record, Love And It All, last Friday. Like my first release, Safe On Your Way, this song is the fruit of my studio collaboration with producer Paul Worthington. For the next while, I hope to get a new song ready for release every six weeks or so, if I can keep up the momentum.
Being so new to the process, I've recently felt some buffet and overwhelm about the unknown-ness of it all.
There's so much to get to grips with about the practicalities, let alone the possible mindsets, in putting recorded music out into the world and then looking for a digital audience.
I count my blessings that I live in this unprecedented time in human history when it's possible for me to even consider the enterprise of recording and releasing music, this new era of the 'democratisation of music'. Any old Tom, Dick or Harry can have a go. As for this old Tom, yeah, I fancy a go, so lucky me! It's exciting. But I've sometimes found that exciting can tip into overwhelming.
Maybe it's something particular to autumn, or perhaps just a general season of life, but of late I've had some wobbly feelings of uncertainty about my creative process.
As I write now, I feel protective towards my creative efforts. I determine to keep a watchful eye on my inner critic who has been making a bit of a racket recently, showing a spirited tendency for meanness and for getting the last word in!
I know it's pretty common for people to experience vulnerability around their creativity. Certainly everyone is a creative creature - it's in the nature of being human. So I feel protective towards the creative life of anyone who happens to read this and resonate with my experience of a harsh inner critic.
I say to you, as I say to myself, look after your creativity, so that you can thrive and stay safe on your way.
For me, I don't think looking after my creativity means getting the upper hand over my inner critic and harshly shutting him up. He's not all bad. In fact, he could be a potential ally if we can work things out constructively. It just needs some awareness and some kind dialogue together. Mmm. Dialogic.
Finishing on an autumnal note, here are the lyrics of the second verse of Safe On Your Way:-