Art for art’s sake…

SO…

Hi.

I’ve been quiet for quite a while…. except on Facebook. This wasn’t by design – but out of necessity. Well, not necessity, but health. I had to find a center from which to operate. Artists and writers have a tendency to either find that and thrive, or else flame out or just plain fail. I wanted no part in either.

I LOVE a good song. As a child of 60’s pop radio, I was exposed to a whole boatload of ’em. Which puts me in a precarious position as a songwriter… I want my stuff to be as good as the best of what I’ve always loved.

Talk about setting yourself up to fail.

Well… the last very public project I attempted tested that to the hilt. I spent well over a year in public writing and recording. The self-imposed (what a DOPE) pressure to produce shut me down big time. So much so that my writing suffered for years as a result. I did put down a bunch of music, and got a few songs done, but for the most part, sitting down to write was like sitting down for self-administered dentistry sans novocaine. Not so good.

And for an extended period of time, writing was more random scrawls (of which there are now MANY) than concentrated songwriting.

And after what I put myself through, I realized that pushing myself in any real way was putting me right back in that horrible position. So I laid low, kept making music (including a whole bunch of live cover stuff, which has been incredibly healing,) and didn’t force the issue.

And little by little, the flame has returned. And in many ways, brighter than ever before. You have no idea how grateful I am.

There are a few resources I found invaluable in getting back on the writing track… and I have my honey Nancy to thank for two of them:

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
and
The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life by Twyla Tharp

And

The Definitive Guide to Writing on Your Terms, Using Your Own, Honest-to-God, Gut-Wrenching Voice by my new dear friend Rebecca Dickson.

Every one of these has had it’s own place in my little writing rebirth… but a central theme has been to just keep doing it, unapologetically. Every day. No matter what, even if what you end up writing is crap, you write anyway.

So I have been. And after a very long, very dry spell, it’s back in a really beautiful – and really healthy – way.

In the meantime, I’ve decided to get this album out the door. I’ll write a separate post about it, but thought you’d want to know about it:

http://markmarshall.bandcamp.com/album/the-other-new-eye

In the end, it’ll be about 32 tracks, give or take. If you’re a longtime listener, bless you, and you’ll know much of it – but there will also be a bunch you’ve never heard.

Thanks, as always for your kind attention…. and I hope this finds you and yours in the most lovely of places.

More shortly!

Love,