Day 13 is this week.

For which I will cheat and talk about what’s happened since Thursday before last, the ninth. Mundane things like work and feeding the cats will be omitted in favor of a more interesting tale. I already mentioned that I was working on a couple of songs, but this requires backstory to fully convey the impact of such a statement.

You see, I don’t– or didn’t– write songs; I don’t easily find original melodies that I can remember, let alone that I can play on a given instrument; and it’s nigh-impossible for me to combine good words and good sounds into something that resembles a song instead of slam poetry.

But music is my lifeblood, and I have yearned to be able to create it. I love to sing, and my voice can do interesting things– nothing operatic like my incredibly talented and skilled sister, maybe nothing worth more than an open mic night at a coffeeshop, but the only instrument that I have mastered is my voice. And while I can play piano and various percussion, and I am oh-so-slowly learning guitar, and I can mess around with my harmonicas and travelsax and didge… I can’t do any of these things well enough to write music with them.

Until Thursday the ninth, when J and I were at the Irish pub we visit every week for their Celtic music session. Sitting outside, I scribbled some might-be lyrics and then played with them aloud until I found a tune to go with them, then continued singing until it was polished to a gleam. I was amazed and giddy that it worked and sounded good, especially with such personally significant lyrics. Since that night, four people have heard my recording-of-questionable-quality of that song, and all responses have been positive.

And since that night, I have finished five songs (lyrics and vocal melody only, but for one that has drumming) and come up with lyrics for six others (some of which will have rhythm guitar and/or drumming), plus one unfinished lyric-snippet and a little melody on piano. I picked up Mel Bay’s Mastering the Guitar off my shelf and got 30-some pages into it in two nights, and will be diving back into my book on music theory so that I can more easily craft accompaniment to these and future songs.

My world has exploded with such a muse-dump, rife and rich with potential and excitement for what I am doing and what I can learn to do. Inspired by the likes of SJ Tucker, Heather Alexander, and Alexander James Adams, I plan to experiment further, with the help and participation of my partner and my sister. Between us, we have half a home recording studio and an incredible variety of musical instruments, and the passion and talent to Make Things Happen.

I’m wildly excited, and I can’t wait to see what we can do.