Hi email friends. This past weekend I was blinded by a fully-lit full moon, so I decided to take a note from a writing inspo of mine and send a newsletter.

Here in the aftermath of an album release is a time of sowing. Or really, equal parts sowing and harvesting. I sometimes think of my work more like storing cheeses or wines in a cellar, allowing them (and me) time to grow and age, then reexamining them alongside something I wrote that same day. But I have just as much real-life experience with cellars as I do with gardens (none).

Although! I did plant a few things on our back porch. Kale & Friends. Mainly because I wanted kale for two recipes and I didn’t want the kale to be lonely. This chard is getting rather large though, if anyone has a recipe or something to do with that.

A tale of three craft quotes

As is often the case with creative work… you are haunted by “craft quotes.” You may consciously collect them, or they might haunt you. Regardless, there’s a whole cottage industry for Craft Quotes and some make a whole career out of it. Most of the time I enjoy them, but allow them to sit just on the periphery as to not get too caught up in the vortex of Craft Talk. Although… let’s humor ourselves with a few that have felt relevant lately:

If you want to work on your art, work on your life.
— Anton Chekhov

I think this is the right calibration of vague-enough-to-fit-various-situations as well as well-known-name-to-give-it-an-air-of-authority and ,of course, short-snappy-language-that-feels-like-a-proverb. Although, sometimes it just feels like a pat on the back for not making things. For someone like me, where creating feels urgent and under constant threat of time management, I think there is something more we can dredge up…

I once read a book by Judy Chicago, who interviewed all these women artists, and they made their art on the back porch, they made it on top of the washing machine, they made it next to the kitchen sink, and they made it anywhere they could, for the hour and a half while their kid was taking a nap, and for the two hours while they were at the play group. They made it in between. It wasn’t, like, you get to make art for eight hours. You make art in 20-minute snatches, and you don’t, like, fiddle around.
— Eleanor Coppola, via Austin Kleon

Ah yeah. This one feels a lot more targeted. When I read the Chekhov quote, images of wilderness retreats come to mind. When actually, the things pulling me from artistic work are all the tending and keeping that need being done. The job, the house, the family. And I do love doing them. But it can make for situations that require a great deal of patience. I read this Coppola quote and feel very energized by it, though. I’ve taken up reading books more often in the last few years and have made incredible progress on my ‘to-read’ Goodreads shelf and the vast majority of that time has been in “20-minute snatches.” Reading, like writing, can often be romanticized like something you sit down to do with a perfectly prepared beverage and perfectly-lit seating.

I’ve benefited much from carrying around a book, e-reader, even iPhone app because those times are often not preplanned, they just happen to us. I think I’d benefit from spending more time carrying a guitar or notepad around to do the same with music.

Although for all its relatability, it’s not Coppola who haunts me the most. It’s this one lately making the rounds on social media after the passing of Annie Dillard:

One of the things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.
— Annie Dillard

Yeesh! Looking straight into my soul with that one. And gesturing at the aging body it inhabits.

But yes, since you asked, I (like many) do have a Voice Memo app heavily stocked with snippets, performances, hummed melodies, bad lyrics. Ideas that eventually get combined or mutated into songs. Since releasing “In The Dark” I’ve been taking inventory and even brought a handful of audio files into the harsh daylight for closer observation…

And so Annie Dillard comes to mind, telling me… hey. There’s all the music. Why stop at uploading to Google Drive?

. . .

I thought about it! Following a well-documented pattern of mine, I drew some crude art, snapped a picture, and even wrote up a tracklist.

But I’m still unsure. It does feel like a lot of these could develop into full songs. I’m much more gracious to musical ideas to go stand in front of the public than lyrical ones. And, well, I think about the musical ideas that could wait for better lyrics to support. Perhaps I just trust my ‘off-the-dome’ musical ideas more than I do my lyrical ones, and some amount of time and money supports this reasoning.

But I do think there is more work to be done here. Most of all, these files were uploaded to Google Drive not to be observed alone! But to share with new collaborators. So we will still keep chasing the thread here. I trust that these ideas are worth investing in and developing. Typically captured in those “20-minute snatches”, I think this micro-library is worth revisiting during a snatch, rather than consulting the ether of spontaneous ideas.

The real benefit to collecting these craft quotes seems, to me, on the associations we make by selecting a few and seeing their relationship with one another. In my all time favorite book of craft advice, George Saunders explains his editing and revision process like furnishing a room. You might go on one shopping trip and furnish the whole room in a day. But, you might also build the room up slowly. Or replacing pieces over time. In the latter, you benefit from the evolving and shifting tastes of multiple people, rather than just the one. I think this advice pairs best with Dillard’s charge to make and share. And maybe collaboration is the true hybrid approach to getting multiple perspectives in the room.

OK. Enough talk. this is a newsletter about music right? Well then, let’s hear it!

Exclusive to this email, a link to Selections from Guitarisms - enjoy it. This might not be the last you hear of these melodies and moves:

👂 Listen to Guitarisms on Samply

Feel free to reply to this email if you have any thoughts.

Until next time 🌕

— John