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I just moved into my apartment. During the winter I lived with a family (my best friends and mentors) and since then commuted around the state, toured around the nation in an RV, and lived in New Orleans where little sleeping goes down anyhow.

But this place.... My own loft apartment in one of my favorite towns, down-valley from Vail. This spot let's me stay relatively stationary while playing weekly gigs in the valley, where our fans have dictated that we play early and often this summer season. But more importantly (I really never minded the mountainous commute, although my body might tell otherwise) I have my own space to create. To be loud, quiet, exacting in my practicing, sloppy in my writing, whatever I choose at any time or never at all. I can see the Eagle River out my window and already have a modest studio set-up in the corner of my room for new demos.

I've entered into a nice, steady period of songwriting recently. Like anything, songwriting takes practice and only a few gems can be mined from years of consistency. Except consistency is creativities' sworn enemy. You would think (and if you read this blog, you're right most of the time) that special occasions, situations or circumstances spark the creative process. Well how then can you expect to wake up and feel so special every day? Tasting the same coffee, toothpaste, reading the same paper, engaging in the same awkward morning ritual with your co-workers every morning makes one feel pretty regular. Sure I'm happy to be alive and recognize the immense beauty around me (especially in this here valley), but waking up at high altitude after long nights filled with overly-appreciative, whiskey-bearing fans makes me less inclined to write that hit tune, filled with the exuberance of life itself...

The key is to realize you're not special. That's right. Mom was wrong. She might have said you were the cutest boy at school but then you graduated and this is the real world, son. So when songwriting, don't stretch for the special, unless the feeling really hits you that you've stumbled upon divine lyrical wisdom, something everyone MUST hear. Instead, shoot for the common denominator, there are only a few human stories to be told: love, death, money... what am I forgetting here?? But those concepts are all so grandiose. Everybody wakes up groggy, goes to work stressed, comes home and hopefully has enough energy to maybe ponder those other grandiose concepts. So write for those people.

Either write about how you understand what their life is like, empathy some call it. Or write about love and death and life in a way that in that spare second between chewing his meatloaf and the start of the season finale of Lost, someone might understand what in god's name you're babbling on about, and see the world like you do, through your eyes.