ben wakeman : : Journal

I Write the Songs

March 30, 2006

So I've been delinquint in my journal writing because I've been so damned busy with songwriting lately. My goal of two songs a month I easily met, and have actually exceeded. My friend Charles Williams, who also happens to be Ian's guitar teacher, is working on a country song called "Waiting For Love," with me. I'm also working on two quirky pop/rock songs with another great Atlanta writer named Pat Walsh. Finally, I have two new country songs of my own that Kristian Bush is helping me out with. The first one, "Can't Get Here From There," is nearly finished I think but requires some editing. The second one, "Strong Sense of Direction" just came to me like a flash flood yesterday. I wrote the first verse and chorus on the commute into work, came up with the melody and changes and second verse on the drive home and recorded a rough demo last night after putting the boys to bed. It's a fun one that makes me smile because it reminds me of some of the great fast talkin' Johnny Cash style story songs that I love so much.

In other ways life has been equally busy and prosperous. To quote one of my favorite sayings: "I've been busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest." I'm teaching a lot of courses in Flash, ColdFusion, Photoshop and CSS over at Emory now in addition to my regular gig directing web development at Digital Positions. Catherine and the boys are happy and healthy. Ian is having girl trouble already, ugh --- he's not even 10 yet! I took the boys up to the north Georgia mountains over the weekend and we stayed in a cabin with my friend Jim and his three boys. It was great to get out of the city even for an overnight. We grilled some steaks outside, drank some great Belgian beer and watched the snow flurries while the boys found endless delight in poking sticks in the camp fire. What is is about boys and fire?

The experiment I mentioned at the beginning of the month is still in progress and going well I might add. The simple discipline of writing down my goals 3 times every single day does something to reshape my reality and push me to achieve them. I've been toting around my journal religiously and writing whenever I have a few minutes. Being a writer, I've gotten many journals over the years in all shapes and sizes and all of them are a little daunting in their preciousness. The guilded edges of the pages, the sewn bindings, etc. I left a lot of them blank because I could not decide if I had anything worthy of going inside them. Here's a picture of one I got for Christmas that I have been using for everything lately. I keep everything from songs to goals to grocery lists in it all in no particular order.