Our first fairly public performance is tomorrow--a coffee shop next to where our friend Sara works has welcomed her to play there when she's free, and she invited us to do a rush-time concert with her. Some other evening we'll play and invite our people to come. This is going to my first time playing originals where people aren't there to hear them. It will be interesting. I've barely played in a public place, rather than a specific festival/church/program. I'll be back to report, I guess. Djembe, baby, don't fail me now...

I hope to have some new songs up soon, from our new project. No telling where this is going to go, but songs themed on nomads, urban fantasy, the story of Jesus's life, and tales of wandering are all in the works. Our sound seems to be shifting--I think Dan's music is modeling more of Relient K than Newsboys now. I despair of breaking out of Pop.

Writing exercises often seem silly to people just getting started. Isn't it better to come up with everything yourself, in true originality? But just as Wordsworth's sonnet declared that the prison we choose is no prison at all (as a metaphor for the sonnet's rigorous form) sometimes the best way truly break into creativity is to bend to a discipline or form. When I wrote all the Lord of the Rings lyrics for our last project, it was an exercise in being able to work with a mythos I'm familiar with and create new material presented in a different media to commemorate it. I love the way appreciation for art provokes other artist to great things. The cultural dialogue. We're now working on a series of songs that use urban and fantasy imagery together--I just laid a main vocal track to a second one and Dan was tweaking his production of the instruments. I think we're growing. I think it's going to be *wicked*.

The people who manage to break into a sound that really typifies them put more time and labor into it than I've thought about. All I know NOW is that I haven't found it yet, and that at the rate I'm going...I'll never get there. I have managed to get close to the point I want to be, in my novel writing. It's the passion I can pour myself into day and night and not get tired. It's what I strive after. Do you have to have that kind of consuming passion to make worthwhile music? Or to keep playing when so many people stop once they're settled in life? Do you think an interest, hard work, and talent can make the hobby worthwhile? I'd love to hear what other artists and listeners think about this.