Milestones 2010

Been tough going lately. I feel stuck in various thematic and structural ruts with the current writing, frequently questioning whether I'm really forging any new or worthwhile territory or just obeying the dumb dictates of an obsessive structure. Not the first time, of course, and what is there to do? Push on.

Note a couple of milestones in spite of this. Yesterday I finished Notebook 23, the 10th volume (!) of the second song of the day project.



For many years my dad has kept a journal in those green hardbound RECORD books. Over the years of my youth I asked him for three of those books, all of which were short-lived attempts at keeping a journal of my own (the pages of which were eventually torn out, some destroyed, some socked away somewhere with the many, many journals I eventually kept in notebooks of my own - a habit I no longer carry out for many a long year now). What was left of all three eventually became Song of the Day books, volumes 1 and 2 of the first project, now finally volume 10 of the second project. Waste not, want not.

And, as will be noted in today's song's status update note, for the first time the continuity figure (how many songs I have written in a row without missing a day) passed three digits. Yesterday was the 105th consecutive day of continuous daily songwriting.

On reflection these observations don't exactly argue against the "obsessive structure" argument but hey, you take what you can get.

You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here