sell one of my songs and/or submit one to a contest

Shortly after my last entry, I shared some of my considerations more publicly and was encouraged to try. But it didn’t take long for me to pull back and go back to feeling I was past those ideas and had willingly accepted that. The funny thing is, my brother and a friend used to play music together (and I think they still might) and I was able to see a couple of their shows. I was so proud of my brother and the music sounded great! And I really liked the style of his friend’s piano playing. I always thought that maybe I could ask him if he would be interested in helping with the instrumentals of a song that a piano would suit.
I recently was on Facebook and happened to check the friend requests I noticed, which I don’t very often do, and there was a request from him. He must have seen me on my brother’s list. It was funny because I had found myself sort of letting go of the idea and this brought me back a little. Funny timing! The other thing that seemed to do the same was when I was speaking with a friend of mine who is pregnant and because she is at the stage where her baby can hear, I mentioned she should put earphones on her belly. As I talked about this lightheartedly, I was suddenly struck with the reminder of a song I had written years ago that I hadn’t thought about in some time. I told her I would try to find it and because of this, I ended up reading through some of my songs that I hadn’t looked at in what felt like so long. It was nice to read them and also a bit strange.

I still struggle with my thoughts, feelings, and general relationship with music. It has always been a struggle, it seems.
Sometimes it feels simple and I think the struggle is above all with myself.

I never took for granted those times when I was able to write. I always felt it could leave me anytime, that it wasn’t necessarily a permanent ability. For quite a long time, I didn’t seem to write any new song. I sometimes had little bits of ideas, but nothing concrete. More recently, I was inspired with a couple of ideas. One in particular is special to me, and though I think it could possibly become the newest song I have written in years, I am stuck for a melody. I occasionally would come up with potential melodies for some of my songs, that I would use, still not knowing for sure if they would be the official melodies or not, but for others all I had were lyrics. I really think it is the right combination of the two that can make it extra special. With this one, I would really like to find the right one.

I’m still not sure what I will do but I will try to work my way through the different thoughts that come up and see where it leads me.

A few years ago, my sense of creativity seemed to peak. That was when I wrote my first song, and then several others – something I had wanted to do for so long but never seemed able to.

Music had always been part of me, but my relationship with it was something I often struggled with. I feel like at some point, subconsciously or indirectly, I lost it or let go in a way. For the most part, I have felt okay with it but at times, I feel sad.
There are times when I still feel inspired or excited by music, and there’s a little spark that ignites like it used to. I don’t know what happened.

Those songs mean a lot to me and are something I’m so proud of, and I suppose I wasn’t sure what I would do with them and didn’t want them to go to waste. I thought that by trying to sell one, it could be used and be given new life. I have thought about submitting a song to singer/songwriting contests too, and I think what has mostly stopped me has been that my songs aren’t in an organized place right now and I also don’t have instrumentals for them yet. I would need to make a little recording to send in, and usually it is too late.

Lately I have been thinking about it, as two contests have come to my attention – same ones I have considered before. In some way, I feel it would be an additional accomplishment to have one of my songs chosen and recognized in such a contest. It really isn’t necessary because it already is an accomplishment for me but it would be nice to share. At the same time, selling a song or winning a contest could be a way of earning a little bit of extra money, which could be nice too.

I guess I am a little bit unsure of myself, and submitting a song more publicly leaves me feeling a bit vulnerable.