Writer's Block

It is now October 1. Did I really just not blog for the entire month of September? I am probably losing readership by the second. Hi, I missed you. I haven't had a free second to collect my thoughts in awhile. Anybody out there?

Here's the brief update on what's happened since the end of August. Started a new job at the Pasadena Conservatory in which 19 guitar students were thrown in my lap. Starting another new job today working for the Guitar Foundation of America doing membership/development stuff. Teaching two adult group guitar night classes back to back in Culver City on Wednesday nights after being in class basically from 11-5 straight. Taking three classes and prepping for a duo recital in December.

By far the most exciting thing this semester is my Arts Writing class at the journalism school. Unfortunately, I think that has actually contributed to my writer's block this month. I have been totally in awe of the people in this class, so much so that I haven't really felt like writing much. I guess I didn't feel like I had any interesting to say, and wondered if I could say anything very well at all. Introducing ourselves on the first day, we went around and said what who we were and what we do. Half the people in the class had written for newspapers and cultural magazines. Meanwhile, I wondered what a lowly musician like myself was doing in a room full of journalists who can claim pieces from the Village Voice and LA Times as their own! I felt like a total shmuck. Most of the students are in a specialized program at the journalism school for covering the arts, and they have some sort of artistic interest or experience- fashion, dance, photography, reality TV production, acting, you name it. A truly amazing group of people.

Every week, we are given an assignment, we read our work aloud for the class and everyone critiques it. It is sort of like a master class for musicians except your performance is you reading your writing, and thankfully that can be done ahead of time. I am getting really great feedback though, and am so blown away and touched by a lot of my classmates' writing. Some of it is so beautiful, witty, or clever that I often can't believe we are writing about the same topic.

So I'm going to continue to write, now that I've gotten over my cold feet, and received a boost of confidence from class yesterday and from a brief office hour meeting with my Pulitzer prize-winning professor in which he really encouraged me. The most important thing is that I keep doing it, without the self-imposed pressure that it has to be brilliant or profound every time. I am going to try to blog even more frequently just to help me process everything that is happening this year. Next week's assignment is to see a really disturbing film and give a 500 word review about the separation between art and message. We'll see how that goes.