I've been feeling inspired lately, and I'm not quite sure why. A number of things have caught my creative attention, and as soon as some time opens up (in September), I'm going to start tinkering.

So what, you might ask, am I inspired to do?

1) This web site, version 8.0. When I chose to stop White Moments/Word Foundry after post 1,000, I was in a sour frame of mind. So when I designed the version of the site you see now (firebrick red on white, for those of you in the future), I pretty much scrapped any reference to my novels. I've since decided that was stupid, especially since I've got a long way to go before I start trying to peddle my songs - and especially especially if I'm going to drop back into the novel writing racket at some point in the future. So I want to design a version of the site that puts things in a more balanced perspective.

2) The Terrible Misforture, coming soon to a Borders near you. Since I started blogging about writing this play for my chuch's Vacation Bible School, I've started getting hits from people looking for a Pirate-themed VBS. That should have told me something. But for some reason, it took a year and a half for me to catch on: there's a market, albeit a small one, for what I wrote. So I'm going to make it available through Lulu.com. And I'm going to use a distribution system so you can order it through Lulu, or through Amazon, Borders, or another participating bookstore near you. I've got a plan to work out the tricky aspect of performance royalties, too.

3) Stan Ridgway live. A couple of weeks ago (and after twenty years of trying to catch up with him), I finally got to see Stan Ridgway in concert. While I was watching Mr. Ridgway spin his Chandleresqe tales of losers and loners, I suddenly realized that there was a market, albeit probably kind of small, for the songs I am writing.

It's got me so intrigued that I'm having my wife give me singing lessons (I posted a song on GarageBand and the reviews pretty much universally said my voice needed work, in varying degrees of kindness), and I'm changing the way I'm playing a lot of my songs and am slowly working to relearn them.

This probably happened because Ridgway is a huge influence on the way I write songs, second only, I suspect, to my background as a novelist and my tendency to want to tell stories. And that's pretty much what Mr. R does with his songs.

Hmmm, I think the subtheme for this post is "Albeit small." So be it.

Anyway, that's where I am for the moment. Inspired. Albeit in a small way. But it's enough to keep me busy for a while, if I remain inclined.

Okay, I said I was going to take my music more seriously in 2007. It has just taken me eight months or so to start thinking along those lines.

In the last month or so, I opened up an account at GarageBand. And I actually posted a song there, a rough demo of Salad Days that developed a glitch when I uploaded it. I'm working on the problem, but that's not the point. The point is, most of the reviews have said what I have known all along: that my voice is a problem. So my wife is now giving me singing lessons and I bought the book Singing For Dummies. No kidding.

This comes on the heels of another guitar breakthrough. On the occasion when I've sat down and played of late, I've experimented with ways of playing my existing songs, and I seem to have developed a sense of my vocal range. So now I'm in the process of reworking how to play most of my songs, with my fingerings doing more of the work and the capo less. This will help me push my voice higher, which my wife and son have told me to do for years. I've been doing it slowly, but more in earnest of late.

So that's what I'm working on of late. This might push back any attempts at playing out for a while, since I now have to relearn the playing and the singing parts. And there's also that whole stagefright thing, which goes away when I'm in a stage play, and goes away when I lead singing at church, but doesn't go away when I get up with the guitar to play in front of people.

Not that I want to be a rock star or anything like that, but it would be nice to be able to play an open mike night without dissolving into a nervous wreck.

Well, maybe it'll come with the voice.

Listening: "The Lonely One" - Duane Eddy (Guitar Man)