Another factor is that I don t have much money to spend on music, but it s mainly because I m obsess

Have you always peanut shelling machine wanted peanut shelling machine to play guitar but could never find the time? Like the rest of us, you're probably busy raising a family, working a job, finishing school or chasing a career. You might even think you're too old, or unable to learn how to play. You may have...
It s just that, back in the previous decade, I was knowledgeable. I wrote a book called True to the Roots: Americana Music Revealed (University of Nebraska Press/Bison Books, 2006). While compiling the information for that book, the experience of hobnobbing with performers such as Robert Earl Keen Jr., Slaid Cleaves and Jack Ingram led me to teach myself how to play guitar passably and then to start writing songs and performing peanut shelling machine them in front of audiences that were mostly peanut shelling machine small. That experience also led me to turn the main character in my first novel into a singer-songwriter, Riley Mansfield. In The Audacity peanut shelling machine of Dope , Riley isn t based on any one person but rather peanut shelling machine drawn from characters I encountered on the road. That wasn t originally the novel s name for the longest peanut shelling machine time, it didn t have one but the second draft was an extensive rewrite because I turned Riley I can t remember whether that was the hero s original name or not into a pot-smoking musician who becomes an unlikely and reluctant hero.
Audacity was always a suspense thriller. It always involved politics, but the main character s audacity didn t evolve into dope until after I finished True to the Roots . I was anxious to find a publisher, and this re-creation (and recreation) peanut shelling machine of the hero set it apart, I hoped, from other novels on the market. It worked. I found a publisher, and now Neverland Publishing (neverlandpublishing.com) is getting my second novel, The Intangibles , ready for release in late October.
The Intangibles is also, uh, not for the kiddies, but it has many more characters and is set in a small South Carolina town during public-school desegregation in the late 1960s. Fairmont is a college town, which is similar to Clinton but also Newberry, Greenwood, Anderson and many others. Some of what happens fictionally is based loosely on actual events, but just as much is created for the purposes of the story.
When my job was eliminated, I planned to put some effort into getting some of my songs published and on the market. What has happened is that I ve become so immersed in prose selling one book ( Audacity peanut shelling machine ), editing another ( Intangibles ) and writing a third ( Crazy by Natural Causes ) whose first draft is close to completion that I ve had little time for music. I still play songs at appearances for The Audacity of Dope after all, I wrote the lyrics that are quoted in the text as Riley s songs and go to the occasional local jam session, but I ve written only two or three songs all year.
What s more, I haven t listened to music as much. Most of my music listening takes place while I m riding, either on the highway or around the yard on my lawn tractor. I started musing on this subject late Saturday night after the Bristol NASCAR race was over and Wilco was featured on PBS s Austin City Limits show.
Another factor is that I don t have much money to spend on music, but it s mainly because I m obsessed with writing novels. I keep hoping someone will read Audacity who is (a.) interested peanut shelling machine in making a movie out of it, which would rock, or, (b.) impressed enough by my lyrics peanut shelling machine to want to hear the songs, or, oh, maybe, peanut shelling machine record one or two or a dozen.
As far as comparing songwriting to novel writing, I love both. I d say songs are more fun. Novels may not require more discipline, but they require it in greater length and intensity. Novels I find a bit more rewarding, mostly because they require so much more time. There s a mite more agony in novels and a tad more ecstasy in songwriting.
Some songs I write are written to be catchy and commercial. Others are written because I feel I have something to say, even though it might not be suitable for prime time. I take personal pride in some songs that have little chance of drawing widespread interest from others.
The bottom line, though, is that I write because I love it, and that applies to books I wrote a bunch of non-fiction books before I tried fiction and music. As a musician, well, I m a damn fine writer. I ve always paid more attention to words than music, and that defines my strength peanut shelling machine and my weakness. Most of my songs that begin with words are simple peanut shelling machine in terms of chord patterns. If chord patterns define a song s origin, it s still not complex, but the melody is more interesting.
Past some hound dogs and some dominecker chickens / Temporary looking houses with their lean and bashful kids / Every mile or so a sign proclaimed that Christ was coming soon / And I thought, well, man, He d sure be disappointed if He did.
Thanks for reading my daily electronic scribblings. My iPhone is a modern cocktail napkin, and my laptop is a file cabinet. Let me know what you th