the beauty of short and simple

Posted on April 18, 2013 by Dan

Suboriginal Art by Vensan Kamberk: used by permission

Recently, I posted that I’d be posting less often. See: And Even Less = More. Then on Monday of this week, I did something new. I wrote a single paragraph and said, “That’s a post.” See: The Therapy of Practice. There’s something to be said for brevity and conciseness. Saying exactly what you want to say with as few words as possible can communicate effectively while creating a sense of stark beauty. Perhaps, I should reconsider posting less often, and just use fewer words. Instead of stressing myself out, trying to stretch out several long posts per week, I could instead, seek daily, the beauty of short and simple.

Questions: Would you rather hear the details or just the main point? Is there an advantage to keeping posts short and simple?

the therapy of practice

Posted on April 15, 2013 by Dan

Suboriginal Art by Vensan Kamberk: used by permission

A primary focus of this blog is “writing as therapy.” Writing is a practice. Practice is therapy. I consider everything I write: every book, every post, every poem, every song, practice. That’s one reason I’m almost always willing to post and publish things that aren’t perfect. Because nothing I do is perfect. It’s all practice. And contrary to popular belief: practice does not make perfect. But practice is essential to improvement. It’s also essential to maintaining a healthy spirit. Practice is therapeutical.

Question: So what are you practicing?

the countdown to “justice and mercy”

Posted on April 8, 2013 by Dan

Just a few more weeks until I publish my second book, At the Crossing of Justice and Mercy. This book is a must read for anyone who loves a mystery, but it’s also the perfect book for those who struggle with forgiving their enemies.

At the Crossing of Justice and Mercy is a book for both Christians and non-Christians. Christians may find the topic and occasional use of “language” a bit edgy. Non-Christians will find the subtle references to God, without beating the drum of mainstream Christianity too loudly, refreshing.

The book follows Andy Burden, and a small cast of characters, on a journey to discover the truth about Peter Smith, the cult leader of Andy’s youth. Peter Smith had supposedly died years earlier, but new evidence suggests that he may have faked his death. Along his journey, Andy questions his motives for wanting to hunt Smith down. Does he want revenge? Justice? Will Andy try to kill Peter Smith? Or does he just want to turn Smith over to the authorities? And what about mercy?

Along with the themes of justice and mercy, Andy also questions and ponders the subjects of mental illness and divorce. He concludes that we all have something wrong with us. We’re all “marked” in one way or another. Andy notes that all of humanity is imperfect, yet in this imperfection there is still hope.

I hope you’ll join me on Andy Burden’s journey in the second book of my “Cult Trilogy,” At the Crossing of Justice and Mercy. Available May 1, 2013 at Amazon.

Thanks

- dan

maybe someday i’ll grow up

Posted on April 5, 2013 by Dan

If you’ve followed my blog for any length of time, you know I usually use all lower-case letters for my headlines. Why?

Well, at first it was just a style thing. I did it to be different, unique, artistic. Then I started thinking about it philosophically. I decided that the real goodies are in the post, not the headline, so I kept headlines in lower-case.

I used to only use black-and-white photos, too. But I started adding color about six months ago. I’m growing.

Keeping a blog is like watching your baby grow. I remember when my daughter Annie was an infant. I don’t miss changing dirty diapers, but I loved holding her and rocking her to sleep. Then she became a toddler. I’ll admit. I get all emotional when I see cute little three-year old girls now. It’s such an adorable age. Annie’s going on eight. That’s hard to believe. She’s growing, and so is my blog.

Some people want to start a blog and immediately get professionals to help them make it look and read perfect. I’d rather watch mine grow and savor each moment. And yes, there are some advantages to growing your blog slowly:

1. You learn the ropes. By keeping it real and doing it yourself, you learn the ropes. You learn both the writing and technical aspects of blogging. As I continue to blog, I’m slowly learning more of the technical programs and functions. By learning these things myself, I’ll be able to fix them later if needed.

2. You learn your topic. Being the primary writer of my blog, I’m forced to think, study, practice, and learn more about my main topic: writing.

3. You learn about yourself. As I blog regularly, I learn more about myself. I learn which posts work well and which posts are duds. I learn more about my own writing style and choice of topics. I learn what others like, too. The bottom line is growth. By consistently writing my own material, learning about the technology, and making subtle changes from time to time, I’m growing my blog. It gives me something to look forward to.

I’ve recently grown a little more. I’ve added music and podcasts. I’ve added new headers, and a link to my book, A Train Called Forgiveness, on the sidebar. I’ve also updated my blogroll. Since adding Feedly, (which I love and highly recommend), to my iPad mini, (which I also love and highly recommend), I’ve discovered a bunch of new blogs to read. In the future, you might see more reviews of articles, examples from, and links to blogs like Lifehacker, Stereogum, Thought Catalog, Writer Unboxed, and Unclutterer to mention a few. It’s just another way I’m growing danerickson.net. I’ll continue to change my blogroll from time to time. I also have my “bloglinks” page where I keep some of my all-time favorites.

As for using upper-case letters in my headlines, I know all the professionals do. I know I could. But I’m not quite ready. After all, nobody wants to watch their baby grow up too fast.

Question: What kinds of things are you doing to grow your blog?

get back to the old songs: rewriting

Posted on November 22, 2012 by Dan

If you’ve been following my blog, you know I’m a songwriter without a song. Although I’ve written hundreds of songs over the years I’ve been in a dry spell lately. So, I’ve decided that rather than pushing myself to write new songs, I’m going to focus on re-recording some of my old songs. In fact, in my book A Train Called Forgiveness, the protagonist Andy Burden is a songwriter. The book is based on my own experiences and the songs are my own songs. I’ve set up some studio time and I’ll be recording the songs that are mentioned in the book over the next couple of months. After they’re recorded I’ll post them on the blog. You’ll be able to hear the songs that Andy Burden writes about in the book. Pretty cool, huh?

Click here to read excerpts from A Train Called Forgiveness.

There’s a lesson in this for writers. When you’re having trouble generating new material, go back and improve upon the old. Dig out your old journals, poems, or novel starts. Study your work. You might discover the writing is better than you thought it was when you stuck it in that box ten years ago. Rework it. Rearrange it. Rewrite it. You might even decide that with some tweaking, it’s worthy of publishing. Another thing I’m considering in the future is to rewrite my Master’s thesis on the protest music of Woody Guthrie and promote it as a nonfiction trade book. Why not? It’s already been written. It just needs some reworking and additions to make it more marketable. So go dig out your old writing and get to work on your own project.

* * *

You can win a copy of my book A Train Called Forgiveness. For details: click here.

Questions: What have you written that you could dust off? Do you think you might find a gem packed in an old cardboard box? What are you waiting for? Please post your comments below:

changes to danerickson.net: importing articles

Posted on October 30, 2012 by Dan

I’m going to let two of my six websites expire at the end of the year. I’m not sure what I was thinking as there’s no way I can effectively keep six websites running without help. Heck, lately I’m only focusing on this one. Postmodernpost.com and openjamroom.com will be the two that get chopped. Postmodernpost was going to be a site dedicated to commentary about a wide array of topics including art, politics, religion, and education. Openjamroom was going to be a site dedicated to musicians and I’d hoped to make it interactive. I’ll import some of the articles from those sites onto this site before I shut them down. That said, this might add some subtle changes to danerickson.net.

If you follow my blog you know it’s moslty a blog about writing and aimed toward other writers. I include posts about writing, using writing as therapy, and promoting writing as well as posting examples of my own poetry and prose. Along with moving material from postmodernpost and openjamroom, I’m going to open this site up to a little more variety. Over the past year I’ve tried to keep commentary and opinion to a dull roar. As I dismantle postmodernpost I might write an occasional commentary piece on danerickson.net. Although I already write on the topic of songwriting, as I offload opemjamroom, I’ll likely post more about music here. No major changes, just subtle changes, and that’s the way I like it.

Note: If you or anyone you know is interested in either of the domain names: postmodernpost.com or openjamroom.com, please let me know before December 31, 2012 and we can arrange a transfer.

less facebook, more music: choose your time wisely

Posted on October 28, 2012 by Dan

Time. These days it seems there’s never enough time in a day to complete everything I’d like to complete. Lately, I’ve been writing about my love of music and songwriting. I’ve been lamenting the fact that I’ve not written a song in well over a year. It’s time to weigh out what I consider important in life. Perhaps you have some similar problems and might find this post helpful.

1. What do you love? When deciding upon the best use of our time, we should ask ourselves what things are we most passionate about? That’s an easy answer for me: God, family, writing, music, reading, art, the outdoors. These are the things that make me tick. They excite me and keep me energized. Notice that Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media are not on the list.

2. What’s your purpose for using Facebook? Next, in deciding whether social media time is cutting into more productive uses of time, we must ask ourselves why we use social media? I started using social media simply to be social, to stay in touch with friends and loved ones. After I wrote my first book, A Train Called Forgiveness, I started to use social media as a promotional tool. I started adding more and more friends and created a new fan page to support my book: http://www.facebook.com/authordanerickson. My hope was that keeping a steady presence on Facebook and Twitter might increase book sales.

3. What are the results of your use of Facebook? Next, what are our results in using social media? I have likely sold a dozen more copies of my book due to using social media. I’m not complaining, but those weren’t the numbers I was hoping for when I started spending more time on Facebook and Twitter. Promoting a book via social media is an important aspect of creating an overall platform as an author, but it’s a steep uphill climb. One must question if the climb is worth the time. I think it might be, but I also think there are times when you need to cut back, especially if you seem to be forfeiting things you love.

4. Choose wisely: In the end, we only get so much time on this earth. When we reach our final days, nobody will say, “I wish I would have spent more time on Facebook.” More likely, some will say, “I wish I’d spent more time serving God,” or ” I wish I’d spent more time with my kids,” or “I wish I’d spent more time doing the things I love.”

It’s up to you. What’s the most important use of your time? If you’re trying to promote a product like me, social networking can play an important role. But if your product is good, if your story has the power to help and heal others, if your music is passionate, then the product is more important than the promotion. You can’t take your money with you when you go. Neither can your kids. But you can leave your mark through story and song for generations to come.

Questions: What are the most important things in your life? Do you spend too much time on social media? How can you rearrange your time? I know I’ll be playing more music and spending less time on Facebook for awhile. Please post your responses below:

a traditional vacation?

Posted on July 3, 2012 by Dan

Port Townsend is an interesting town. It’s loaded with tradition. From old military museums, to traditional music festivals, blues, jazz, bluegrass, and this week, “fiddle tunes,” to The Wooden Boat Foundation, the town reeks with tradition.

This got me thinking about tradition. What is tradition? When should we move forward and leave tradition behind? As a musician, I love traditional music styles, but I’m also open to new sounds, experimental instrumentation, and alternative rhythms. I think that’s the way we should look at tradition, whether we’re considering religion, education, or marriage. I think it’s wise to pay attention to long-held methods and belief systems, but I think we should also be open to change.

So what’s this have to do with my vacation? It got me asking the question: what is a traditional vacation? Is it a week in Hawaii? Is it a month in Europe? Is it a back-country backpack trip? It seems types of vacations are just as varied as lifestyles and cultures themselves. This vacation, we’re spending a lot of time studying tradition. From wooden boats to fiddle tunes to W.W. II artillery, to a walk on the beach collecting sea glass, a good vacation should be fun and a learning experience. And that’s a good tradition.

this musical life

Posted on June 25, 2012 by Dan

Test said I’m a little high,

enzymes. It’s been bouncing

slightly with age, probably nothing.

Makes one contemplate

the inevitable: death.

I think of Buddy, Stevie Ray, and John,

cut short by planes and guns.

I think of Jimi, Jim, and Elvis, broken

by fame, bottles and pills.

I think of Frank, George, and Warren,

such creative minds,

taken early by the big C.

Townes, Graham, Steve, songwriters,

best of the best, the

heart in my chest. Stop!

Breathe.

I think I’ll hang around

like Willie, Bob, Paul, Bruce

and Jerry Jeff.

get “reel” and give up perfection

Posted on June 21, 2012 by Dan

This spring I bought a new lawnmower. It’s a hand-powered reel mower. Everybody I told about my new mower thought I was crazy, but I’ll let you in on a secret: mowing your lawn is actually easier and more pleasant with a hand mower.

As a musician, songwriter, and recording artist, in the past, I have rarely been completely satisfied with my work. I’ve always been especially critical about recordings because anyone with a good musical ear might hear every minor flaw. I’d beat myself up in the studio, vainly attempting perfection. But I’ve learned something in the past few years as I’ve started blogging and writing novels: Who cares if it’s not perfect?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying we should be careless in our work. What I am saying is that we should do our best, check for mistakes, improve, and move on. Otherwise, you’ll wind up like me in the studio. You’ll be working on “take 29″ when “take 2″ was actually the right one. Imperfections in music, writing, and life are inescapable, and they reveal true character. I can sing, but my signing voice isn’t great. There’s not much I can do about that. One thing I can do, is to use my voice, my style in the best way possible for me, for my music. When you try to impress yourself or others by seeking perfection you’ll get stuck every time. You’ll never finish.

It’s like my reel mower. It doesn’t cut every blade of grass perfectly. My lawn usually has a few stragglers. I don’t care. I enjoy the quiet process of getting the job done and my lawn is neatly mowed, if only a little rough around the edges. As I get older, I’m becoming a non-perfectionist, because non-perfection allows me to get the job done and lets my true character shine through.

Questions: In what ways do you struggle with perfection? What have you done to overcome those struggles? Please post comments below:

dan erickson

intentional rhythms: words, music, life

Tag Archives: music