October 2025

Boo! Haha, got you!

First, at time of posting, there’s an election coming up real soon where I am. If you’re in a similar situation, and you’re eligible to vote, please vote!

It’s been a really busy month, but a really fun one. At work, we had folks in town for an on-site working session; it was great to see folks and get a lot done.

But, in addition to work, my primary project for the month was undoubtedly the thing I’m about to describe below.

In other news, we got a new couch! It’s twice as big as our old one, and all of our pets can fit on it at the same time.

Finally, I should mention: we went to a costume party, and M helped me put together a Francine the Lowe’s Cat costume, which was a hit.

on being a musician

Near the beginning of the month, I read something that Trent Reznor wrote back in 2004:

the key for me, i believe, is to remember why i do what i do.
as an artist, having commercial success simply changes things — that’s just the way it is and anybody who claims differently is lying. i feel fortunate to have become successful doing this and i enjoy most of the benefits, but i do this because this is what i do. i have always known this is what i’m on this planet for and i would be doing it (expressing myself through music) in one form or another regardless.

[…] i “persevere” because i love what i do.

And I realized: I used to consider myself a musician, and then I put my guitar down and decided to become a Real Professional Adult. But all this time, truthfully, as trite as it might sound, I felt like there was something seriously missing; despite all the success I’ve found in my career, it really felt like I hadn’t found my calling.

It turns out that I’d really found it a long time ago, I’d just forgotten. I’m really good at this music thing!

So: obviously The Startup is still the priority, but I’ll go spend a bunch of time doing work, and then I’ll come back and spend hours just writing, recording, talking to people, experimenting.

Obviously it’s still early days — I’m less than a month into this! — but I’ve been targeting writing one song and recording a very crappy demo for it a day. As of publishing this article, I’m at 38 completed songs, 12 of which are, in my view, so good they’re worthy of sharing.

The problem I’m running into, though, is that there’s such a departure in tone between some of these songs that they don’t fit into the same project. But, hey, if Thomas Pynchon could write three novels at the same time, I can write three records at once, right?

Though I don’t really have a lot of time to go around, this “work” doesn’t feel like work to me. I can go work a fourteen-hour day and then still make sure I take the time to write something; similarly, I can spend a long block of time jamming, or frustrated while trying to piece together something I really love, and come out of it feeling more refreshed than I did when going in.

I want to make it clear that I don’t regret putting my guitar down for all these years. First, I am oversimplifying here; I was in a really fun band for a while when I was in Philly! I just hadn’t learned enough about myself, the world, or how music works to be able to make music that I think I would actually be proud of. I knew, at the time, that going all-in on music would have been a mistake, and I was right.

So here’s the plan: in the short term, I’m going to keep on writing material and put together demos for at least one album. I’m going to make sure that I record these at high fidelity with complete performances, and I’m going to spend Real Adult Money to get them produced, and I’m going to spend Real Adult Money to try to distribute them.

music

Speaking of music: here’s some really good music from other people!

films

This month, I watched 1 film:

  • TRON: Ares

Have I mentioned that I love Letterboxd? You can follow me there.

books

This month, I finished 2 books:

  • Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson
  • Dawnshard by Brandon Sanderson

…then I rolled straight into Rhythm of War, also by Sanderson, which I’m currently reading.

failbetter

This month, failbetter published:

stats

This month:

  • I typed 708000 keys and clicked 126461 times.
  • I listened to 1,190 songs.