For what will be my fifth year running, I’ll be once again participating in February Album Writing Month, a semi-organized exercise in creativity, taking on the challenge of writing 14 songs in 28 days.

In past years, I’ve always hit at least fourteen tunes, with usually at least a few winners – last year, I felt decent enough about the process to release the entire exercise as an actual legit album (I even printed a handful of CDs); and a lot of people seemed to like it enough to exchange money for a copy.

As always, I’m looking forward to the experience – the activity, the community, unexpected sources of inspiration, and all the rest – and I’m hoping I can keep my streak going.

I’m honestly not sure what this year’s output is going to look like – I never do, really. I can say that I expect the general malaise and burned-outedness I’m experiencing to color the output, at least a bit. Like the sky outside this morning, my outlook’s a little cloudy, what with the usual litany of depressing headlines and the fact that we’re approaching the beginning of the third year of this pandemic. The good news is, even those negative emotions can serve as grist for the songwriting mill, and often pretty potently. Even if I’m primarily part of the filk or nerdmusik milieu, a lot of my stuff ends up being kind of personal; right now, the personal is equal parts “tired of all this crap” and “just plain emotionally wrung out,” so a little exploration of dark places won’t be out of place. Of course, I expect there’ll be a few silly trifles and songs about books and movies I’ve consumed lately, because there always are.

If you’re at all interested in following the mayhem (or even participating in this mess yourself), go ahead and click that image leading this post off – it points directly to my profile, though it’s an easy click to start up your own songwriting adventure as well.

Write on.