So That’s How It’s Done…
As I write this, hours ago I was on a plane home from New Buffalo Michigan where I spent a week. What was I doing there you ask? Co-writing a musical. The thing I’ve always learned was that you should never say anything until ink is dry, but this is a years long process so I’m telling you about it anyway. I’ve been co-writing this musical for about two years though the process began long before I joined the team. I love musicals, I get giddy when I watch and listen to them and I delight in the way the genre tells story. As a storyteller that delight makes sense.
Before I began working on this musical with Mark and Stacey and our producers Sally and Jill, I thought a musical in my list of goals was a pipe dream. I thought in order to write music you had to be able to sing. I cannot sing but I can confidently say I know how to co-write some songs. In fact, this week in New Buffalo, in a beautiful home by the lake where so many deer feel right at home, I wrote the first draft of a potential song all by myself!!!!
Now let me be clear, the song may not end up making the cut of our final show and if it does it will inevitably look very different in the best way; but that doesn’t take away my excitement. When the three of us met back up before dinner that day I was giddy when I shared the idea with my co-writers and I’m giddy writing to you about it now! because I tend to use humor and self deprecation far more often than I should, I initially made light of the achievement. It wasn’t until Stacey and Mark congratulated me sincerely and my friend Laura doing the same today, that I understood I was allowed to be proud. So, proud I will be.
In our weeklong writing retreat we watched sunsets, and deer, ate delicious food and some that was just okay, we wrote songs and ideas, we watched Howl’s Moving Castle, went to Beer Church, and hung out in a regular church too. We laughed and laughed and worked long days. I let emails pile up so I’ll be getting back to everyone this week. And even though I was just there, what will be a day ago when you read this: I already miss it.
I took some really valuable lessons from this trip as well.
The most important: Doubt is the thief of joy and celebrating wins big or small is fun, life is too short not to! That, and, you don’t have to be able to sing to write music.
Which is absolutely excellent news for me!
Xoxo,
KB
Show I’m watching: The Equalizer
Songs I’m loving: Run and Tell That from The Hairspray soundtrack (an always and forever fave) Jaded by Miley Cyrus
And the songs we have so far for the musical 😉
Something I can’t stop thinking about: Jacob from Abbott Elementary saying “He better watch out, night Jacob got that dog in him.”