A few things I have learned since I moved

By the time I return from my impending month-long trip back to Georgia, it will have been nearly two years since I left the world of the gainfully employed to pursue this whatever-it-is that I’m after. I was at another show tonight, and it occurred to me in the middle of the show that this was the case. I began to think about some of the things that I think I have learned over this period of time, understanding that more time behind the pen can prove some of these things to be true or false. I thought I would jot some of those things down - if for no other reason, so I can look back in a couple of years and laugh.

1. This business is huge. There are simply a lot of people in the game… way too many to meet.

2. Among those many are some incredibly talented people, and a few not-so-talented people. Many of the talented people won’t make it, and a few of the not-so-talented people will. Even if you are very talented, work very hard, treat people right, and follow the steps you’re supposed to follow, there is a distinct possibility that you will not make it. The cost of the attempt is that it takes a long time with no guarantees.

3. There are ways of being encouraging and “community-minded” without being untruthful.

4. I have made a good decision not to act in haste in my activities in the business. It has always taken me a long time to get comfortable, and even longer to find my way. That is a process of which I am still in the middle, and may or may not continue to be for some time.

5. In this business (much like in relationships… I wish I had known this earlier), there are situations that require your obsession, aggression, and persistence. There are also many, many situations that require your patience, passivity, contemplation, independent confidence, and willingness to walk away. Good judgment about which of these applies in a given situation comes only from experience. And experience comes – as they say – from bad judgment (or if you’re lucky, observing someone else’s bad judgment).

6. You can not judge what you wrote yesterday against something that a 20-year pro wrote and re-wrote with another pro many years and spins ago on their best day and expect to feel adequate.

7. You can not assume that you are as good as you are going to get and expect to want to continue.

8. You can not get better by sitting around thinking about it.

9. There are reasons why there is a songwriting “community,” and among them is not “so you can sit on half of a great song wondering when the rest of it will become obvious.”

10. If it sounds like something that "could be on the radio right now," then it is probably two years behind its time.

I very strongly believe that the decision to move was a very very good one. But in all honesty, if I had known two-and-a-half years ago that things would be as they are now, I am not sure that I would have made the move. It's a good thing I did it when I did.