YONDER BREAKS

I think God can and will speak to us often, likely as often as we ask Him . But there are times when it lands different, like a meteorite just plopped down in front of you in your backyard, and you can't help but stand still, speechless and a little dumbfounded.  One such occasion like this for me happened when I was driving, literally on the interchange between the 10 and 405 freeways in Los Angeles (an aside, but I recently saw this great video about why we put "the" in front of freeways in LA, if you're curious). I was shifting from writing screenplays to writing novels at the time, and while absent-mindedly thinking about my "career," or maybe just dreams and hopes for that endeavor, I felt like God said, "let go of that and I'll show you who you really  are." I regret to say that my first reaction was a swift "no," as writing had been quite a large part of my identity as a creative in Los Angeles; but the word was unmistakable ...

If you've read this blog even infrequently over the years, you probably know I grew up in South Carolina, started trying to make movies for a living around 2008 and moved to Los Angeles, where I put a heavy emphasis on writing. This led to writing books and then I started feeling a pull into music , which is most of what this website is about. Some time ago, I was at a wedding and one of my relatives told me, "I understood the whole movie thing, but I just don't get why you got into music. Why music ?" I didn't really know what to say or how to explain all of the things that had led me there, especially in a brief conversation on the way out of a wedding reception. There had been several events that brought me to the point of making music production my main focus, and so I'll write them here, partly for anyone wondering (which is probably much of my family!), but also partly for me, to recollect, remember and write down for future reference. My first instrum...