The start of winter routine

September is well into its stride now
The holidays are quickly becoming a distant memory ...
Although this picture will bring me back again...

Tomorrow I start back with my school classes
not looking forward to it
It's only one morning a week
but it's a part of life that takes me away from my own creative process
I get so absorbed in everyone else's improvement....
But y'know what? It'll be fine once I get started.
Don't know how many students are coming along yet
Hopefully some of last year's will return
A great bunch of singers
And we'll find new material to sing.
It's interesting being around teenage girls
Reminds me so much of myself
and hopefully I can spare them some of the horrors of my own teenage years.

But gradually all my schedule has filled up for the winter

Choir starts in another couple of weeks and a new guitar class starts before that.
and all my lovely adult singers will be well into their process by then as well.

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So, daily, in my morning pages, I'm reminding myself of who I am - what I am - a singer, a performer, a writer, a musician, an entertainer... and after all of that I also coach and teach.   In previous years I've allowed me to get lost in everyone else's drama - the year before last I didn't even learn one song during the 9 months of term.    I was wondering why I was getting so stressed out and fretful about starting back into September.    But this year, it is not going to happen.   If I have to write a reminder to myself every day for the next year, then that's what I'm going to do.

So, here's what's going on in my creative life ....
I started back in the recording studio last week - making a start on the new CD.    This will be my first time playing guitar on my own recordings and I'm really pleased with the results so far.  Although I've recorded 7 CDs to date, I only ever played guitar in the background on one or two songs - I always got someone else (better) to interpret my ideas and then tried to get my own ideas back out of what their interpretation was!!!    Strange one .... There'll be some songs still to write, but to start with we're putting down all the songs that are ready to go.
 
I've also got backing vocals to do for another recording project next weekend and all of those songs to learn...

between now and then - a revisit to some music I put to a Hungarian poet's work during the Summer - we've been invited on to a local TV show on Friday to promote her work - and mine.    (That was so interesting - putting music to someone else's words).

And I've started on the songbook that's been in the pipeline for a long time now.  I'm trying to do one thing every day to move it along until it gets its own momentum -  initial copyright queries haven't gotten very far today but tomorrow's another day.  

If that's not enough ... I actually drew a face in my new art journal this week!!!  It's not completed yet, but the start was a big leap for me....  Art has been such a distraction all summer - in fact for longer than that - perhaps a couple of years now - but it's finally producing the results that I've wanted .... by being creative in another area it would spark my own creativity again - and it worked!

How is the Autumn settling in for you?   How do you keep your focus when you have to deal with other people's creative output?