D. Lee Jackson

Words and Music

New Album Coming in 2020 – “Derivations”

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CDSeamlessAlmost two years after the publication of my first album, Calibrations, I am now ready to announce the upcoming release of my second album, Derivations.

Dictionary.com defines “Derivation” as:

  1. the act or fact of deriving or of being derived.
  2. the process of deriving.
  3. the source from which something is derived; origin.
  4. something that is or has been derived; derivative.

I see Derivations as an extension of Calibrations, with Calibrations being the source.

When finished, Derivations will contain ten tracks (I’ve got eight in the bag now and am working on number nine), including the previously-released single, “What It Shall Be.” The completed album will be released for physical CD and streaming distribution via CD Baby. Later, high-resolution versions of almost all of the tracks (more on this as the release date approaches) will be released via the Bandcamp service.

The CD will be released prior to the end of 2020 (with any luck, significantly prior to the end of 2020). Watch for updates and further announcements!

Words and Music – Update 2019-08-02

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Sheet Music 2Now that we’re in August, it’s time for a quick update on how things are going.

Words:

  • Sergeant Marcos’s Rescue has been through a couple of rounds of revisions, thanks to a critique on Scribophile. It’s a better short story now than before.
  • I’ve added an extra chapter to Tapper. That brings the chapter count to 35 and the total word count to just over 97,000. It’s a desperately needed chapter in a crucial spot, even if it is less than 100 words in length. Still, it was worth going to the trouble of renumbering all of the other chapters beyond it.

Music:

  • It’s been a bit more difficult to work on the Music section than it has been on the Words section. You see, I spent a good deal of time traveling from Dallas, Texas to Des Moines, Iowa with my wife in order to see an IndyCar race, and while I can bring my Words with me, I can’t very well bring my keyboards and my music composition computer. I’ve also had downtime due another lumbar rhizotomy procedure (a.k.a., radiofrequency ablation of the nerves of my lower back), but that only explains more recent absences from the workstation.
  • Still, I have managed to complete the first phrase of a new song for the second album. It’s in fact a tribute song—more I can’t go into yet—and it involves two pianos playing off against each other in an andante 3/4-3/4-4/4-4/4 pattern. I have yet to program the tempo changes to make it sound as human as possible (yes, I mouse everything into the computer), but once I do, I think I’ll have quite a nice piece.

Thank you for reading, and watch this space for further updates!

Words and Music – The Site Motto At Work

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Choral BookRevision Ten of my novel, Tapper, has been completed and has been uploaded to Scribophile. This is the version that I hope will be the last major rewrite. Of course, there will be tweaks made to the new material, but I don’t anticipate wholesale changes. They won’t be critiqued for at least the next six weeks, due to the way The Ubergroup on Scribophile works, so I finally have some free time.

My first revisited project has been my second album. I’ve put it off for a long time now, and it’s high time that I gave it some attention. I’ve only got four tracks complete to date. Track number five is now under way.

I had some delays due to some hardware in my sound setup going on the fritz (an old Mackie 1202VLZ mixer feeding two channels into a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2). I wound up replacing both the Mackie and the Focusrite with a Steinberg UR44 six channel USB 2.0 interface. It was a bear to set up, but once I got it going, it sounded great. It also allowed my son, Nathan, to rip out about half of the cables from my patch bay. My mixer rack is a much cleaner area now. I was also able to recalibrate my monitors (i.e., pro-level speakers) to a state that they’ve never been since I bought them.

My second revisited project has been Sergeant Marcos’s Rescue. Now that I’ve finished the Tapper revision, I can attack the rewrite of that short story at my leisure. I intend to work on it when I can’t work on Album #2 (e.g., when my wife is washing clothes or doing other noisy things around the house that I’m physically unable to help with, when I’ve got musical writer’s block, and so on). I got a lot of really good advice from my critiquers, and I intend to make the most of it, using as much time as I need to get the job done.

Words and Music. Working on both at the same time. That’s the idea behind this web site, and the idea behind how I spend my days when I’m able to function. Wish me luck.

When Does It End?

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Broken ClockOne thing that I rarely see touched upon is the subject of how long it should take to write a book. Of course, there is no “should” when it comes to writing a novel. Each book comes with its own timeline and demands, and no two are ever alike. What I can give you are a few samples from my own work in progress, Tapper.

I completed my first draft around the end of July, 2014. I thought I was finished with it sometime in 2016—that’s when I started going through the “query” process of trying to find an agent to represent my book to publishing houses. Needless to say, I got no bites on my query. Around that same time, I got a proposal from Gearbox Software to write the soundtrack to the 20th Anniversary World Tour edition of Duke Nukem 3D. I put Tapper on the shelf and went back to writing music.

The hiatus on Tapper ran out in February of this year, when I pulled the book out and resumed writing. I’m passing it through Scribophile, where I’m getting some very useful, yet frustrating advice. Why is it frustrating? There’s that timeline again. My first “real” chapter (spoilers!) is on its 54th revision, and some of the comments I’ve been getting are first-time comments. Why couldn’t someone have raised these same points back on my 5th revision, eh?

If it sounds like I’m revising my book to death, let me come to its defense. I have done a major rewrite of the first few chapters, in order to make them more appealing to readers (and to agents). That also explains why some of the comments I’m getting are first-time ones. It doesn’t explain all of them, mind you—I’m still getting some of the “why did no one mention this earlier?” kind of remarks in later chapters.

The point I’m trying to make here is that if you’re writing your first book, you can go ahead and smash your clock for what it’s worth. Don’t expect to knock out a novel in a year, or two years, or even four for that matter—although, if you do get signed with an agent within four years, count your lucky stars. Be patient, and be ready to spend a lot of time working on your novel … and even more time re-working it.