D. Lee Jackson

Words and Music

The Feeling of Finishing a First Draft

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You know you’re not done yet. You realize that the work has just begun. You understand that many more hours will be spent in front of your keyboard editing, revising, and rewriting. Still, there’s no feeling like it.

Your first draft is done.

Whether it be literature or music, there’s no feeling like the first time you come to the end of a work. Go ahead—savor it! You deserve to feel satisfied, elated, or just downright relieved that your first pass is done. You’ve actually accomplished something that few other people can do, despite the seeming multitudes of writers or composers in the world. Not everyone can create in the same way you can.

Don’t let it go to your head, they say? Bah, humbug. You deserve a moment of head growth. Even if what you’ve created is a total piece of crap, at least it’s a complete piece of crap. Well done.

You’ve finished the hardest part. Now comes the tedious, frustrating, sometimes infuriating process of polishing your work into something that people will actually want to read or hear. Besides, no master of the craft has ever created a masterpiece in one pass. You’re now in the same club, whether you’re a master or an amateur. Congratulations.

Now, take a deep breath, enjoy what you’ve accomplished, then dig in to the next stage for all it’s worth.

Questions? Comments? Please feel free to use the Contact page. Thank you for reading!

Speeding Up Things a Bit

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I would ask that you please let me know if anything looks odd on this site (my photo not included, thankyouverymuch). I’ve just installed a caching plug-in that should make site access a bit faster. It usually works without a hitch, but when it goes wrong things can turn rather strange. Here’s hoping it works.

In other news, the music writing progresses well. I had a bit of a struggle in choosing which General MIDI patches to use for something yesterday, but I think I’ve got that issue solved. I’m still ingesting my morning caffeine, so I haven’t listened to the song yet today. I might hear it and make massive changes (it’s happened before), or I might wind up being totally happy with what I ended on yesterday (not as common). Stay tuned. 😀

Questions? Comments? Please feel free to use the Contact page. Thank you for reading!

Health Bug Bites Again

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Monday was a difficult day. I spent most of it knocked out, but still managed to get some significant music progress done in the evening.

There may be a break in the search for why I’ve been knocked out so much lately, and it unfortunately means I have to take more pills. You see, I went to my doctor last week for a medicine check and suite of blood tests. The results show that my diabetes—previously in remission for several years—is now active again, although the numbers are borderline high (A1C of 6.5 and fasting glucose of 149). I’m also Vitamin D deficient, despite taking a daily non-prescription high-potency supplement.

The upshot of this is that I’m on more medicines. I’m on Metformin for the blood sugar, albeit a low dose (250mg twice a day), and on a mega-Vitamin D2 prescription that I can only take on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

The bad part of this is that my shoebox now has more pills in it. The good part is that my lethargy of late might be up for improvement. Wish me luck, please.

Questions? Comments? Please feel free to use the Contact page. Thank you for reading!

More Music Madness, But In a Good Way

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For once, I didn’t have a migraine or other physical ailment get in the way of my music composition project yesterday! I need more days like that. My day was split in half when my medicines overwhelmed me for several hours in the afternoon, but I made good progress on either side.

One bit of hardware progress to report—my Wacom Bamboo pad is working with Sonar X3! I haven’t had a pad that worked with a music program in years. I’m chalking up my earlier problems to the short USB cord that comes with the Bamboo (mentioned earlier), plus my failed earlier attempt to solve the problem by using a USB extension. I guess the Bamboo wasn’t getting the power it needed through the extension cable. This time, the cable is long enough and is plugged directly into a USB port on the back of the machine. It works, so that’s the end of that story for now.

I have to admit I’m a bit surprised that a couple of devices are working from a non-powered USB hub (and an inexpensive four-port Rosewill metal thingy at that). The MOTU micro lite that sits at the center of my rig apparently doesn’t need much power, nor does my iLok “anti-piracy” (translation: pain in the arse) dongle. I’ve got one more connection to make—the USB control from my UPS unit—and I figure it won’t need any power from the port, considering that it’ll be plugged directly into a freaking power supply.

I’m also pleasantly surprised that my keyboard, an Arturia Keylab 88, is working so well as an unconfigured device within Sonar X3.  Only the keys, mod wheel, and pitch bend wheel are truly working at the moment (no time to mess with the rest of it for what I’m doing), but it was an honest plug-and-play experience once I got a cable that was both long enough and had a ferrite bead around one end. I’m still left to wonder why Arturia doesn’t ship a longer cable with the thing, as well as why they don’t provide a full control-surface definition for Sonar X3 (or why Cakewalk hasn’t developed support for the Keylab out of the box). Someone needs to get these folks together and have them hash things out.

Questions? Comments? Please feel free to use the Contact page. Thank you for reading!