Busy Monday: February Album Writing Month

What is February Album Writing Month.......writing songs! also known as "FAWM". I found out about FAWM in Dec of 2006. I was talking with my friend Erin Maeflower - on the way home from Boston MA. I told her I've always wanted to write songs. I had started writing poetry when I was in college - My first poem was about the Sun and the Earth - it was more than I ever expected to write. I surprised myself and every year I continue to surprise myself. But I found I LOVED writing poems.
Luckily, when Erin had told me about it, it was late Dec. It's just songwriting - learning how, and just doing it. "You should try it she said". I didn't have to wait too long to really know what it was all about and to give it a try, because it was only 2 months away at best.
So I began my first FAWM.org challenge in February 2007. It was amazing to say the least. The community of fawmers was with me all the way. I had fawmers backing me up when I felt like I no place being there "writing songs" without a guitar or piano. I found myself feeling like a dork in the midst of these amazing indie artists! While on the forums I posted that I was hoping to collaborate with this awesome vocalist Becca Palm. She said she'd keep an eye on my lyrics - and if something caught her attention, she'd let me know. Collaborating wasn't all that common yet.
Many songs later, I was plugging away at my 14 song goal (14 songs is a standard length album - so the goal is to write 14 songs in 28 days). Finally I wrote something that had substance - merit, I guess. And Becca agreed. She played around with it (without me knowing yet) - mixed up my chorus a little to make it flow better and worked her magic on the piano & vocally. The results made me cry and I knew I wanted to do this every year from then on. The song The Moon Escapes Tonight can now be found on the Volume 3 fawmpilation disc on itunes (or by clicking on the steampunk cover image). I continued to write song lyrics that summer every once in a while, and looked forward to my next FAWMexperience!

Feb 2008, for my second year of FAWMing I wrote 18 songs and the collaborations were phenomenally awesome! so was my song "I'm Toast" - with both of my daughters (Monkey & Elephant). Later in 2008 I attempted my first 50/90 (write 50 songs in 90 days) and collaborated with some amazing folks out there in FAWM & 50/90 world...and came away with 11 songs.

Last year during FAWM of 2009, I wrote only 12 songs - but all my lyrics were demo'd giving me over 22 songs to listen to! Seriously...fawmers ROCK! I decided this was the year to submit more tracks for consideration to the annual album and submitted 7 tracks! I couldn't narrow it down - I only wrote the words - these people are amazing! Late last year I found out "On Rare Occasions" was chosen for the Fawmpilation (much thanks to the master man Josh Belville)! This song will be on itunes shortly - but can be found on the Volume 5 fawmpilation disc....(click the moon man image)

50/90 last year - was hit or miss for me. I was so busy and my girls are getting older so our summers mean outside fun and no songwriting. I did manage to write 5 songs one being the song "Our Yesterday" which was demo'd by 5 different artists!


Now I come to FAWM 2010 with a full heart, a full plate in front of me with my Etsy shop and my Blogging and my Family...and church and my girls schools...cleaning my house...wow! I get tired thinking about it. So by the time you read this - I will have been fawming for one week. (Today it's only Jan 30th - I'm trying to get ahead of my posting so I can fawm too!) This whole week will be dedicated to my "FAWMmunity"! If you haven't noticed - we use a lot of "fawmisms". My first year writing I was a "fawmling". It's tons of fun. If you have ever wanted to write a song, or you want to hear some of the newest, most amazing up and coming indie artists - check out FAWM.ORG!


Check back everyday this week for awesome 'Music', 'songwriting' related posts! Edible Wednesday will be with the great Dan Vaillancourt...who? what? FAWMer - Yeah! Have a great and busy monday! -kg