Why Didn't I Write for 10 Years?

The quick answer? I don't know. Or I do know, and maybe there are too many factors that played into why I just couldn't bring myself to pick up a pen and start playing. Playing, is what I used to consider writing to be because it tapped into the creative playtime that I felt joy and a true release with. But playing had transformed from this joyous thing to suddenly feeling obligatory and even worse, like I wasn't even good at it.

My boyfriend at the time happened to be a friend first and a brilliant producer before that. We had met through MySpace, I don't even know how (maybe he remembers) and he started sending me beats to write to. I was blown away! Looking back, his beats were ambitious but definitely the beginnings of what could one day be a great producer... but yea, they were good to me then and that was all that mattered.

He became my sonic muse and I couldn't keep from writing one song after the other. And with a cheap place to record, I found myself in a studio, recording in a sketchy neighborhood every Monday like clockwork. I didn't know it then, but I was practicing and working out all the kinks, and the more I practiced the better I got.

Then I remember when I started writing songs that were, well... shit, really. I'd struggle to even come up with a melody let alone a lyric to certain beats he'd send and I'd feel so embarrassed when he'd politely tell me that I needn't work on it any longer, someone else had already written to it. Man, what a soul crusher that was.

I stopped going to the studio and my pen just seemed to dry up. There were many times here and there that I got opportunities to write again, but I would approach them as though I was lucky to be there, not that they were lucky to have me. And I mean I truly felt lucky, like as if someone did me a favor by bringing me in. It was silly because I was still training my ear and learning the entire time, but I just didn't think I had it in me anymore. Then you sprinkle in some life, some deeply damaging relationships, some extra trauma here and there, and I just left it.

I never consciously "quit" writing, I just didn't know how I ever would and I didn't know how to tell if what I was writing was shit or not. I could think it's good, but then again, I like the song "Just Good Friends" off the "Bad" album, but even Stevie had jokes on that tune. What do I know?

When Kelsey Warren of Blak Emoji sent me the beat for "Crumbs", I didn't even know it would be for me.

"Who's this for?"

"You, if you want it."

I didn't even write to it right away, what would I write? But on that faithful day, the concept finally came (because I lived it) and the song was ready. And that was the day I dusted off my pen, and wrote a damn song. And now that song has been featured in Notion Magazine and on Roland.com and I am just as happy as could be because I.... am a fucking songwriter. I will never forget that fact again.