What have I been up to?

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You may have been wondering what I've been up to. It's been a busy few years with many changes taking place in my business life and also enjoying family time. Its been a few years since I've done any music. The release of the album Fuzz Bomb in 2020 was the end of an era for me. I felt I had accomplished all I could with music. I loved it. Basically over the three years since I started my own solo stuff I had created three solo albums. I was pretty efficient. Writing and creating songs on the sunday of each week. I felt I was getting better with each album and Fuzz Bomb was my favourite of the lot. It was a real joy to create. learning the engineering and mixing part of pro-tools, becoming super relaxed with it and just creating songs. Something that has always come easy to me. I'd enjoyed the years with Ammp making and creating an album and ep with my friends, Jason Murphy, Andrew Richardson and Ben Payne and best friend Mat Powell. I look back at it as a wonderful time and creative peak. In 2018 I had a goal of releasing a solo album every year. I wanted to create 10 albums in 10 years. I got to 3 and decided I was nearing 50 and needed to move to something else. I didn't know what that was. I was on holiday in Waikanae with the family reading a novel that I was struggling with when I decided I could possibly make something myself. So I did. I downloaded an app and started writing. As I've learnt from past writing experience it's important to write what you know. It's no surprise then that the beginning of A Day in the life, begins on holiday. I had no idea where the novel was going. In fact it started as a short story. By the end of the first chapter it had become a suspense novel. I was writing on the cuff, making things up as it grew. I didn't know the ending nor had any plans for where it was going. I found I was happy and knew this is what I wanted to do. Within a month or two it was finished. I left a Day in the life and started moving on to the next novel. 'The clean up crew'. Something I've learnt from the song writing process is never to over think or over work things. Give it time and space and come back to it with a fresh perspective. I got half way through the clean up crew and went back to A Day in the life. I added a few chapters, re-wrote a few things and found myself extremely happy with it. I let my wife, Hana and the family read it. It worked and Hana even cried at the right moment. I felt like it was working and decided to move to the next part of the journey. Finding a publisher. I sent the draft out to many different publishers and received two positive reponses from two different publishers. I chose one and for the last two years have been going back and forth with them over edits on the book. I've also finished the first draft of, The clean up crew,' which I'll go back to and re-read and edit and I'm half way through the third novel called, the nightguards. Needless to say, writing has become a joy and I've found my next creative mountain to climb.