2012-02-22 8:55 p.m.

So, I'm supposed to be writing this new album. And, I'm doing it. It's just going really, really slowly. It's like watching slugs have sex. My creative career is moving at the speed of slugs mating. It's depressing.

It's all my fault, really. I could be more proactive. Or, at least I think I could. I'm not even sure what I think. All I know is that I've tried a bunch of things and very little seems to work.

I thought it might be helpful to get together with a real wordsmith, a true poet, someone whose life was focused around the beauty of words. So,last month I had the honor of spending a day with Bj�rn Barlach in Stockholm. He's 75, brilliant, eccentric, and he is the living incarnation of a poet on earth. I wanted to write songs about love. He asked me, "But, I wonder if what the world really needs is another song about love? Aren't there enough of those?" Swedes aren't very direct. What he meant to say was, "That's stupid. If you attempt to write a love song with me right now I will forever judge you as an imbecile. However, you'll never know this, since Swedes are indirect. Take that."

So, although my hours with him were entertaining and enlightening, I didn't make much progress on actually coming up with usable words for the new record.

I hired another poet to write me a poem every week for a year and send them to me by post. I thought it might cheer me up and inspire me. It mostly just inspired me to feel bad about myself for not writing more.

So, I tried calling Brian Harrah today and ask for some advice. He gently suggested that maybe I should write an album of stories, as opposed to more love songs. Asshole. I don't know how to write songs that are stories. I know how to write fucking love songs. I don't want to spend my time learning anything new that I'm not already good at. (Judging from my notebook, I'm not even good at writing love songs anymore.)

He's a pretty great songwriter, so I asked him if he would want to write a tune for the album. He thought it would be a great idea, but then cautioned me, "I don't write lyrics." Are you fucking kidding me? I can write music by myself. That's the easy part. Offering to help me write music without words, well, that's like a hooker saying that she will have sex with me, except for one thing: I can't put anything into her orifices. Useless.

I have a wonderful A&R guy that I am sure can help me through all this. He's helped the likes of Amy Grant, Elton John, and Sting, so he can surely help me. But, now I find myself typing this little vignette instead of calling him like he asked me to do.

So, here I am. I have a problem, some kind of creative blockage or something. I haven't been very lyrically productive for a few years. And, I have a solution right in front of me, yet I'm blocking that, too. When it comes to sucking at this and sabotaging myself, at least I'm thorough.

Ok. I'm psyching myself up to call my A&R guy. I'm tired of this crap, I'm tired of myself. I have until January 2013 to get this album written and I need to start. Tonight.


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