16 November 2002
Gathering Speed

You know how all those Hot New Artists interviewed in Rolling Stone always say something like "It's all happened so fast, I haven't had time to really come to grips with it yet"? I'm not even anybody's Hot New Artist yet, and I can see what they mean.

In the past week and a half Waking Hour has sold out in several stores. I've gotten emails from people I've never heard from before, living halfway across the country, saying they almost pulled over on the freeway when they heard my song on the radio for the first time. The music that used to live in my bedroom, my notebooks, the local coffeehouses, the underground channels on the Internet, is now being broadcast for the world to hear. I still haven't wrapped my mind around it all -- and this is, we hope, just the beginning.

Things I intend to remember:

1. A lot of it is luck.
2. No matter how big this thing gets, it is never about me. It is about the music, about the people who choose to make it part of their lives. Never tie my own sense of worth to how much attention I get, or how many records I sell.
3. Trust my instincts. The mistakes I make will be worth making if I do.
4. Holy shit, I get to do this for a living!

Next week I intend to finish mixing a cover song I've been working on for some time, and it will probably go up in songscraps shortly thereafter. It's part of a holiday-season EP that I've also been working on for some time. At this point, actually releasing said EP by the holiday season looks highly doubtful. Maybe I'll just burn CD-Rs for those of you who want one.

- VT