The song I've been updating here periodically has nearly been completed. Before releasing it to Spotify and other major stores, I still have an opportunity to polish it. But as it sits now, all the notes are there, and all the lyrics are in. There's nothing left but to nitpick it. Once it's fully released, it would be in bad form to edit further. That's what I mean by pre-release I'm not sure if I'm even using the term right, but whatever! Djentleman came to be from my desire to write a Djent (Progressive metal subgenre) song. After a few videos on YouTube teaching me what Djent was from a historical perspective, one video showed one way to make it. So, you'll find that Djentleman is written in 30 8ths at 181 BPM. With Djentleman 'finished' all I've got to do to release the album is go back and nitpick all the other songs. I haven't even hired the album artist yet. I'm not even sure if the guy still does art (it was only a side gig for him, he's a fan that wanted to help, and I wanted to pay him (He never asked for money).) I imagine that the art and the polishing should take about the same time, then its a matter of getting the distributor to accept the album, and bam. Soon as the distributor accepts the work, I can give a date, but in the past like a day before release they come up with an issue that puts me back at the end of the queue another two weeks (arbitrarily) beyond that date... and even then, another issue might pop up putting me even further back. You'd think I'd learn from those mistakes, preventing it from happening again, right? Nope, then some other issue I never knew about comes and blindsides me... That's life. Going forward, I've spent a lot of time with my favorite plugins, Shreddage guitar, bass, and drums. Using those same voices has a somewhat limiting effect on my music. Some of you may remember that I was heavy on the piano at first, and definitely electronic. I want to tap back into those roots, yet blend it further with the guitars. I'm going to try my hand at more of an electronic feel (though in blending its more of a salad than a stew, so the album will have its own flavor for each song.) I'll try to release a newsletter for each song, as usual. Outside of music, my editor is about to begin his 3rd month of working on my book. This first pass is to determine what's needed. So far it's been pretty exciting. I'm hoping the book someday becomes a video game... which would give me the biggest laugh at the irony. The character started in a video game, went into a book, that would then be converted into a video game... The editor did offer some advice as he hit the half way mark of the 600 page book. That advice I've applied to the second book, which is about 150 pages so far. I do want to practice the orchestral film music for each of those books, like Halo or something. That type of emotional music is far outside my comfort zone. One thing I gained from writing Djentleman in 30/8 (It functions like 7/8 7/8 7/8 then 9/8) is that when I started a new song in 4/4 it was super easy. So if I challenge myself to make different genres, I can come back to my favorite rock and metal, and do something fantastic with it. Thanks for reading this mini novel I wrote here, your messages of encouragement (aka: "When are you gonna update your list? Looking forwards for when you do...") You don't even know how much positive pressure that puts on me to stop watching anime, stop playing games, and just finish the darn song already... Lol. See you again in 15 - 90 days!