Three Contest Entries

After being a little too lazy for a while, I have entered three lyrics in contests-"Haven't Been Sleeping", "Evil Queen", and "I Can't Have Christmas Without You". One of them ends at the end of the year and one of them ends mid-January. I can't wait to hear back!

~Eliza

Song Categories

I am in the process of getting a little more organized and deciding which songs in my songbook I want to focus on the most. I would also like to expand on what I write about, so I've divided most of my material into a few different categories to see where I can grow.

~Love~
Make Believe
Everything I Want
Angelface
Baby You are the One
A Way That I Can Understand
Pull Me In

~Hope/Inspiration~
So Beautiful
Can't Take Away Who I Am
Boundaries of my Comfort Zone
Still Believe in Dreamin

~Jealousy/Desire~
What I Want
See Your Face

~Break Up~
Enough
Damage
So Sick

~Strained Relationships~
Bring Me Down
Victim Card
You've Got a Way

~Idolizing~
Mr. Sophisticated
Bad Boy with a Heart

This is obviously not a complete list. I just wanted to see what would happen if I categorized the first 20 that came to my head. Now I've got my work cut out for me. I need to find somebody to make me idolize them and/or make me jealous so I can write more about those particular topics. Hm, interesting little exercise.

~Eliza

"Dream" is Becoming my Nightmare!

I have been trying to finish Dream for a couple of months now. I can't even remember the last time I struggled so much to write one song!

What I have so far is a very simple and sweet chorus. It's all about why I love someone who is very important to me. I even have a numbered list of reasons why, but I just cannot seem to make it work for the song. I don't understand why this particular song is so difficult to finish. It's about my own feelings and my own reasons for why I care about somebody. Am I really having this much trouble putting my OWN thoughts and feelings into a song?

It is honestly beginning to alarm me. This song has a simple concept and a very sweet chorus. There is nothing complex or even challenging about it. It's one thing to need a fresh perspective or approach now and then, but this is getting ridiculous! It has been almost four months since I determined that I wanted to finish this song.

This is not the first time that one song has taken me a long time to finish. "I'd Rather Feel Nothing" took me about six years to complete. It's about my struggle with chronic pain. I came up with the idea when I first started getting sick, but could not finish it until about a year ago. "Bad Boy with a Heart" was started in August 2011 and was not completed until May 2012. Many of my other songs have been completed over the course of a few months. The rest are fragments, the most frustrating of which being "Dream".

It's normal for certain songs to take a long time to finish. I would rather spend time to write a song the right way than spit out something I'm ashamed of, but there is something about this particular one that is an extreme challenge to me.

In a way I suppose I feel more pressure with this one. I don't plan on sharing it right away or immediately trying to have it published, but this song is important because the person is important. This one cannot be average. It has to be wonderful. It has to show that what I'm feeling is real. It has to accurately portray something that I have been feeling for the past few years. It's not just any song. It is a song that I truly have my heart invested in.

I only hope that I can manage to overcome these apprehensions and turn "Dream" into exactly what I have imagined it would be.

~Eliza

Stand

I hope you stand
And I hope you know
I'll always be your friend
I just hope it shows
Through good times and bad alike
My heart won't change with the changing times
And I, I hope you stand

~Eliza