Login with:

Facebook

Twitter

Tumblr

Google

Yahoo

Aol.

Mibba

Your info will not be visible on the site. After logging in for the first time you'll be able to choose your display name.

Dear Sister, Here's Some Advice

Hard Decision Making

I was pretty sad when we got back home. Not only did we have another long journey home that made me feel like my brain was dissolving from the inside, but it also meant no longer being able to relax in the nice sunny weather. I actually had responsibilities now. It was time for me to compile all the song ideas I had gotten over the summer and combine them at the best of my abilities. The only problem was that those ideas were nonexistent… It wasn’t that I didn’t want to, I just didn’t really think about it. I wasn’t in that songwriter space of mind yet. People who had experience probably got ideas at the most randomest of moments. I didn’t even have a background in music.

So, once back at home it suddenly hit me like the worst surprise ever. For a few days, I procrastinated horribly, instead staying in bed and binge watching Netflix to the point that Jack was worried about my mental health again. I was all cool, though. Well, as cool as I could be with the humongous workload waiting for me.

Many people probably thought being a musician was only fun and games. Yes, the touring with your friends and getting into all weird kinds of shit was amazing. So was playing music in front of people after the stage fright passed. But there were also pressures forcing you to create, and other work needed to be doing. I had only just joined the band and I was on the verge of going insane.

After procrastinating too much to my liking, I actually made myself a home base in the living room and scribbled down anything that came to mind. There were definitely some things that I thought were lyrics masterpieces, even if they were only three words long. Most of them, not so much however. At one point I even wrote out the whole ‘Taco Cat’ song again, which then proceeded to get stuck in my head for way too long.

The whole coffee table and floor around me were covered in balled up paper. Whenever what I wrote wouldn’t sound good or just wouldn’t come out the way I wanted, my frustration got the worst of me. I know, I know, I shouldn’t have let it get to me, but I just wanted to do something right.

The worst of it all was that Jack had practically been out the entire day, so I didn’t even have anybody around to tell me that taking a break would maybe help. He had left just before twelve o’clock, not saying a peep about what he was going to do and where he was going. Whenever I asked, he would either give me a vague answer that only told me that he was actually going somewhere, or he would just turn the question completely. For some reason, I actually fell for his answers until he actually walked out of the door and left. Big mistake on my part because I didn’t even know when he was coming back home.

I would have been suspicious and all, but it wasn’t exactly the most important thing on my mind right at that time. I was more concerned about the music than I was about my boyfriend. That must say how stressed out I was.

When the doorbell rang I was still playing with words in my head. I automatically walked to the front door, twiddling a pencil between my fingers, my mind somewhere else completely. I didn’t even realize that I had opened the door until I was eye to eye with Alex. Yes, Alex, Jack’s best friend, the guy who sings in Jack’s band, Lisa’s husband. He was here.

The words I was toying around with left my mind and the pencil stopped between my thumb and forefinger. “Jack’s not home right now, I’m assuming you’re here for him.”

Alex nodded, not taking much notice of my disheveled appearance (I was pretty sure there was some cereal in my bra) and said, “yeah, I expected him to be home by now, but I guess he isn’t finished…”

“Finished with what?” I asked stupidly, thinking that maybe Alex would have some more answers.

All he did was shrug along with a breathy chuckle. I wasn’t sure if it was because he knew and was hiding it from me and was trying to blow it off, or because he actually did not know. I wasn’t interested enough to figure out. Something told me that his response was way more complicated than that.

“Ok, well, I guess you can come inside and wait for him,” I suggested and gestured for him to come in. This short little exchange already told me that our relationship had switched ever since I had told him what had been going on, I felt comfortable enough to let him in without anybody else around.

He easily stepped in, not showing any signs of hesitation, which he definitely would have shown clearly if he still resented me. As I closed the door, I saw him laughing a little at the scene in front of him: the amazing messy living room that used to look so organized before I came in with my horrible songwriting skills.

“What happened here?” He asked, laughter still coming from him.

“These three guys decided to leave all the lyrics writing over to me,” I told him with a sigh, running my fingers through my hair that I was still growing out. “I know, little inexperienced me has to take over the amazing things my brother used to do. So far, it’s going quite badly.”

“Oh, come on, it can’t be that bad.” He walked closer and picked up one of the paper balls, carefully trying to unravel it. “I’m sure something can be used to build from, or maybe there might even be something you can use straight away.”

“You really think so?” I doubted as I joined him, looking around helplessly. “I’m pretty sure there’s something I wrote about Ketchup in there…”

Alex stayed silent as he blinked a few times and his next statement came out more like a question. “I’m sure Zack would like it.”

I groaned loudly and let myself fall onto one of the couches, not caring about all the paper I sat on and made crumple even worse. “I can’t do this, I’m horrible at this.”

“If you’re so bad at it, then why are they making you write the lyrics? Are they trying to make songs with horrible meaning?” He sat down next to me, only he actually brushed off all the paper before he put his body weight on the couch.

“Apparently they liked what I wrote when I disappeared and stayed at the boathouse for a while.”

“And you? Do you like it?”

“Well, yeah, it’s a whole lot better than this shit. But--” I froze up and sat up straight. It was like something clicked in my mind. “I wrote all that when I was mentally ill… if I somehow…”

“No.” Alex shook his head rapidly, dismissing anything I was going to say. “No, no, no. You aren’t going to stop taking your medication just so you can write some lyrics. I’m forbidding you from doing that. I’ve been there, I get that it can make you feel numb, but it does not seem like it’s doing that to you. So don’t you dare!”

“I was not suggesting that.” I glared, offended that he would even think I would consider that as a possibility. “I am not stupid. But if I somehow manage to tap into those feelings again… that’s what you songwriters always do, right?”

“I mean… sometimes. Usually, it’s easier to write what you’re feeling right at that time, but going back to when you were feeling specific things can also really create a nice song. You just really have to remember what you felt like and what your thoughts were.”

I thought about it for a while. On one hand, I did write some good shit that actually made people believe I had some hidden talent, but on the other I really didn’t want to go back to that dark place. I didn’t even want to think back to when I was being so unreasonable and kept hurting Jack by being like that.

“You know what?” I shook my head lightly and looked around myself again to think my answer through. “I think I’m fine with writing shitty things and getting frustrated with everything.”

Alex looked at me with soft eyes. He fully understood that it was a time for me that was way too difficult. After finally getting through it, it wasn’t right to go straight back to it. “You could always also do some self-reflection.”

“Yeah, I guess. But not now, I think I might go insane if I trying to write one more word.”

Almost as if on cue, the front door opened. I expected it to be Jack coming back from whatever he was doing, especially since Alex was here for him. But instead of seeing his lanky ass, I saw John entering my house without ringing the bell or knocking first. I mean, many of our friends did it when we had made plans, but I had no idea what he was doing here.

“Hey.” He smiled initially as he walked inside and closed to door, but when he saw my expression a bit clearer, he shook his head. “By the look on your face I can tell that you forgot I was going to come over to-- What the hell happened here?”

“Apparently she had already reached writer’s block before she even started,” Alex informed, trying to make light of the situation, which I actually did appreciate.

“You know you can always ask me for help, right?” John laughed as he took his coat off. “I might not be any better at it, but at least all your stuff will always be better than mine.”

“Maybe another day, because I refuse to work on it anymore,” I told him, repeating what I had said to Alex. “Anyway, care to now tell me what I forgot?”

“We were going to look over those record deal offers together…”

“Shit, right!” I jumped up and hurried over to the dining table.

Right at the end of the wooden table was a large pile of paper. I had printed them all out at my dad’s office (there was no way I was going to waste so much paper if I had to pay for it) since it was way easier to read it out and compare like that instead of on a screen. None of them were official contracts, but most were the basic outline with some terms. Of course we weren’t going to be sent a contract yet until we actually showed that we were seriously interested.

I picked up the pile and started spreading the documents over the tabletop. “They aren’t in any specific order because Taco not-so-gracefully knocked them over a while ago, so we’re going to have to go through the whole listing process again.

“As annoying as that sounds, it might actually be good to look over everything again,” John reasoned as he hung his coat over a chair and started taking a glance at the first few pages in front of him.

“You guys need any help?” Alex asked as he joined us, not sure whether reading anything would be rude or not.

“I guess you could. You have some experience so you probably know clear no-go’s.” I shrugged. Having another opinion was also great, but there were also some implications. “However, in the end we do have to choose what fits us. But I ain’t gonna say no to you taking over some of the work.”

And that’s how we started looking through the offers again. It first went quite well, since we were all reading our individual things. Soon, though, we started seeing what was wrong with our plan. One person couldn’t just make a decision. We had still had to discuss it all together as well to see what we all thought. So, basically having multiple people wasn’t going to speed up the process. If anything, it would make it longer because there were more opinions.

Long story short, it was pretty frustrating.

Eventually, the front door was opened again, but I was too busy reading another offer to really give it much attention. All it was was Jack finally coming after being out for hours. But Jack being Jack, the attention whore that he was, wasn’t so glad that nobody was there to greet him right away. He was probably expecting me to be awaiting him and running up as soon as he entered.

“I’m hoome!” He screamed loudly, his voice cracking badly halfway through the word ‘home’, definitely having gotten the attention from everybody. “Oh god.” He cleared his throat loudly and let out another high pitched shriek. “I’m fine, I’m good, it’s all cool.”

Nobody, and I mean nobody, not even Taco, acknowledged him. It was actually pretty sad, but we were all so used to his hyperactive manners. We all basically tuned it out. Well, technically John wasn’t too used to Jack’s behaviour, but he had a four-year-old that was probably just as loud. That said something.

Jack proceeded to take off his shoes and leather jacket. He just stared at us all around the table seemingly doing something together while ignoring him. All he wanted was to be seen. “What ya’ll doing?”

But still, no one of replied and Taco continued to sleep peacefully at the very top of her cat tree. We were just all too concentrated on reading the words on the paper. It was quite important to understand what they were trying to say. Sometimes contracts were very sneaky with wording, so there was a lot to watch out for.

“I brought ice cream!” Jack tried as a last attempt, holding up the plastic grocery bag that contained the tubs.

Well, that definitely caught my attention. My head shot up to look in his direction and I put an overly sweet smile on my face. “Oh, hi, Jacky! I didn’t hear you coming home. You should definitely start being a little louder.”

“Yeah, I should be a little bit louder.” He nodded and gave me the bitch glare.

I agreed and grinned goofily at him. “Ice cream?”

He rolled his eyes and put the three pints of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream on the table. I quickly pulled them all towards me to see which flavors he picked up while he went to the kitchen to get some utensils. Honestly, his choice wasn’t so bad. But then again, I was happy to shove any ice cream down my throat. I already opened up the one that caught my eye, ‘Out of This Swirled’, and damn did it look ready to be eaten.

When Jack came back, he handed everybody a spoon, clearly showing that there was no time for bowls. Now, that was my kind of style. I immediately started digging in the ice cream that was the perfect consistency from having been out of the freezer for the journey Jack had to take to get back home. I literally moaned in satisfaction.

While I was consumed by all the ice cream surrounding me, Jack decided to take a look at what John and Alex were actually helping me with. All that was needed was a peek and he saw something he recognized. He reached out and picked up a specific document.

“Hey, it’s Fueled by Ramen!” He exclaimed excitedly. “You can be label mates with us!”

“Oh god, no,” I said in disgust as I still had ice cream melting inside of my mouth that I desperately was trying to make sure didn’t dribble down my chin.

“But-- But-- they’re cool, we’re cool.”

“That was my exact reaction,” Alex said and reached out for one of the tubs next to me, getting a good scoop with his spoon, “but they actually had a good point.”

“Well, Ireland came up with it, but I fully agreed,” John added, practically telling me that I had to make the effort to explain it to Jack.

When Jack’s gaze fell back on me, I started retelling what I had basically said earlier that day. “Well, Fueled by Ramen has some and had some great artists. Like, all of them are good. I mean, let’s be honest, you guys are on there, Paramore’s on there, Panic is, twenty one pilots. All these great artists. Now, I’m not sure if they do this on purpose, but there’re either two routes they will let us take promotion-wise. We could be ‘lucky’ and receive your treatment: many many interviews, posters, banners, music videos posted everywhere, tweets every single day to remind people to preorder to the point that it gets annoying and might actually put people off from buying our music. Or we could be unlucky and be one of those bands on the label that get practically ignored. No interviews, no real promotion. Yes, they would retweet some tweets, but never will it really stand out or be something they tweet themselves, no ‘featured songs of the week’. Only during an actual release would they do a little and then still not much. I feel like they’re trying to make the biggest bigger, like you guys, which is good for you guys, but the smaller fish are kind of ignored.”

“Ok, I beg to differ,” Jack seemed to be building up and argument, but continued differently, “but if you don’t think it feels right, then don’t do it.”

“Exactly,” Alex agreed with an enthusiastic nod. “I told them that that was the most important.”

“We’ve narrowed it down to three so far… which still sounds like a lot. One of them I still don’t really understand why we got an offer in the first place, because it makes no sense to me. But, hey.” I shrugged, sliding over the three that were now on our top list.

“Did you ask Pete to give them a listen?” Alex asked Jack, trying to subside my suspicions I had about the DCD2 record deal offer.

“Pete Wentz? Nope.” Jack shook his head and glanced over the short descriptions.

“I mean, it is possible that he just wants to sign us,” John argued, having done this the entire time I kept doubting it. “We did get an offer before, you know, when Cameron was still… Umm, apparently there was some contact, but I wasn’t really involved in it all.”

Well, woah.

Notes


I don't feel like this chapter flows smoothly at all. I'm back to the point where my writing is absolutely shitty. I've planned out the next 39 chapters, now to see if I will actually write all that.

Comments

@settle for me.
I usually just post a chapter a day or every other day. Sometimes less, sometimes more frequently. No need to force it in a short amount of time.
Well, two stories are close to finishing, so a new one will arise. It's based on an idea I got years ago, but I made it a bit more sophisticated. If a story about an age gap intrigues you, keep your eye out for it.

@aweirdkindofyellow
I remember you saying and I did say I was going to do the same but I just honestly never got around to it.
I have been told nothing about any of your new ones, just that you have lots on the go.

@settle for me.
I've been transferring everything to Wattpad and AO3 for quite a while now. Given up on Mibba though. Never liked that interface and layout, so couldn't be bothered.
I'm going to start another story soon (after I finish some that I am currently writing). And I'll still post it here, but you'll just have to actively search for it yourself if you want to read it. I don't know if you've been told anything about it yet, but you might like it or hate it.

@aweirdkindofyellow
Same! No one else updates anymore and I need to start on another site but I just... don't have the energy?
I'm going to be absolutely lost when you finish the ones I'm subscribed to. I honestly won't have anything to do.

@settle for me.
I've also really been missing reading other people's new stories. Seriously, the only story I still read right now is yours. I just can't find anything else.
I've actually been trying to figure out a way how to change the sequel to this story so it's not as long and officially ends there as well.