Where to start

I've been wanting to start a blog for a while now.

I actually have lots of blogs and online bases, but my job - I say job, but I'm unemployed at the moment, so perhaps I should call it my vocation or my shackles - as a musician very much impedes on my ability to authentically and publicly ruminate over my innermost thoughts.

There have been times I have wanted and needed to share experiences, but because the others involved are in the public eye, it would be professional suicide. Although I am out of work now, talking about my peers would ensure I stay out of work for good. But what people don't realise when they turn on the TV, or pick up a newspaper, is that those people are real, and have real friends, and real issues. And when they crash and burn, their friends are left to pick up the pieces of their own lives. It's very hard to do when you can't talk about it.

I'm also constrained by the necessity to keep up a public image, to say the right thing, to constantly be in a state of self-promotion. People don't want to hear about the gnarly stuff, they want to read the next press release, attend the next gig, watch the next video. They don't want to discover you're fallible, or that you're having as much trouble staying afloat as the next person - actually, strike that, they DO. But purely for scandal value, not because they care. And once you're out of the game, off they go, trampling over you in their race to witness the next public meltdown.

The constant keeping up with one's own image, or that which is projected onto you by others is very hard. And when I do show signs of weakness, it's easy to see how true friends are few and far between. I appear to be a confident extrovert, but in truth, I'm very introverted - and happy to be so - and seeking my own private refuge, both in terms of location and self. I'm hoping that blogging will help me to come up with resolutions. My biggest problem is financing change, and I really need a change in my life right now. If money were no object, the first thing I'd do is get the hell out of Broken Britain. I'm not talking about the head-in-the-clouds dream of living on a yacht, dining at the best restaurants every night, schmoozing with the in-crowd. I just want to get a new start, and be able to put down deposit and advance rent. Pff, I can't even pay my rent here in England. At least I could crash on my mother's sofa if need be. I'd be up shit creek if things went wrong abroad and I had nothing to fall back on

I've just highlighted another issue: fear. Feel the fear and do it anyway? Is it okay if I just stay behind the sofa for a while? I've been brave all my life and I'm tired of striking out alone...though I know it has to be done. I just need to catch a break.

Another issue I continue to wrangle with is my inability to type as fast as my thoughts allow. My mind could give any F1 car a race for its money. And don't get me started on procrastination.

Anyway, I'm going to give it a whirl. And in order to be fully authentic, to be ME, I will stay anonymous. It is imperative I vent everything in order to stay sane, and perhaps in creating some sort of order to my thoughts, I can come up with resolutions to problems whacking me in the face.

Time will tell.