I’ve noticed that my threshold for external “noise” gets lower when my internal noise is high. Which figures as a natural mechanism of balance, right?

The increased creative noise this year has obviously been the writing of fiction as I work on long gestating novels and develop new ones for future penning. For roughly the first half of the year that was my singular creative focus. Then by summer, my old mistress Lady Music returned and I resumed my slow march toward 50 songs completed and released for the Brandon LeVell singer-songwriter project.

(I toggle between storymaking and songmaking so much more effortlessly than probably ever. Those two disciplines no longe clash with each other. Finally.)

Time was, though, I had several daily and weekly podcasts I’d listen to throughout my workday or during drives and other mundane activities like bathing, shaving, cooking, mowing, etc. So a glance at those feeds this morning revealed dozens of missed episode that I had to manually add to the queue for eventual planned, or more than likely, random future consumption.

All this to say that the volume on outside things like audio media decreases naturally when one’s head is full of the internal creative noise that’s a result of–and the catlyst for–continued intense focus on doing the damn thing.

I’d be lying if I didn’t confess a bit of pride in that. In having an unwavering, unfaltering, stalwart focus and drive on achieving specific goals of accomplishment.

This is the way.