Stuff I Hope to Accomplish On Tour

So...yay it's all fun and joy when you're "on the road" and "going places" and stuff...except there's a weird psychological time warp when you're traveling daily. Let me explain it. Logic: You have so much time to sit and do nothing between cities that you have plenty of time for making phone calls, reading, and attending to other things of self improvement. Actuality: Who knows. Where it all goes. Part of it is that Susan and I set up our mobile office in the front and spend hours booking, talking about booking, routing, dealing, wheeling, whining, dining, whatever you call it. We get a LOT done, even though spurts of Waffle House jokes arise inevitably. After spending so much time on the laptop, reading and writing words, the last thing I want to do is spend some more time reading and writing words. My favorite form of "Jana Van Time" is making short films in iMovie. It's creative, but completely different from anything else, and usually hysterical. Plus I have something to show for it at the end. I also have a weird distaste for holding phone conversations longer than 3 minutes in a small moving vehicle with other people in it. So phone chats are usually out. I like to think it's being polite to my fellow passengers. That being said, I'm not into self-limiting behavior, and a month is a long time to be driving around, so I'm setting some goals for myself. There's talk of starting to record EP 2 in July (BE STILL MY HEART) with Dan, so I have some song clean-up to do on the new tunes...and some rehearsal to do on the done ones, too. Making different types of films while continuing my usual output is on the list. One of my year's goals is a 20 minute piece on being a Merch Girl, and another is to mimic the shorts that were included with the new Tori Amos album. Except not mimic TOO much...but go for the vibe. Work on my cuts and editing. I've been playing guitar on some of Susan's set while she plays banjo, so we have plans for rehearsal when we have off days with no gig. That makes me excited. I have a lot of fun being the rhythm guitar player. There's a lot of back end business stuff to attend to on my front...when I get back in July I want to gig with my new and beloved Trio...I need a business plan drawn up for the next album because I need to SELL THEM. (Imagine that. Do you have The Early Year yet? Do your 10 closest friends?) All the stuff I get paid to do for other people gets backburnered for myself. This is not a complaint because I'm learning tons...but after a while you feel really behind. Oh yeah, and I want to read at least one book and write songs. It's manageable, with focus and discipline. It's all fun so there's no worry that way. The best thing to do with the van bubble is to make it work in my favor instead of against me. I get to see some really pretty scenery along the way, too.