I hope that Ghost of a Girl is on your Summer playlist! Murder at the Lakeis the perfect lakeside soundtrack for all those Halloween-loving music nerds who would much rather it be October than June.
The Ghost of a Girl album is incredibly personal to me. Co-writing with my partner, Eric, was medicine that came right at the time I needed it most. Not only did our Caesar-infused songwriting sessions bring music back into my life after a three-year hiatus, but the lyrics quickly became a safe space to express the challenges I was going through at the time…
I don’t write anymore
Too busy crying
I wear a false smile
My plants keep dying
Without them I’m left wondering
When will Spring come again?
2023 was not my year. A good year on paper, yes. But behind my ‘false smile’, I was struggling. Fortunately, the first line of the song Over the Moon is inaccurate. I never stopped writing, not entirely. I had, however, stopped writing The Sun and Moon Saga. Why? Because I had developed this limiting belief that it wouldn’t be ‘successful’ and that I should write ‘safer’, ‘more marketable’ books.
What was worse was how I developed the limiting belief that only extrinsic success can justify the creative act. I had internalised our culture’s ideas of ‘success’ and had fallen out of alignment with my own value system.
Music was just the medicine I needed, because I had returned to it from a place of intrinsic motivation. I wasn’t looking to ‘get’ anything out of writing this album. I was simply expressing myself and having fun.
We wrote song after song, and by and by, a story sprouted in the lyrics: The Haunting of Miss Margaret. This dark but whimsical fairy tale was the fable my soul needed, one that warns against being swept up by the values of late-stage capitalism and the narcissism it encourages, and implores that you stay in touch with your authentic self, with what brings you true joy.
My hope in sharing this work with the world is that it reacquaints someone with their inner child, just as writing it did for me.