Still Making

Welcome to my substack

Lately, I’ve been thinking about what it means to keep going.

To keep making music. To keep creating when time is short, when energy is low, when life looks nothing like it used to. To keep showing up for the work, even when the shape of that work has changed. Becoming a parent will do that (I’m 9 months in) So will getting older. So will years in a career that doesn’t come with a clear map and gets foggier by the day.

So I’m starting here. A space to write honestly about making things in the in-between.

I’m a songwriter, a touring musician, and now a dad. These roles don’t always sit comfortably together. The long nights, the busy days, the quiet moments of inspiration all look different now. I’ve started to understand what it means to create in the margins of life instead of the centre. I used to romanticise chaos and freedom. Now I write in the soft hours after bedtime, with a baby monitor glowing beside my guitar.

This newsletter is called Still Making. It means a couple things to me. First: I’m still here, still making music, still trying to add something valuable into the world. But it also means I’m trying to make stillness - to carve out a little quiet in the noise of new parenthood, career uncertainty, aging, and all the mess that comes with being alive. I’m still making sense of things, still making peace with time passing, still making space for what matters.

This is a place for anyone who’s navigating change while still trying to hold onto creativity, people who feel like they’re supposed to have it all figured out but secretly and definitely, don’t. Artists wondering if their best work is behind them. Parents figuring out how to make space for themselves without guilt. People facing the quiet panic of time passing, who still believe there’s more to say, more to make, more to life.

I want to write about songwriting, not just the craft, but the messy emotions behind it. What it means to say something real in a world of noise. How to write when you’re tired, how to trust your instincts when the algorithm disagrees. I want to write about aging - not dramatically, but truthfully. The weird grace of getting older in a culture obsessed with youth. The fears that creep in when the spotlight shifts, and the strange freedom that can come with it.

Mostly, I want to be honest - flawed, curious, often confused, always reaching.

This won’t be a place for polished advice or life hacks. There are enough of those. This is more like a conversation in the bar after the show, when the lights are down and the nerves are gone. It’s a place for half baked thoughts, unfinished ideas, and the bold beauty of still giving a shit.

If any of that sounds familiar, I hope you’ll stick around.

Welcome to Still Making.