Gypsy Road

Keep Me In Your Heart

The next few weeks fly by, and the days start to blur together. Before we know it, we're back in the studio, slowly and accurately making our way through recordings for the new album. We decided on the title Long Cold Winter with still-formulating ideas for the cover art. It's barely September, and we have 2 out of the 10 songs recorded and off to the editors. The only issue is we need 10 songs and only have 4 written. Personally, I'm nervous and quite stressed at this point. Eric and I's wedding is no more than four weeks away. Thankfully we have everything a hundred percent done and ready for that. But we still only have about 4 months to have all of the songs recorded, edited, and compiled for the album. Dan wants to have it released in May of next year, which seems like a long ways away, but in music business time, It's nothing but a mere blink of an eye.

Keep in mind though, this is the deadline for utterly everything. Songs written, recorded, edited, and compiled. Album art completely finalized, including the inner booklet. Which requires the effort of chief designer--that's me--to make sure all of the promo photos are organized, plus all of the lyrics are included in an artistic way that keeps the feel of the album itself, and everything else in between. Every video has to be recorded, edited, and sent off to MTV and all the major corporations willing to play our videos, too. That is a ton of work to have done in only 7 months total. Mark and I are practically pulling our hair out over all the artistic side we're in charge of. Mark, being the band's primary photographer, has a job just as stressful as mine, if not even more stressful. He has to pick venues, set up dates and times, and set up exact parameters for every photo we'll be using for the album, including extra photos for all the tour books, newspapers, magazines, everything. Like I said, 7 months seems like a long time, but trust me, with this much work, and with as fast as time has been passing the last year or so, it will be here in no time.

I bury my head in my hands, my ring catching on strands of hair.

"You okay, kitten?" Eric sounds concerned.

"Stressed. But I can't really do anything to reduce the stress, so everything is just fantastic." I sigh.

"Hey, hey. It's gonna be alright, I promise." His hand lands on my back, caressing it ever so carefully.

"I know." I huff, leaning over heavily onto his shoulder. "I just don't know how we're going to be able to get all this stuff done in such a limited amount of time. We're going to be running around like chickens with our heads cut off for 7 months and I'm not sure I can handle it."

"I know, I know. I'm stressed too. We've just got to make the best of the time we do have, even if it is extremely limited." He kisses the top of my head.

"Dammit, why are you always so right all the time?" I tease him.

He chuckles ever so softly. "Patience is a virtue, my dear."

"I guess it is." I sigh.

I finally make the effort to get back to work. I snatch up my pen sitting on the wide desk before me. We're in my office in the recording studio building: third floor, room 6B. Eric sits in the overstuffed leather office chair to my left, his feet kicked up on the mahogany desk, and I sit in an identical chair, but instead of my feet propped on the desk like him, my elbows are propped up on the thick wood.

I stare absently at the metal name plate on my desk with my full name engraved on it. I chuckle to myself, thinking how in four weeks they're going to have to get me a brand new one, this time displaying the last name of my love in place of the one I've known all my life. I hunch over the mess of drawings in front of me. Although I'm an extremely organized person 98% of the time, sometimes I am happy I'm a designer. That means my workspace can be quite messy and hardly anyone--save for myself--cares. I continue to sketch out more ideas for the rest of the album art, and for each page of the booklet inside. And let me tell you, having the album sold on three different platforms: CD, cassette, and vinyl, does not make my life easier in any way. But it will help us to sell more copies this way, to get our name out there more. Whoever said being in the music business was an easy job once you got your big break was sorely and completely wrong. If anything, I'd argue that it is just as difficult now as it was before any record labels noticed us, if not harder.