The Songwriter's Challenge is in full swing, four weeks in, and it's pretty much all I think about anymore.

@Meno is the mastermind behind this incredible challenge. His generous offer to award a guitar to the winner has been a huge motivational force for the contestants. I believe that this Songwriter's Challenge will go down in Steem history. Literally hundreds of beautiful pieces of original music will have been created as result.

My Musical Story

I'd like to share a little about my background. I've never considered myself a songwriter until the last few months on Steemit. I didn't write songs at all. I wrote poems sometimes, but only for the last year or so. I studied music when I was a kid, and I've always had a stong interest in music, but if you asked me a year ago if I thought I would ever be a songwriter? Nope. Creativity works in strange ways, and I never imagined that something like Steemit would come into my life.

Years ago, I was an actor. I did musical theatre, dinner theatre, outdoor theatre, classical theatre. I was beginning to make a career (struggling moocher), when I left it behind completely for reasons I don't fully understand. I've told a lot of people a lot of different reasons why I left, but looking back now, it all boils down to confidence. I didn't have it.

I'm incredibly happy that my wife and I moved to the mountains, completely changing our lives so many years ago. My wife is

Hive account@carrieallen. Follow her. She's awesome. I was living a basically art-free life for years, and comfortably. It felt like retirement, even though I still had to work for a living.

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With Steemit, I noticed early on that the best way to get engagement (besides huge investments) is to participate in contests. I have made some great friends and connections through contests on Steemit, and I've won a good chunk of SBD as well. More importantly, I realized with these contests that people actually wanted to hear from me and support me. This kind of blew my mind. Once I knew that I had the incentivized support of the Steemit community, the creativity started flowing like nobody's business!

I have always had a somewhat manic artistic... thing. As in, When it rains, it pours. That's why I'm writing songs nearly every day now. Today I wrote two, including my entry in the Challenge. The #OpenMic contest has given me confidence, motivation, inspiration. I'm so grateful that it's difficult to express.

I thought about doing a sappy speech before my song, but decided making a separate post might be best. So consider this post my sappy speech. I even wrote a pretty sappy song for the Challenge this week, on the theme of Because We Can. Check out my entry here!

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Why I Love Open Mic and The Songwriter's Challenge

The Songwriter's Challenge is in full swing, four weeks in, and it's pretty much all I think about anymore.

My Musical Story

I thought about doing a sappy speech before my song, but decided making a separate post might be best. So consider this post my sappy speech. I even wrote a pretty sappy song for the Challenge this week, on the theme of Because We Can. Check out my entry here!

I'd like to thank the following judges for working so hard on curating and judging the entries in the #openmicsongwriters Challenge:

@Meno

@Passion-Ground

@Krystle

@Verbal-D

And for hosting both #openmic and #openmicsongwriters:

@Luzcypher

It's truly an honor to be part of this. Thank you.