Music and Songwriting: The Next Chapter and Becoming Serious About Business

By now my dad knew Songwriting was my plan A. Of course I had to go to college, so I told my dad I would major in Marketing with the hopes of marketing for a record label because so many good albums go unnoticed because of horrible marketing. In 2009, I did end up going to school for marketing and in 2011 I ended up interning as a music marketer for the Greater Houston Area for RED Distribution/’Stache Media (a subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment). Anyway, it’s still the summer of 2007 and I’m still kind of in love with that guy. It was fading fast though because of his actions. He came to visit me in Cali that summer and when I saw him I immediately acted like every wrong that he had every done didn’t exist. Of course my time with him for those days transpired loads of songs. The day he got back home, he went right back to f-in up. And not too long after that I found out I was moving. I figured I was moving to Arizona because we had been visiting Phoenix a lot and some of my friends were there and my dad had talked about me possibly going to school with them. It wasn’t too far from L.A. so I didn’t mind at all. But what through me from a loop is when my dad drove straight through Phoenix. He finally said we were going to move back to Dallas. My face read “WTF”. I can’t lie though; I did miss my Dallas friends like crazy. But I was like, did I just leave one of the music capitals for this crap. I was so ready to get into songwriting scene in L.A. now. But when I got back to Dallas and went to my old school’s football game and saw all my old friends and some guys I used to like back in the day, it was so easy for me to finally let go of dude. I had talked to him earlier that day before the game and he was just unbelievable. I had took back the last piece of my heart from him and all I heard was ♪Tears Dry On Their Own♪ by Amy Winehouse and ♪If You’ll Stay In My Past♪ Parts 1-3 by Maria Mena. The only thing on my mind now was making my 16^th year living a productive year. My new school wasn’t bad, I found a job, moved with my mom, and decided that I would copyright all of my songs. This is where I spend a month and countless cartridges of ink and reams of paper. I had to copy 1,100 songs because I was not giving the copyright office the originals. When I mailed them off, I felt so good about myself. I started posting some of my song lyrics on my MySpace. The next step was to get affiliated. After doing some research, I took a liking to BMI. It was easy for me to sign up at 16 because I had already had a trust account with SAG-AFTRA from doing movie work back in California. I was super stoked when BMI accepted everything. Now I just started writing about other people’s experiences. By the end of 2007 I was just living life stress free. If I wasn’t at school, I was at work, if I wasn’t at work, I was on the phone with this guy (who I eventually made my boyfriend in 2008) or my two best friends in Cali, if it wasn’t that then I was playing with my nephew, if I wasn’t playing with my nephew…then I was songwriting. That was my life and I enjoyed the routine. The guy who I had once fallen in love with contacted me every now and then, but I can say that I could tell he was having rough and unstable life at that time but it was not my concern and none of my business. This period had me writing a bunch of hopeful, inspirational songs…weird. 2008 had rolled around and I only was really concerned with nailing down a college because I was on the track to graduating a semester early, which meant that SAT scores, resume and essays had to be on point for me to go straight into college Spring 2009. I went to Prom with the guy who I had been talking to for the longest, and we finally decided to become a couple. I can say that he is the only guy that I would openly write about and then let him read it afterwards. Summer 2008 rolled around and I started preparing for the Texas Summer Music Conference with my older sister because we were modeling in the show. I can say that that conference was the beginning of what is called “Networking”. I met so many people in and behind the music industry. I also learned how many people were trying to break in and how fast someone jobs changes within the industry; everyday someone is hired and fired. I realized that groupies are real and some of them were my associates, which had me at a crossroads. I also realized that I’m smarter than some of those people that were there but since I was 17, they looked at me as a foolish child. It was okay because I proved a few of them wrong with events that took place. Audio Push and I was the only people under 18 there. I took a liking to being one of the youngest around. The conference started the Friday before Labor Day, all the way until Labor Day. I partied, I networked, I modeled, I ate, I laughed, I learned. But that conference was all I needed. The following day that I returned to school, I knew what I had to do. High school was never for me and would never be for me. I needed to hurry up and get to college to get it over with. I had got a taste of “the life”. I knew what I wanted to do and that was it.