Low Stakes, Low Stress, Maximum Fun.

Just how easy can I make it for myself? Some ways I've been shifting my writing since becoming a mum.

Back from The Preatures tour (will write some more about this soon when I reckon with my post-tour blues) and I am finally setting up my home studio underneath our little house in SF - a big step and one that brings me finally to the precipice of working on a new Preatures album. All the normal fears are there of course: what if I don’t have anything? What if it’s lame? blahdiblahblah you know the drill.

Before I had my daughter, I thought about writing in terms of chunks of uninterrupted time, and this helped me to carve out space. I would gee myself up with ultimatums like the next few days I’m going underground to write or tonight I’ll stay up until this song is done. I thought about cycles of creation in this way, like waves to be ridden into shore, and then a period of paddling out, pushing against the current, raw-dogging it.

When we moved to San Francisco at the beginning of 2024 and I went into full-time housewife mode, I knew the cadences of uninterrupted time were over. I didn’t even have an instrument with me, so my relationship with writing - my whole persona of being a writer - would have to buck up and adapt to my new circumstances, and not the other way around.

I started experimenting with half-working on songs in tiny bursts: in the clutches of time between things, like on the way back from dropping my daughter off to school, or cooking dinner, or in the shower/bath/onthetoilethaha. The catch was, compiling all these half-ideas felt a lot like not working, like I was pretending to do the thing I should be doing. It felt lazy. But hey, with so much responsibility in my day-to-day, I decided a bit of lazy was what I needed in my life.

And this has been really working. Over a year and a half of approaching songs this way, I have found verses and choruses appear as I do the laundry, or whole verses fall into place as I drive from the dentist to the grocery store. Sometimes it’s just a little game to write a small song as I drive from A to B, or jot down some lines of a conversation I had. I’ve worked this way in the past, the difference being I would often launch into writing the entire song as the image or idea appeared. Nowadays, songs are worked on over much longer periods of time.

Earlier this year I had a cute conversation with my friend Stella Mozgawa, legendary Aus producer and drummer for artists like Courtney Barnett, Warpaint, Cate Le Bon and Kurt Vile. Stella played drums on my first solo single Jealousy and we’ve been chipping away at some new stuff together. She called me on the phone from LA asking “What is happening with your new solo album?” to which I said, fucked if I know.

“I don’t have a label,” I told her. “I don’t have any idea what I want to do, and whatever it is I don’t think I can tour it, or promote it.”

“Great” she said. “I’d like to be involved any way I can.”

After Stella listened to my long list of complaints (CHILD! SCHOOL! LAUNDRY! MEAL PLANS! NO LABEL! MANAGING A BAND! APPROACHING 40!) she said, “It sounds like you have a lot on your plate, and there are legitimate things you have to do. So what if your solo music was just low stakes, low stress, maximum fun?”

I couldn't believe what she was saying was possible but it felt great.

I like to have a plan about the work I’m going to do. The plan will often appear as a distinct image and sound in my head, and once I have that vision of what I want, I put a lot of energy into making it happen. I guess in that sense I prefer having an outline I can colour in. Without a clear plan I can struggle to feel motivated, and often openness can make me feel paralysed, like I’m standing in front of a blank canvas. The idea that my music could or would be anything less than something I would control and devote myself entirely to, seemed kinda cahrazay. Stella was essentially saying I’d love to have a party where we drink wine and throw shit on the canvas and have a great time, and you know what, we’ll probably make something pretty cool. While I wanted to be able to hand out neat colouring-in sheets to everyone with a pre-vetted assignment to which I already knew the answers: This is where I want the blue, this is where I see orange, please see me after for a sticker because you’ve been very good! Of course it will turn out great if you do exactly as I say.

To be honest, the first option has been how I’ve always done it and what’s worked for me (I mean, I guess it has?), so I’m hesitant to relinquish this way of working. But what if I did embrace MAXIMUM FUN? LOW STAKES? (What?!) LOW STRESSSS.

It’s like a little door in my brain popped open at Stella’s suggestion and released my ragged writer-self into a field where cool shit happens. Artists ultimately need to believe that anything is possible. I need to feel and believe I can keep creating, even if it’s not the throne-bearer of my ego. And yes, even if I can’t see a plan for it yet.

Here are a few things I’m up to at the moment in the spirit of LS, LS, MF:

1. I’m listening to Jeff Tweedy’s How To Write One Song a Day audiobook. Such an easy listen and so many good tips that instantly inspired me.

2. I keep my voice memo app close by all the time and record anything: little song ideas as I’m driving/doing drop offs and picks up. I tend to stockpile words and sentences I like that end up in lyrics down the line. And often songs will begin to compound as I go about my day focusing on other things, and I’ll chip away at them. Sometimes the bridge lyrics for a song will suddenly come to me weeks or months after a song idea was started. I also record conversations (which is a bit naughty but whatever you gotta do what you gotta do).

3. I get some magazines and books and just highlight words I like. This takes the pressure off reading which can often feel like one more thing on the to-do list.

4. Love this episode of The Money Trench Podcast, an interview with The 1975 Manager Jamie Oborne about Dirty Hits Independent Record Label in the UK and keeping the spirit of independence alive. I never really got the 1975 but I love the ethos behind their story.

5. I keep asking, how can I make this super easy on myself?

[ABOVE] Me in 2021, in my studio at home in Redfern, Sydney. Pregnant with Mina. I wrote and produced the score for the movie ‘Plan B’ and finished my solo record izzi here within a six month period.

[BELOW] Me today in the bones of my new studio in SF, everything found either on the street or marketplace. Who knows what I’m gonna make here!