Sunday Scraps (#10)

Happy 10 scraps!

10 weeks of chatting my little thoughts into Substack! Thank you to those who have been reading weekly and commenting and responding and DMing. Very kind of you to follow along.

Things I’ve learned:

1. It’s nice to have a place to put thoughts into the world. I text less long thoughtful monologues to my friend Chloe now, as she can just read them here.

2. It’s good practice to have something I’m accountable to each week. I think it’s made me more organised, to know that I must AT LEAST write something every Sunday.

3. Two posts per week was two posts too many.

4. People are so supportive and cute!

5. It’s satisfying to have something so instantaneous! Music and writing can take such a very long time to come to fruition. Right now I’m working on the release schedule for an album that won’t be out until 2026 that I started writing in 2023 and finished recording in 2024. That’s just silly.

6. People on here think em dashes are a sign of AI being the authors of posts—but what if I just like them? Stephen—King—loved—an—em—dash.

Work(s) In Progress:

Book 1 edit notes are in from my agent and a test reader! How nice to have some people reading it and giving feedback. I’m glad to have some direction on which parts seemed a bit fluffy. I could no longer tell.

What I’ve Been Overthinking This Week

We are finalising mixes for Album 3 and I really would love people’s thoughts on this. I have long battled with my first name. I like it, but it’s so hard to spell and people pronounce it wrong so much that it makes me kinda crazy. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t expect anyone to pronounce it correctly and I’m impressed when they do, but it’s annoying as well. However, in the world of streaming platforms, and a big enough catalogue of music spread across various distributors—the process is complex.
As it stands I have:

• 1 EP and 2/3 singles released independently through Tunecore (a distribution company that puts your music to online streaming platforms like Spotify)

• 1 EP released through some small label that I don’t have any contact with anymore.

• 1 album and 1 single released through a distribution label who I have a good relationship with still.

• 1 album released through another indie label that I have a good relationship with.

You can’t just notify them all of changing the name from Ailbhe Reddy to A Reddy. You can’t just say, “hey can you delete a few of those letters from my first name and call it a day?”
Because there’s this spooky mystical thing called “metadata” you have to coordinate. I know, even the name sounds awful. Nobody hears the word “metadata” and thinks, “delightfully fun”!
I just want them to delete a few letters! What’s the big deal?
Well, they might delete my artist page that I’ve had for 10 years. They might clear all my streams and lose all my followers. This isn’t just a vanity metric. My 15k followers are notified whenever I release a single. So that’s a little tricky.
Thoughts?
Advice?
Anyone out there who works for Spotify who wants to help me?
Should I live through another album cycle of my name being hard and people assuming it’s just acoustic folk? I DON’T KNOW.

Stuff I’ve Been Staring At/Listening To:

• Overcompensating - If you’re looking for a feel-good watch with a lot of heart. This one is cute. It’s about a golden boy/jock/wholesome hunk who goes to college with a secret. He’s in the closet.
  It’s cute and has a lot of familiar American teen film characters and familiar beats with some unexpected bits along the way too!

Non-Controversial Opinions:

People are 100% getting worse at playing videos out loud on their phones in bars, restaurants, airports, on trains, on buses….
It makes me absolutely crazy. Are people that unaware of others and addicted to their phones that they don’t realise that they are blaring a never-ending loop of Tik Toks? It sounds like a damn fever dream.
I was on the subway the other day and I simply couldn’t glare at all of the people doing it without dislocating my eyeballs.