Hello and welcome to The Coyote’s Tale.

I’m glad you found your way here. I’ve been wanting to start a newsletter for a long time, and I guess I finally decided that the only thing stopping me was myself. So here I am, getting out of my own way, which is something I think most writers have to do on a regular basis.

I’d like to tell you that I’m sitting in my music room, feeling inspired as I write this. I’m not. I’m laying in my bed, half-hunched on my pillow, my laptop propped up on my legs. I should probably be sleeping, and no extra dose of inspiration moved me to write tonight. Instead, I suspect like many would-be, should-be, wannabe, and WILL-BE writers, I just finally listened to that nagging voice telling me I ought to be using my talents, or at least my passions, somewhere.

I suspect that voice is louder for those of us who are teachers of writing or music or art. There’s always something inside me calling me a hypocrite if I stand in front students, asking them to write and speak and share, but I disappear into the chaos of everyday life and pretend that I don’t have time to write.

The truth is, we all have to make time for the things that are important to us, but it seems particularly easy to let “intimidation” keep us away from creating. Creating is vulnerable. Keeping busy with day-to-day life is safe. And that’s why I’ve had a website with an empty newsletter section for years, and I’ve never sent a single letter.

I don’t have any subscribers. It’s possible that not a soul will read this newsletter. Maybe my time and efforts are futile. But it doesn’t matter. Ultimately, what got me writing tonight is that I remembered reading some idealistic russian philosopher talking about living by what we say we value. I realized you can only say that you love something, or want something, or do something so many times before it becomes a lie if you aren’t actually doing it. Maybe no one else knows that I tell myself every day that I’d like for my website to have a newsletter. Or at least, a moment ago, no one else knew (thanks, reader). But I’ve known I was slowly becoming someone who wants to do things, and thinks about doing things, and then never does them, and that’s not who I want to be. So, here I am. Writing a “newsletter.”

Before it starts to feel too much like a journal entry, I ought to tell you why you’re here. Or at least what you can expect from me. I’m not a professional guru. I can’t tell you with certainty what to do about anything in your life. I can’t reveal industry secrets or give you a path to musical or storytelling success. To some degree, I think I’m here simply to bear testimony that music heals and that stories matter and that you don’t have to be a professional anything to engage in music and in storytelling.

As simple as that message is, I DO want you to KNOW it. I want you to feel it in your bones. Music and art, or whatever it is that you do to share the parts of your story and soul that can’t fully be put into words, they’re healing, and they matter. And you matter. And your story matters. That’s why I’m writing, and that’s why you’re here.

Lastly, I can’t talk about things like healing and testimony and souls without talking about God. If you’re here, and you don’t believe in Him, I hope you still find value in what I have to share. At the end of the day, whether you believe in God or not doesn’t change the fact that you have stories to tell and art to share or that you have inherent value as a human being. You have worth and a purpose on this earth. Your art matters. Your story matters. Your healing matters. You matter. And I think you ought to know that, no matter your spiritual beliefs.

So I hope you’ll stick around and be patient with me as I connect all of those beliefs to the God I believe gave us our lives and asked us to take care of each other. I think that God gives us art and music and stories so that we can heal and so that we can connect with each other. I think God gives us each other so that we can grow and become. So I don’t know how to separate art from God.

What can you expect from this “newsletter,” then?

Hopefully encouragement. Inspiration. Reminders to write. Lots of reminders that somebody out there is doing it messy and imperfectly and sometimes frustratedly and often confusedly, and frequently seemingly entirely lost.

I’m probably not going to tell you the secrets about how to make better art. I’m just going to remind you and give you my entirely unauthoritative permission to make it messy, make it imperfectly, and make it now.

I may never teach you how to write a captivating story. I’ll just remind you that your story will captivate the people who need to hear it the most, so you should tell it.

You’re going to hear about why I love a beat-up, cracked up Taylor 412ce guitar more than any other guitar I’ve ever owned or touched.

You’re probably going to hear about my battle with my incompetencies at music recording because I desperately want to release my music, and I’m utterly paralyzed by my own inadequacy, and that just has to stop.

Eventually, you’re going to hear (at least a little) about why I named my newsletter after a mangy, wild, desert dog.

You’re going to hear about why losing my voice (and getting it back) is one of the best things that ever happened to me (and you’re going to hear a lot about God when I tell that story).

And I hope that somewhere along the way (hopefully sooner, rather than later), the world or whatever corner of the world needs you, is going to hear from you, too. Because the truth is, I could write a journal instead of this newsletter. Heck, maybe I should. But a part of me believes that the reason I still have a voice at all is because I’m supposed to use it to help others find and tell their stories.

So, pull up a chair, and make yourself a cup of tea (what? Fall is upon us!). Settle in. Stick around.

It’s music time. It’s storytime.

It’s about time to do that thing you’ve been putting off. And I can’t wait to hear all about it.

Until the blank page calls again,

Kaeli Chae