Writing has always been of key importance in the artistic life of Linda M. Smith and made up a special part of the process she used to create her recent album.

Linda has been writing songs for about 20 years. However, it has just been in the past 3 or 4 years that she has really begun to take her songwriting seriously. The reason she says, "is that I finally believe my songs are worth listening to. Yes, it took quite a few years to build up confidence in my ability as a songwriter but as I've always known, I'm a late bloomer."

When it comes to writing melodies Linda either uses the piano, guitar or sometimes both. She ussually begins by fooling around with various chord progressions. If something grabs her then she will begin creating a melody around it. She most often writes the chorus first then the verse noting that, "Putting melody and lyric together can either be a joyous experience or a very painstaking process. Either way, I'm thankful to the muses for their help and know I'm a very lucky woman to be able to write and sing my music."

The album itself was written entirely by Linda M. Smith between 1994 and 1997, mainly in her North Chicago home. "I would pour a glass of wine, get the fire going, and do what I did most nights during that period - write music". It was an emotional time in Linda's personal life but it was a very productive time for her song writing. "Isn't that always the way it goes", she states, believing that, "ideas flow and are expressed most easily when the mind is in a state of panic."

As she began looking over the work that emerged from these years and spending more time with those songs she began to see a number of predominant themes that kept arising. "This records lyrics are really about letting go of the past, confronting issues, hope and healing", she says, noting that, "As individually written songs I didn't see the connections but as I grew away from them I saw them as a collection and knew they should be recorded together.