Hi, everyone! My name is Melissa Coston and I'm very excited about this project. I'm 39 years old, but I've actually been writing music since I was 17. I started playing violin at the age of 5 and I continued my studies until I was 16. During that time, I discovered that I have a passion and gift for writing music. Throughout my life, I've always been very involved in my church choir. I attending performing arts focused schools during both my middle and high schools years. While the focus was on all of the performing arts, I really felt driven and excelled in the musical productions. Even though I've never given up on my dreams, the reality was that I had to do whatever it took to makes ends meet day by day. I've always worked extremely hard and shown great dedication to whatever I put my mind to. However, when my job obligations had been met for the day, I always found myself coming back to my passion for music. In late 2008, as I was working a full-time job to support myself and my son, I also worked on recording my first single "To and From Iraq". After much hard work, I was finally able to post the single to my MySpace page in 2009. Much to my surprise, I was nominated for Female Country Singer Songwriter of the Year by Talk Of NC and Queen City Awards. Even though I wasn't awarded the prize, the honor of just being nominated sparked a greater fire within me to pursue what I feel to be my true calling. It was then that I decided, like so many others, that, in order to pursue my dreams, Nashville was where I needed to be. So I packed up and headed to Music City USA. By 2010, I had produced and recorded my first 6 song EP album. In between everything else going on, I always made the time to take advantage of every opportunity to perform and hone my craft. I can honestly say that singing at Tootsie's Orchid Lounge helped me to really get a feel for the town, the fans and the industry. There's no better way to learn the ropes than by getting in there and really seeing how things are done. Even though I love performing, I've learned that every road leads me back to the truth that my passion truly is the pen to paper creation of music. In my time here, I've been blessed to work with the like of Eddie Weinrick and Ralph Murphy (VP, ASCAP), in addition to numerous other incredibly talented people who've helped me so much in perfecting my craft. Since 2010, I've produced 3 more tracks and I believe that this song is the stand out of the 3. I'm so very excited to have the opportunity to move to the next step and shoot a video that brings the visual reality of my song to life. The lyrics to this song are something that all of us have felt at one time or another. Now I really hope that I can count on you and your generous support to see this project blossom and move on to the next step of making this dream come true.
