"And that's 15." She said this out loud to herself as she walked away from the tiny stall with a hand-painted recorder and wooden drum. Things that she wouldn't have purchased back home, but only did because the spirit of Belize overtook her, as did the novelty of buying cute handmade instruments from another country. Valerie is an instrument hoarder. Over the years, she has collected two acoustic guitars, two electric guitars, two bass guitars, one keyboard, one autoharp, one mandolin, one harmonica, a flute, a didgeridoo, a ukulele, and of course the aforementioned recorder and drum. But perhaps the most powerful instrument is the one that has remained unmentioned as of yet: her voice that never quits. And I mean literally, because she never stops talking or singing. That mouth is always going for one reason or another. So what do you do with such a hobby and a loud mouth? Well, you write songs, of course! And that's what Valerie does. She wrote her first song at the estimated age of 10, which was a piece of computer paper with lyrics she had typed on the undoubtedly sweet family 90s computer with a series of note names above each syllable, corresponding to the melody she imagined in her head. She ignored that hobby until the age of 15, since that first song was abysmal. At 15 she wasn't much better, but this time she was armed with a guitar, a capo, and some non-complicated chords. She carried a notebook with her, but when that wasn't available, she was satisfied with paper towels, index cards, Post-It notes, offering envelopes (she spent a lot of time at church), or whatever other paper was available, since the ideas were constantly flowing. And now, *cough* years later, with one EP, "Pulled By the Tides" (2012), under her belt and a large library of self-penned songs, she's still going with her second EP, "With an Asterisk," recorded all by herself in her apartment, much to her cats' chagrin.