At a glance

Who: Ellis Paul

Where: Columbus Performing Arts Center, 549 Franklin Ave.

Contact: 1-866-890-5451, www.sixstring.org

Showtime: 8 p.m. Saturday

Tickets: $25, or $28 at the door; $15 for students; $5 age 17 and younger

Also: Paul will perform a children's show at 2 p.m. Sunday at the Abbey Theater, Dublin Community Recreation Center, 5600 Post Road; tickets: $5

Although the subject matter was enough for 10 albums, he whittled the list of days to the 12 most potent, which he then turned into songs.

After he split off from many formerly stable forces in his life while on break

— his marriage and management company, in particular — producing the record on his own proved a terrifying, if welcome, challenge, according to Paul.

“I think there was some paranoia before about trusting myself to make good decisions,” he said. “But I love this record, and I think it's the best one. It feels more like me and less like the producer’s flavor.”

The independent songwriter is used to laborious, lonely work. Every fall — from childhood to adolescence — Paul bent over rows of potatoes at his grandparents’ farm in Maine. He called it the "hardest job," but that doesn’t mean music-making is an easy gig, either.

Two weeks ago, on his younger daughter’s 12th birthday, he was more than 700 miles from home. In Chicago for several shows at elementary and preschools — he wrote the children’s book “The Hero in You” three years ago that focuses on 13 American heroes — Paul sent her an enormous bouquet with a teddy bear, plus a promise to take her out when he returned on

Monday.

Paul’s two daughters are used to the unusual schedule — weekends on, weekdays off — and his flexibility allows him plenty of time for creative roaming.

While in Chicago, he played during an assembly at a majoritylatino school. He and the students wrote a

song about civil rights activist Cesar Chavez, which he plans to include on his next children’s album.

And when a preschool student there asked him to write a song about a penguin, he complied on the spot. A recording of the tune might very well make it onto an official record someday.

Working for children has both expanded and contracted his artistic liberties in surprising ways, Paul said.

“If I was a painter, I’d have a palette of 30 brushes for my adult stuff, and I’d have all these colors that were off the color wheel,” he said. “With kids’ music, I feel like you’re working with four brushes and eight colors and you’ve got to get to the chorus as quickly as possible ... It doesn’t mean the songs are less artful or important; you’re just using different tools.”