Death Throes

As of last night, my holidays are truly over, since I was back to having children's choir and regular choir practice. I only had seven kids, but they were all insane. It got cold, so instead of having recess at school that day, they watched a movie inside, and that meant they were bouncing off the walls by the time I got them. There was one thing that actually got their attention, and it was the snowman counting song. I don't know what it is about this song, but every group I've had absolutely loves it. Basically, the song is about a line of snowmen, and then with each verse, one melts. I've done it with the kids melting in order or by pointing to kids at random and having them melt until they're all melted. I don't know that we've ever done that one without the kids begging "again!" We did it three times last night, and the meltings got more and more dramatic. We're talking William Shatner-quality emoting. "Light … fading. Darkness … closing … in. Goodbye … cruel … world." There was even one who called out, "I'm not done melting yet," when we went on to the next verse before he was done with his drawn-out death scene.

But hey, it kept them occupied and participating instead of running around and screaming, so I could have kept it up all night. And it was really fun watching their death throes. Not because I wanted them dead, but I liked seeing how creative they were. I suppose I'll need a real lesson plan next week.

Otherwise, I'm singing in an ensemble Sunday morning for the early service and someone wants to put together a flute ensemble for later in the year, so I have to start practicing again. I wonder if the stage fright cure from singing also applies to instruments. I used to be as bad for instruments as I was for singing.

But the priority this week is getting through my last round of proofreading. The challenge there is that I need frequent breaks so I don't zone out, but then that reduces the amount I can get done in a day. So I have to be careful about what I start to do on the breaks so the breaks don't become longer than the work sessions. I do still like the book, which is good. Since I'm mostly looking at the writing itself on this round rather than the story and characters, I'm actually noticing that there is some good writing there. I'm normally more focused on the story when I work, but I guess I do know how to string words together.

In other news, it looks like this summer's steampunk book is now available for pre-order in e-book form, at Amazon, at least, and it's already on all the teen steampunk bestseller lists, including the one that's general books, not just Kindle books. With any luck, that means that when the book is actually available it will do even better.