A week from today I’ll be off to Pittsburgh for the Nebula weekend with the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. This is more of a professional development/networking conference than a fan convention, but there will be a booksigning that’s open to the public during the event. The signing will be at 8 p.m. on May 19 at the Marriott City Center. Here are the details if you’re in the area and interested.
I did my pre-travel errands today, picking up stuff for the trip and my preparations for the return. I make sure I have a frozen dinner of some sort in the freezer when I’m coming home from a trip so that I can just zap something for dinner instead of having to cook or leave the house again for takeout. I’ll be getting home at dinnertime for this trip, so that’s even more important. Even a frozen pizza would have taken more prep time than I’d have liked.
I tried looking for clothes, at least one new top to wear for this trip, but I had no luck. Usually I find one or two cute things at TJ Maxx, but either ours has gone way downhill, I caught it on a bad day, or the current styles aren’t working for me because there wasn’t a thing that even slightly tempted me. I guess I’ll just stick with what I already have and figure that most of these people won’t have seen the usual suspects.
Tonight is my last activity with this year’s children’s choir. They were very cute if a bit unmanageable when they sang in church on Sunday. Now we’re doing it again for a “sharing program” for family. I just have to run through their song with them and direct them, and then when they go back to their parents I’m done with this group. I’ll have the whole summer off before it starts again in the fall. I will have to restrain my joy when I say my farewells. Actually, even the challenging ones are sweet kids that I’m sure I’ll enjoy even more when I get to see them in passing without having to be responsible for them. I suggested that with these kids, a bottle of wine, vodka, or tequila would be appropriate teacher gifts. I think they thought I was joking. Except when I needed that was while I was working with them, not afterward. Chocolate is also acceptable.
Showing posts with label choir. Show all posts
Showing posts with label choir. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 10, 2017
Thursday, February 18, 2016
Good, Bad, and Blurred Lines
I had an absolutely insane night with the children's choir. I don't know what was in the water, but they were really crazy. We had to go to the sanctuary to practice for singing in church Sunday, and there we had to keep one kid from trying to jump from the chancel to the ground, bypassing the steps. Meanwhile, another kid started undressing himself. Later, we had to put tape on the floor to make kids stand in a spot where everyone could see the poster we're learning the song from. They were all pressing right against the wall, and I was afraid that someone was going to end up suffocated, while nobody could actually see the poster.
I was still feeling so frantic that I felt like I couldn't get a good breath during the adult choir rehearsal, which got interesting because the first few things we sang all had long, sustained phrases, and I could barely get enough air to sing a measure. I also got a surprise solo, so I got to more or less sight read it in front of the choir (though I'd sung through the piece on my own at home). But since I sounded pretty good for that, I think stage fright won't be much of an issue when it comes time to sing the piece, even though the piece is essentially a soprano solo with the choir coming in for one verse. It's a pretty early-American piece that has a bit of a Sacred Harp vibe to it.
Meanwhile, I'm still working on the Rebel Mechanics sequel, and something I'm finding interesting about this series is that there isn't a clear good/evil divide. Yeah, we want the rebels to succeed, and it's bad that people are being oppressed, but the individuals involved in the oppressive regime aren't mustache-twirling villains. One on one, as people, they're decent sorts much of the time. There are not-so-nice people doing questionable things among the "good" guys, and some of the better people are part of what might be thought of as the "bad" faction. I was working on a scene yesterday in which the lines got really blurry, and that got very interesting. I don't know if this is too nuanced for young adult, but I think we could all use a reminder that someone isn't necessarily evil for disagreeing with you, and cruel actions are wrong, even if they're in support of a good cause. Being "right" doesn't give anyone a license to do whatever they want. People can have similar goals but with different ideas about how to get there, and neither side is necessarily wrong or bad.
Of course, that makes it a bit more challenging to write and may be why the book didn't take off like crazy. There wasn't anyone we could all get together in enjoying hating.
I was still feeling so frantic that I felt like I couldn't get a good breath during the adult choir rehearsal, which got interesting because the first few things we sang all had long, sustained phrases, and I could barely get enough air to sing a measure. I also got a surprise solo, so I got to more or less sight read it in front of the choir (though I'd sung through the piece on my own at home). But since I sounded pretty good for that, I think stage fright won't be much of an issue when it comes time to sing the piece, even though the piece is essentially a soprano solo with the choir coming in for one verse. It's a pretty early-American piece that has a bit of a Sacred Harp vibe to it.
Meanwhile, I'm still working on the Rebel Mechanics sequel, and something I'm finding interesting about this series is that there isn't a clear good/evil divide. Yeah, we want the rebels to succeed, and it's bad that people are being oppressed, but the individuals involved in the oppressive regime aren't mustache-twirling villains. One on one, as people, they're decent sorts much of the time. There are not-so-nice people doing questionable things among the "good" guys, and some of the better people are part of what might be thought of as the "bad" faction. I was working on a scene yesterday in which the lines got really blurry, and that got very interesting. I don't know if this is too nuanced for young adult, but I think we could all use a reminder that someone isn't necessarily evil for disagreeing with you, and cruel actions are wrong, even if they're in support of a good cause. Being "right" doesn't give anyone a license to do whatever they want. People can have similar goals but with different ideas about how to get there, and neither side is necessarily wrong or bad.
Of course, that makes it a bit more challenging to write and may be why the book didn't take off like crazy. There wasn't anyone we could all get together in enjoying hating.
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Sidetracked
I got sidetracked from working yesterday (probably caused by con brain holdover) with the thought that I really need to go to New York. Well, maybe not "need," because I don't have any meetings I need to make or specific research I need to do. But I could always stand to visit and refresh my research, and I haven't gone for more than about 24 hours in more than six years. And that thought started me down a rabbit trail of hotel searching. That then continued this morning. But hey, I said I was going to be traveling this year.
In other news … I'm starting to see why they needed me for the chorale doing this Requiem. There isn't actually a second soprano part, but there are first and second tenor parts, and there's a tenor shortage, so in those parts, they're moving altos to first tenor and second sopranos to altos, and most of the strong singers are the second sopranos, which means they needed a strong first soprano. So they have me. But I have a bad habit from being in solid choirs of being more of a follower than a leader. I match what's around me, but you can't do that if the people around you aren't quite right, and I tend to assume that if I'm different from the others, I'm wrong. It doesn't help that this isn't my normal choir, so I hesitate to jump out in front and take charge as a leader, and I don't know enough about these other singers to know whether I can assume that I'm right or wrong. The director was really yelling at our section last night, and I had major high school flashbacks to when a teacher would yell at the class and I'd assume he was talking to me and just about kill myself to try to do better when really I was already doing it right and he was yelling at the others but didn't want to single me out. I'm pretty sure I was mostly right and the others were wrong, but I still felt like I was being constantly criticized.
So I've realized that it's going to be on me, so I need to know it really well and be confident. That may help the others with me.
But all this is really making me appreciate my usual director in my choir. This guy has an … unusual directing style. I now know for sure I won't be trying to join this choir on an ongoing basis.
And there's just one more Monday-night rehearsal, then the following Saturday I'll be spending most of the day on this leading up to the performance, and then I'm done. It is pretty music, but the Faure isn't my favorite Requiem.
Now, though, I need to write so I can justify rewarding myself with a vacation/research trip. I'm also contemplating a short trip back to the state park in Oklahoma as a quasi writing retreat/relaxation between books.
In other news … I'm starting to see why they needed me for the chorale doing this Requiem. There isn't actually a second soprano part, but there are first and second tenor parts, and there's a tenor shortage, so in those parts, they're moving altos to first tenor and second sopranos to altos, and most of the strong singers are the second sopranos, which means they needed a strong first soprano. So they have me. But I have a bad habit from being in solid choirs of being more of a follower than a leader. I match what's around me, but you can't do that if the people around you aren't quite right, and I tend to assume that if I'm different from the others, I'm wrong. It doesn't help that this isn't my normal choir, so I hesitate to jump out in front and take charge as a leader, and I don't know enough about these other singers to know whether I can assume that I'm right or wrong. The director was really yelling at our section last night, and I had major high school flashbacks to when a teacher would yell at the class and I'd assume he was talking to me and just about kill myself to try to do better when really I was already doing it right and he was yelling at the others but didn't want to single me out. I'm pretty sure I was mostly right and the others were wrong, but I still felt like I was being constantly criticized.
So I've realized that it's going to be on me, so I need to know it really well and be confident. That may help the others with me.
But all this is really making me appreciate my usual director in my choir. This guy has an … unusual directing style. I now know for sure I won't be trying to join this choir on an ongoing basis.
And there's just one more Monday-night rehearsal, then the following Saturday I'll be spending most of the day on this leading up to the performance, and then I'm done. It is pretty music, but the Faure isn't my favorite Requiem.
Now, though, I need to write so I can justify rewarding myself with a vacation/research trip. I'm also contemplating a short trip back to the state park in Oklahoma as a quasi writing retreat/relaxation between books.
Monday, January 18, 2016
Talking to Myself
I spent Friday and Saturday at a church music workshop. Friday, I went to sessions about teaching young children, and I think I've found some keys to working with my crazy bunch. The teacher had some great ideas for encouraging reluctant kids to sing, which is the problem I have this year. There are all kinds of little steps you can take to gradually increase their comfort level. One big change I'll have to make is to sing to them rather than with them. I can model the song to them to teach it, but then I need to back out and let them sing it on their on. If I'm singing, they'll just listen to me or they'll think no one will notice if they don't sing, and it then sounds weird to them to sing in church when I'm not singing with them. It's so obvious, but it hadn't occurred to me.
Saturday, I went to sessions on vocal health. They had a speech pathologist who specializes in the voice presenting (from the med school where I used to work), and while a lot of it wasn't new info, I picked up some good warm ups and exercises that will be great for me as a singer, but that I think I can also introduce to the kids as games. I was sitting next to my choir director in these workshops, so we were comparing notes and sharing our findings Sunday morning.
In between, they have reading sessions where everyone sat in the chapel, and they passed out packets of music that we all then sang together. I think the main idea is to help choir directors hear music they might want to use while also getting to see how various guest conductors conduct, but for me, it's exercise in sight reading, and since you don't sit in sections, it forces you to not lean on the other people around you. It can be scary when you can't hear anyone else singing your part (and especially when you're singing soprano, so it's very exposed), and it's a little intimidating for me because most of the people in the room are choir directors and professional singers, while I'm there as someone who volunteers with children's choir. But I think I held my own pretty well.
I love this workshop so much that it's one of the reasons I keep on as a children's choir director.
Now, though, I'm back in writer mode. One thing I learned from the vocal health sessions was that, although overuse is more of a problem for most of their patients, non-use is also an issue, so I need to make a point of talking or singing during the day. My pattern of silence Monday and Tuesday, then lots of singing Wednesday, mostly silence Thursday and Friday, some talking Saturday (depending on my social schedule), and then singing Sunday isn't good for me. I need to do a little each day. Since I start Requiem rehearsals with the community chorus tonight, that will add a little more singing to the mix.
So, maybe I should do more brainstorming out loud. I have a medical recommendation to talk to myself. I suspect that talking to imaginary people is okay. I'll just need different medical help if they answer out loud.
Saturday, I went to sessions on vocal health. They had a speech pathologist who specializes in the voice presenting (from the med school where I used to work), and while a lot of it wasn't new info, I picked up some good warm ups and exercises that will be great for me as a singer, but that I think I can also introduce to the kids as games. I was sitting next to my choir director in these workshops, so we were comparing notes and sharing our findings Sunday morning.
In between, they have reading sessions where everyone sat in the chapel, and they passed out packets of music that we all then sang together. I think the main idea is to help choir directors hear music they might want to use while also getting to see how various guest conductors conduct, but for me, it's exercise in sight reading, and since you don't sit in sections, it forces you to not lean on the other people around you. It can be scary when you can't hear anyone else singing your part (and especially when you're singing soprano, so it's very exposed), and it's a little intimidating for me because most of the people in the room are choir directors and professional singers, while I'm there as someone who volunteers with children's choir. But I think I held my own pretty well.
I love this workshop so much that it's one of the reasons I keep on as a children's choir director.
Now, though, I'm back in writer mode. One thing I learned from the vocal health sessions was that, although overuse is more of a problem for most of their patients, non-use is also an issue, so I need to make a point of talking or singing during the day. My pattern of silence Monday and Tuesday, then lots of singing Wednesday, mostly silence Thursday and Friday, some talking Saturday (depending on my social schedule), and then singing Sunday isn't good for me. I need to do a little each day. Since I start Requiem rehearsals with the community chorus tonight, that will add a little more singing to the mix.
So, maybe I should do more brainstorming out loud. I have a medical recommendation to talk to myself. I suspect that talking to imaginary people is okay. I'll just need different medical help if they answer out loud.
Thursday, January 07, 2016
A Rare Soprano Shortage
I was right that the kids would be a little crazy last night. I did a number of activities, and the moment they got rowdy or out of control with an activity, we stopped the activity, even if they still wanted to do it or were having fun.
It looks like I might get to do another Requiem. The local community chorale is doing the Faure Requiem and has invited members of our choir to participate. I suspect that their invitation mostly translates as "we need more men" (as most choirs do because, for some odd reason, boys tend to be steered away from singing and the arts). It's really, really rare for a choir to desperately need more sopranos.
Except for last night in our chamber chorale, when I was the only soprano present. And we were sight reading our new music for the spring semester. Yes, sight reading as a soloist. Fun. One song even started with just the soprano section. There was a time in my life when that would have terrified me to the point of paralysis and I just wouldn't have sung, but I got through it okay.
Come to think of it, this community chorale has asked for extra sopranos before. I've sat in as a ringer when they needed someone who could handle a really high descant for a piece. It's short-term, just one rehearsal a week, one hour of rehearsing, for a little more than a month, and it would probably be good experience.
Now I'm having one of those "never could get the hang of Thursdays" kind of days. I slept very late without even realizing how late I was sleeping, woke up frowning so hard that I had a tension headache for a while after waking until I relaxed some (and I don't know why I was frowning), and now I feel like I could just go back to sleep and sleep another hour or so. That's not conducive to good writing productivity. The trick is figuring out if I'm just being lazy and need to power through or if I really do need rest. If I really do need the rest, like if I'm fighting off something I'm not even aware of yet, taking the time now can help me be more productive later. But if I'm being lazy, it won't do me much good. I think I'll go grocery shopping and see if being out and about snaps me out of it or if I need a nap to recover.
It looks like I might get to do another Requiem. The local community chorale is doing the Faure Requiem and has invited members of our choir to participate. I suspect that their invitation mostly translates as "we need more men" (as most choirs do because, for some odd reason, boys tend to be steered away from singing and the arts). It's really, really rare for a choir to desperately need more sopranos.
Except for last night in our chamber chorale, when I was the only soprano present. And we were sight reading our new music for the spring semester. Yes, sight reading as a soloist. Fun. One song even started with just the soprano section. There was a time in my life when that would have terrified me to the point of paralysis and I just wouldn't have sung, but I got through it okay.
Come to think of it, this community chorale has asked for extra sopranos before. I've sat in as a ringer when they needed someone who could handle a really high descant for a piece. It's short-term, just one rehearsal a week, one hour of rehearsing, for a little more than a month, and it would probably be good experience.
Now I'm having one of those "never could get the hang of Thursdays" kind of days. I slept very late without even realizing how late I was sleeping, woke up frowning so hard that I had a tension headache for a while after waking until I relaxed some (and I don't know why I was frowning), and now I feel like I could just go back to sleep and sleep another hour or so. That's not conducive to good writing productivity. The trick is figuring out if I'm just being lazy and need to power through or if I really do need rest. If I really do need the rest, like if I'm fighting off something I'm not even aware of yet, taking the time now can help me be more productive later. But if I'm being lazy, it won't do me much good. I think I'll go grocery shopping and see if being out and about snaps me out of it or if I need a nap to recover.
Monday, December 14, 2015
Crazy Weekend
I have survived the worst (best?) of the holiday craziness. I added up that I went to three parties this weekend, baked three batches of cookies, made one batch of fudge, directed one choir, attended one concert, and sang in one concert. Ahead of me, I just have a few get-togethers with friends and a busy Christmas Eve night, but for the most part, it can now be some peaceful preparation for Christmas. I have some stuff to mail, some shopping to do, and the decorating to finish.
I need to get to the post office today, and I want to take a nice, long walk, but otherwise, I'm not going to push myself. I slept very late and am still lounging around in my pajamas. It's utterly blissful after the weekend I had.
My preschool choir was interesting Sunday morning. As I feared, they made almost no sound. They made more noise while twitching during the prayer right before they sang than they did when they were supposed to be singing. At least they did the motions, so maybe they came across like a signing choir. The way I look at it, for the parents, having their children be that quiet was actually a nice treat. They're never that quiet. We had a microphone close call, though, that reminded me of my first Christmas at this church, long before I was a children's choir director. One of the boys in the preschool choir discovered that he was near one of the microphones and that his voice seemed louder, so he started singing louder to hear himself in the monitors. Then he decided to take advantage of the opportunity to make himself heard in other ways, so he started saying his favorite words into the microphone during the song. Being a four-year-old boy, that amounted to blurting "Poop!" into the microphone.
This Sunday, we had a near miss. We had the microphones on stands facing the steps where the kids were singing, but there's also a handheld wireless microphone on the communion rail that they use for the children's time or for other things that require someone not wearing a body mic to speak. One of my kids came down from the steps during the song and picked up this microphone and started trying to talk into it, then got frustrated because it wasn't on and didn't make his voice louder. However, he was near enough one of the microphones aimed at the choir that you could hear him saying, "Why isn't this working?" over the sound of the rest of the kids whispering the song. I have no idea what he would have said if the microphone had worked. This is the kid who's notorious for bursting out with "The Wheels on the Bus" at full voice during the communion prayer a couple of years ago. Who knows, maybe the mic should have been on and then he would have actually sung.
So, anyway, today is a day of recovery and rest, and the only things I have going on this week are ballet Thursday night and Star Wars on Friday.
I need to get to the post office today, and I want to take a nice, long walk, but otherwise, I'm not going to push myself. I slept very late and am still lounging around in my pajamas. It's utterly blissful after the weekend I had.
My preschool choir was interesting Sunday morning. As I feared, they made almost no sound. They made more noise while twitching during the prayer right before they sang than they did when they were supposed to be singing. At least they did the motions, so maybe they came across like a signing choir. The way I look at it, for the parents, having their children be that quiet was actually a nice treat. They're never that quiet. We had a microphone close call, though, that reminded me of my first Christmas at this church, long before I was a children's choir director. One of the boys in the preschool choir discovered that he was near one of the microphones and that his voice seemed louder, so he started singing louder to hear himself in the monitors. Then he decided to take advantage of the opportunity to make himself heard in other ways, so he started saying his favorite words into the microphone during the song. Being a four-year-old boy, that amounted to blurting "Poop!" into the microphone.
This Sunday, we had a near miss. We had the microphones on stands facing the steps where the kids were singing, but there's also a handheld wireless microphone on the communion rail that they use for the children's time or for other things that require someone not wearing a body mic to speak. One of my kids came down from the steps during the song and picked up this microphone and started trying to talk into it, then got frustrated because it wasn't on and didn't make his voice louder. However, he was near enough one of the microphones aimed at the choir that you could hear him saying, "Why isn't this working?" over the sound of the rest of the kids whispering the song. I have no idea what he would have said if the microphone had worked. This is the kid who's notorious for bursting out with "The Wheels on the Bus" at full voice during the communion prayer a couple of years ago. Who knows, maybe the mic should have been on and then he would have actually sung.
So, anyway, today is a day of recovery and rest, and the only things I have going on this week are ballet Thursday night and Star Wars on Friday.
Thursday, November 19, 2015
A Choir Christmas
I got to have both the preschool and kindergarten choirs last night, but oddly, that almost made them easier because the kindergarten is all girls, and getting a better balance of girls and boys (my group is mostly boys) helped. I think some of my boys were on their best behavior to impress the older girls. And now I have two weeks off from them, and only one more session before the end of the year.
Meanwhile, adult choir is in full swing to get ready for Christmas. For our "pops" concert, the chamber ensemble is doing a song I first sang in sixth-grade choir, "The Twelve Days After Christmas." Listening to it now, I'm amazed that a teacher would pick that for sixth graders. I get more of the jokes now. I got chosen to deliver the song's spoken punchline, and I'm not sure what it says about the way they see me that it was pretty unanimously decided that I was the one who had to say it ("Actually, I kept one of the drummers" -- this line was not in the version the sixth-grade choir sang). I'm getting to continue my trend this fall of singing works by my favorite composers, as the big choir is doing a John Williams piece. Alas, it's not "Duel of the Fates" (I so want to sing that) but rather a Christmas song from one of the Home Alone movies. I almost had enough voice to sing last night. I could get a decent sound on the notes from the middle of the staff and up, and I could kind of rasp out the lower notes but didn't make much noise. I have to sing in the chamber group Sunday morning, so I hope I have more voice by then. Even if I don't, I'm an extraneous soprano, so they'll be okay without me making much sound.
I really should do something to promote the new book, but I'm just about out of ideas. I've got to update the web site, and I should be more social on social media, but weirdly enough, when I can't talk, I seem to become less communicative online, as well. So, um, the third Fairy Tale book comes out Tuesday. Buy it. Tell others. Write reviews. Thanks.
Meanwhile, adult choir is in full swing to get ready for Christmas. For our "pops" concert, the chamber ensemble is doing a song I first sang in sixth-grade choir, "The Twelve Days After Christmas." Listening to it now, I'm amazed that a teacher would pick that for sixth graders. I get more of the jokes now. I got chosen to deliver the song's spoken punchline, and I'm not sure what it says about the way they see me that it was pretty unanimously decided that I was the one who had to say it ("Actually, I kept one of the drummers" -- this line was not in the version the sixth-grade choir sang). I'm getting to continue my trend this fall of singing works by my favorite composers, as the big choir is doing a John Williams piece. Alas, it's not "Duel of the Fates" (I so want to sing that) but rather a Christmas song from one of the Home Alone movies. I almost had enough voice to sing last night. I could get a decent sound on the notes from the middle of the staff and up, and I could kind of rasp out the lower notes but didn't make much noise. I have to sing in the chamber group Sunday morning, so I hope I have more voice by then. Even if I don't, I'm an extraneous soprano, so they'll be okay without me making much sound.
I really should do something to promote the new book, but I'm just about out of ideas. I've got to update the web site, and I should be more social on social media, but weirdly enough, when I can't talk, I seem to become less communicative online, as well. So, um, the third Fairy Tale book comes out Tuesday. Buy it. Tell others. Write reviews. Thanks.
Monday, November 02, 2015
Concert, Vacation, and a Road Trip
I survived my busy weekend, and now it's vacation week. I don't leave until Thursday, but there's some getting ready to do. You know, essential stuff like creating road trip playlists and cleaning the house enough that I won't recoil in horror upon my return.
Meanwhile, I need to figure out a bunch of new characters who have suddenly joined the book I'm working on and what role they'll really end up playing.
We did our performance of Requiem last night, and it was wonderful. I don't know how it sounded to the audience, aside from one video someone posted to Facebook of one of the movements, and that sounded better than I imagined, so it must have been good for the audience, but it was really a wonderful experience to sing. I think my solo went well. It's hard to judge, and I'm a raging perfectionist, but I got a lot of compliments from some professional singers and from people I don't even know, so I guess I did okay. The impression I got from the way people phrased the compliments was that they really got the emotion in what I was singing, which was the idea, so I'll be happy with it. I moved people, and that was the point. I felt pretty good about it. So that's one item from the bucket list dealt with. One thing that hadn't even occurred to me was that I would get a special round of applause as a soloist. The director acknowledged the choir, then had the choir sit and the soloists stand. That was cool, but I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do. I could see one of the pros, and she nodded a bit, so I did that.
I'm a little sad that we won't be singing this music anymore. I'll miss it. I got a little teary-eyed in the last movement because I realized it was almost over.
And now it's time to get ready for Christmas music. We're having a retreat to work on that next weekend.
But first, vacation week!
In other news, I did a guest post for the From the Shadows blog, providing a "Paranormal Road Trip" of New York settings from my books. Check it out!
Meanwhile, I need to figure out a bunch of new characters who have suddenly joined the book I'm working on and what role they'll really end up playing.
We did our performance of Requiem last night, and it was wonderful. I don't know how it sounded to the audience, aside from one video someone posted to Facebook of one of the movements, and that sounded better than I imagined, so it must have been good for the audience, but it was really a wonderful experience to sing. I think my solo went well. It's hard to judge, and I'm a raging perfectionist, but I got a lot of compliments from some professional singers and from people I don't even know, so I guess I did okay. The impression I got from the way people phrased the compliments was that they really got the emotion in what I was singing, which was the idea, so I'll be happy with it. I moved people, and that was the point. I felt pretty good about it. So that's one item from the bucket list dealt with. One thing that hadn't even occurred to me was that I would get a special round of applause as a soloist. The director acknowledged the choir, then had the choir sit and the soloists stand. That was cool, but I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do. I could see one of the pros, and she nodded a bit, so I did that.
I'm a little sad that we won't be singing this music anymore. I'll miss it. I got a little teary-eyed in the last movement because I realized it was almost over.
And now it's time to get ready for Christmas music. We're having a retreat to work on that next weekend.
But first, vacation week!
In other news, I did a guest post for the From the Shadows blog, providing a "Paranormal Road Trip" of New York settings from my books. Check it out!
Thursday, September 10, 2015
Back to Preschool
I survived the first night of children's choir, and most of the twitching has even stopped. It looks like I'll have about 10 preschoolers, depending on who shows up. We had a couple of serious separation anxiety/shyness cases whose moms stayed in the room with them and who ended up leaving early because the kids just clung to mom and cried or tried to hide behind mom. What's funny is that both of them had younger siblings who tried to participate with the other kids while the older sibling who was supposed to be in the choir just hid. One was a little girl of maybe 2-3 who raised her hand to be called on and answered questions and did everything the bigger kids were doing. I'd invite her to join us, but I suspect that would just make things awkward for her big brother. The other was a toddler just barely old enough to walk on his own, but boy, did he try to clap and dance along with the music while his big sister hid behind her mom.
I can already tell which one is going to be the biggest challenge. There's one boy who's the first to raise his hand and who has all the answers and learns things quickly, but he also doesn't do well with being at all still or following directions, and his idea of moving with the music is running in circles around the room. So I'll need to come up with extra challenges for him or find ways to make him be the helper so he has a task at all times to keep him too busy to run around in circles.
Otherwise, they seem to be good kids, and they make me feel old because many of them are the younger siblings of kids I've taught before, so I'm getting all those toddlers who used to stand in the doorway and watch wide-eyed as their older siblings came to choir. Then there's the one girl who, when she was a baby, was known for holding her arms out toward me and screaming, "Mama!" when she saw me, even if her mother was right there. And I look nothing like her mother. That got awkward if we were in the parking lot and I was parked near them and her mother was trying to get her in her car seat while she was crying and calling out for "Mama!" while waving at me. It looked like the poor woman was kidnapping my child.
Meanwhile, I've been brain thunderstorming the new book (when it's more than just a brainstorm). I realized that one major event I was building this book around might be better suited to its sequel, and then I realized that the sequel I'd been planning probably hinged on the wrong events and there was a much more dramatic way to do things. So now I feel a little unmoored and have to figure out how to fit in all the other events I came up with. This is the exciting part of the creative process.
I can already tell which one is going to be the biggest challenge. There's one boy who's the first to raise his hand and who has all the answers and learns things quickly, but he also doesn't do well with being at all still or following directions, and his idea of moving with the music is running in circles around the room. So I'll need to come up with extra challenges for him or find ways to make him be the helper so he has a task at all times to keep him too busy to run around in circles.
Otherwise, they seem to be good kids, and they make me feel old because many of them are the younger siblings of kids I've taught before, so I'm getting all those toddlers who used to stand in the doorway and watch wide-eyed as their older siblings came to choir. Then there's the one girl who, when she was a baby, was known for holding her arms out toward me and screaming, "Mama!" when she saw me, even if her mother was right there. And I look nothing like her mother. That got awkward if we were in the parking lot and I was parked near them and her mother was trying to get her in her car seat while she was crying and calling out for "Mama!" while waving at me. It looked like the poor woman was kidnapping my child.
Meanwhile, I've been brain thunderstorming the new book (when it's more than just a brainstorm). I realized that one major event I was building this book around might be better suited to its sequel, and then I realized that the sequel I'd been planning probably hinged on the wrong events and there was a much more dramatic way to do things. So now I feel a little unmoored and have to figure out how to fit in all the other events I came up with. This is the exciting part of the creative process.
Thursday, September 03, 2015
A Catch-up Round-up
I have a title! Book 3 in the Fairy Tale series, now known as A Kind of Magic, will be arriving November 24 (tentatively -- depends on Audible). The cover art is done, so I should soon have a cover to share. The fun thing is that it takes place around the time of the release date. It's not quite full-on Christmassy -- it happens before Thanksgiving, but the production of The Nutcracker starts during the book, and there's already Christmas stuff out.
This may mean that the next book will be a full-on Christmas book, so maybe I'll plan for that release date next year. Assuming I get the book written by then. I need to write another Rebel Mechanics book in the meantime.
I guess that since I had to go straight from getting home from the convention to working on the book, I'm now having my post-convention recovery period. I've been mostly useless the last couple of days, though I did do some FenCon PR work. I got sidetracked into hypothetical vacation planning. That involved going to various travel and tourism sites, searching for what I wanted, then checking the review sites. It seems that what I really wanted doesn't exist. I wanted to do a road trip to the minor mountains in eastern Oklahoma/western Arkansas, and I wanted a hotel like the one I had near Hot Springs last year, where I had a balcony overlooking the lake. My favorite part of the trip was getting up in the morning and drinking tea on the balcony. But it seems that no hotel like that exists in the places where I was looking. I came up with a few alternate possible plans, but then I got a tip from a friend about a place to go that looks like it might fit the bill for a quiet getaway. Now I'll do more research.
In choir news, I did put myself forward for that Requiem solo, and the director came up with an interesting way to deal with it, since there were multiple people wanting it. It's divided into multiple pieces, separated by choir parts, and he's giving the different pieces to different people. I got the middle part that's my favorite part of it, anyway, and I don't have to worry about the really high notes. My writer brain has kicked in, and I already have a narrative for it in my head that suddenly makes the piece make more sense this way. If it's one person doing the solo, it's just the one person offering the prayer at what essentially sounds like a mass funeral (one of the repeated lines translates to "grant them rest eternal"), though since we're doing it for All Souls Day, I suppose it's about all the people who've gone on before us. But with multiple people, I'm picturing a number of people in a cathedral, all praying, and then the spotlight falls on one person offering her prayer, goes back to the crowd, then falls on another person. The different pieces of the solo all have a different tone, so you can imagine them being sung by different characters.
I may get a story out of this.
And in other news, I found this list of inspiring real-life geeks
, and would you believe who's on it? Yeah, I'm listed among people like JK Rowling. Kind of cool.
While I have stuff to do in the next couple of days, I think I'm going to treat the time up to (and including) Labor Day as a quasi-holiday, with the weekend itself being real holiday. Then I'm going to hit the ground running afterward and really try to be diligent and productive. I need to make a conscious effort to do more promotion, and I need to do a better job of staying on top of the writing. I have too many stories in my head that need to be let out. My pastor's sermon series lately has been based on the "first things first" concept -- that illustration where if you fill a jar with water, sand, and pebbles, you can't fit any rocks in, but if you put the big rocks in first, then add pebbles, sand, and water, you can actually fit more in the same jar -- and I've realized I need to do a better job of focusing on my priorities.
This may mean that the next book will be a full-on Christmas book, so maybe I'll plan for that release date next year. Assuming I get the book written by then. I need to write another Rebel Mechanics book in the meantime.
I guess that since I had to go straight from getting home from the convention to working on the book, I'm now having my post-convention recovery period. I've been mostly useless the last couple of days, though I did do some FenCon PR work. I got sidetracked into hypothetical vacation planning. That involved going to various travel and tourism sites, searching for what I wanted, then checking the review sites. It seems that what I really wanted doesn't exist. I wanted to do a road trip to the minor mountains in eastern Oklahoma/western Arkansas, and I wanted a hotel like the one I had near Hot Springs last year, where I had a balcony overlooking the lake. My favorite part of the trip was getting up in the morning and drinking tea on the balcony. But it seems that no hotel like that exists in the places where I was looking. I came up with a few alternate possible plans, but then I got a tip from a friend about a place to go that looks like it might fit the bill for a quiet getaway. Now I'll do more research.
In choir news, I did put myself forward for that Requiem solo, and the director came up with an interesting way to deal with it, since there were multiple people wanting it. It's divided into multiple pieces, separated by choir parts, and he's giving the different pieces to different people. I got the middle part that's my favorite part of it, anyway, and I don't have to worry about the really high notes. My writer brain has kicked in, and I already have a narrative for it in my head that suddenly makes the piece make more sense this way. If it's one person doing the solo, it's just the one person offering the prayer at what essentially sounds like a mass funeral (one of the repeated lines translates to "grant them rest eternal"), though since we're doing it for All Souls Day, I suppose it's about all the people who've gone on before us. But with multiple people, I'm picturing a number of people in a cathedral, all praying, and then the spotlight falls on one person offering her prayer, goes back to the crowd, then falls on another person. The different pieces of the solo all have a different tone, so you can imagine them being sung by different characters.
I may get a story out of this.
And in other news, I found this list of inspiring real-life geeks
, and would you believe who's on it? Yeah, I'm listed among people like JK Rowling. Kind of cool.
While I have stuff to do in the next couple of days, I think I'm going to treat the time up to (and including) Labor Day as a quasi-holiday, with the weekend itself being real holiday. Then I'm going to hit the ground running afterward and really try to be diligent and productive. I need to make a conscious effort to do more promotion, and I need to do a better job of staying on top of the writing. I have too many stories in my head that need to be let out. My pastor's sermon series lately has been based on the "first things first" concept -- that illustration where if you fill a jar with water, sand, and pebbles, you can't fit any rocks in, but if you put the big rocks in first, then add pebbles, sand, and water, you can actually fit more in the same jar -- and I've realized I need to do a better job of focusing on my priorities.
Thursday, August 27, 2015
WorldCon Report
When I went to choir last night, everyone acted like I'd been missing for ages and they talked about having thought about calling me. I missed one rehearsal and one Sunday. I guess it's nice to be missed. I'll more than make up for it this Sunday (though I did go to a church service at WorldCon, so it's not like I really missed a Sunday) because I'll be singing in three services. I'm in a small ensemble singing in the early service, then that ensemble got drafted into singing backup for the praise band at the contemporary service (new experiences are good for me, I guess), and then I'll be singing with the choir at the late service.
The choir director said if we were interested in singing the soprano solo for the "Pie Jesu" in the Rutter Requiem, we should talk to him. I'm pondering it. I suspect he'll end up going with one of the grad students, but if they want that ethereal "boys choir" sound like in the British version, my voice comes closer in the upper range. It goes pretty high, but I've sung a solo in that range before.
So, WorldCon … I'm still too lazy to go downstairs and find my phone to transfer pictures, and I didn't take too many pictures of anything actually at the convention. Most of my photos are of the river and waterfalls. After my last on-the-spot report, I went to the dance lessons and steampunk ball, which were held in a lovely ballroom in a historic hotel (photo on my phone). As usual, there was an extreme lack of men. Seriously, guys, step up. You get bonus points on your man card for being able to lead in ballroom dancing. After two hours of lessons, I was getting pretty tired, and when I was feeling wallflowery for the ball itself, I slipped out about midway through. Good thing, since I could barely walk the next morning. I didn't take a walk then.
I had a panel Friday morning on the Terry Pratchett books for younger readers, and one of the panelists was the editor. I learned a lot about writing for younger readers from hearing what she had to say and what she reported as Terry Pratchett's views on the subject, and now a lot of the editorial notes I got on my YA book make so much more sense. Retroactive apologies to my editor for all my grumbling. I had my kaffeeklatsch that afternoon, and while I didn't have a waiting list, like a lot of authors, I did have a fairly full table, and we had a nice discussion. I did a little hanging out and wandering through the dealers room after that, then headed back to my hotel to discover that we'd suddenly been transported to Mars.
As you've probably heard, there are a lot of wildfires in that region, and that day the winds brought all the smoke into Spokane. It was like being in a dense fog that smelled like a campfire. The sky was hazy and yellow, and you could barely see across the street. They were warning people to stay indoors. So I did. I hit the swimming pool and hot tub for a while, and then they served an awesome chicken and rice soup at the hotel's evening reception, so I didn't bother going out for dinner. I spent the evening going over my critiques for the writers workshop.
Saturday, I was back to walking. I did the "Stroll with the Stars" walk, which was shorter and slower than I would have gone on my own, but I did get to chat with people along the way. Though I must say that going on a suspension bridge with a large group of people isn't recommended if you have bridge issues. The bridge seemed to be swaying alarmingly. I actually attended a couple of panels that morning, and then I had the writers workshop in the afternoon. That was three hours of intense critiquing that made me really think about my own writing and that had me eager to write. But I came out of it at 7 p.m. utterly drained. I'd thought about going out to dinner, but once I got to my hotel to drop things off, I didn't want to go anywhere. The hotel offered sandwiches, etc., in the area where they served breakfast and the evening reception, so I ordered a French dip sandwich, and the waitress took one look at me and asked if I wanted it boxed up to go to my room. She fixed me a tray with my sandwich and some wine, and I ate while watching a Doctor Who marathon on TV, then collapsed early.
Sunday, I had my final panel and ended up being the moderator at the last minute because the moderator didn't show. I sat at the SFWA table for a shift, and after doing a final round for good-byes, I went back to the hotel to start packing. I went for a very early dinner (switching back to Central time) at a restaurant overlooking the falls and had regional rainbow trout. I seem to be making a tradition of a final night dinner by the water. And then I was up early the next morning for the long flight home.
I probably didn't network as much as I should have because I didn't do the party circuit. I was off on time zones and the party hotel was so far away from everything else. I did make some new friends among the Discworld fan group, and the person coordinating that was staying at my hotel, so we ended up having breakfast together. I'm going to try to connect with that group online. I know that a lot of my promo items were taken from the freebie table, so we'll see how that translates to sales. Whether or not the convention did me any good professionally, I had a good time and I feel like I learned some things.
The choir director said if we were interested in singing the soprano solo for the "Pie Jesu" in the Rutter Requiem, we should talk to him. I'm pondering it. I suspect he'll end up going with one of the grad students, but if they want that ethereal "boys choir" sound like in the British version, my voice comes closer in the upper range. It goes pretty high, but I've sung a solo in that range before.
So, WorldCon … I'm still too lazy to go downstairs and find my phone to transfer pictures, and I didn't take too many pictures of anything actually at the convention. Most of my photos are of the river and waterfalls. After my last on-the-spot report, I went to the dance lessons and steampunk ball, which were held in a lovely ballroom in a historic hotel (photo on my phone). As usual, there was an extreme lack of men. Seriously, guys, step up. You get bonus points on your man card for being able to lead in ballroom dancing. After two hours of lessons, I was getting pretty tired, and when I was feeling wallflowery for the ball itself, I slipped out about midway through. Good thing, since I could barely walk the next morning. I didn't take a walk then.
I had a panel Friday morning on the Terry Pratchett books for younger readers, and one of the panelists was the editor. I learned a lot about writing for younger readers from hearing what she had to say and what she reported as Terry Pratchett's views on the subject, and now a lot of the editorial notes I got on my YA book make so much more sense. Retroactive apologies to my editor for all my grumbling. I had my kaffeeklatsch that afternoon, and while I didn't have a waiting list, like a lot of authors, I did have a fairly full table, and we had a nice discussion. I did a little hanging out and wandering through the dealers room after that, then headed back to my hotel to discover that we'd suddenly been transported to Mars.
As you've probably heard, there are a lot of wildfires in that region, and that day the winds brought all the smoke into Spokane. It was like being in a dense fog that smelled like a campfire. The sky was hazy and yellow, and you could barely see across the street. They were warning people to stay indoors. So I did. I hit the swimming pool and hot tub for a while, and then they served an awesome chicken and rice soup at the hotel's evening reception, so I didn't bother going out for dinner. I spent the evening going over my critiques for the writers workshop.
Saturday, I was back to walking. I did the "Stroll with the Stars" walk, which was shorter and slower than I would have gone on my own, but I did get to chat with people along the way. Though I must say that going on a suspension bridge with a large group of people isn't recommended if you have bridge issues. The bridge seemed to be swaying alarmingly. I actually attended a couple of panels that morning, and then I had the writers workshop in the afternoon. That was three hours of intense critiquing that made me really think about my own writing and that had me eager to write. But I came out of it at 7 p.m. utterly drained. I'd thought about going out to dinner, but once I got to my hotel to drop things off, I didn't want to go anywhere. The hotel offered sandwiches, etc., in the area where they served breakfast and the evening reception, so I ordered a French dip sandwich, and the waitress took one look at me and asked if I wanted it boxed up to go to my room. She fixed me a tray with my sandwich and some wine, and I ate while watching a Doctor Who marathon on TV, then collapsed early.
Sunday, I had my final panel and ended up being the moderator at the last minute because the moderator didn't show. I sat at the SFWA table for a shift, and after doing a final round for good-byes, I went back to the hotel to start packing. I went for a very early dinner (switching back to Central time) at a restaurant overlooking the falls and had regional rainbow trout. I seem to be making a tradition of a final night dinner by the water. And then I was up early the next morning for the long flight home.
I probably didn't network as much as I should have because I didn't do the party circuit. I was off on time zones and the party hotel was so far away from everything else. I did make some new friends among the Discworld fan group, and the person coordinating that was staying at my hotel, so we ended up having breakfast together. I'm going to try to connect with that group online. I know that a lot of my promo items were taken from the freebie table, so we'll see how that translates to sales. Whether or not the convention did me any good professionally, I had a good time and I feel like I learned some things.
Thursday, April 30, 2015
I'm Free!!!!
I have survived children's choir for the year! Well, almost. They're singing in church on Sunday, and then there's a sharing program next Wednesday, in which each group will do a song for the parents and other groups. And then there's a pizza party. And then I'll be done. But I don't need a lesson plan for next week, and I won't be in charge of them for anything other than the minute or so that we're singing. I had both kindergarten and preschool last night, and surprisingly, the four-year-olds were easier to manage than my group. They actually listened and paid attention and weren't openly defiant.
You'd think this would get easier each year as I know more of what I'm doing, but each group of kids seems to be more difficult. We're seeing the kids who grew up with iPads and smart phones their whole lives, and it does seem like they have much shorter attention spans and they expect the world to essentially be "On Demand." They have no concept of waiting for something they want to see and do. I think they've also learned that bad behavior leads to rewards, since so many parents will hand over the phone or tablet the moment a kid starts acting up in public, just to keep the kid quiet. So when they want something, they know to act up and be a brat.
Or maybe I'm just getting old. Get off my lawn!
In other news, the upcoming steampunk book got a nice review in Booklist, which bodes well. Wow, only a little more than two months before publication. After waiting so long, it's coming up fast.
Which means I really need to finish the current book. It's a nice day, so the plan is to go do some intense brainstorming elsewhere outdoors. I don't know if I want to go all the way to the river or just to the park across the street, or maybe to the lake on the edge of the neighborhood. Somewhere near water, for sure. And then there will be some quality patio time.
You'd think this would get easier each year as I know more of what I'm doing, but each group of kids seems to be more difficult. We're seeing the kids who grew up with iPads and smart phones their whole lives, and it does seem like they have much shorter attention spans and they expect the world to essentially be "On Demand." They have no concept of waiting for something they want to see and do. I think they've also learned that bad behavior leads to rewards, since so many parents will hand over the phone or tablet the moment a kid starts acting up in public, just to keep the kid quiet. So when they want something, they know to act up and be a brat.
Or maybe I'm just getting old. Get off my lawn!
In other news, the upcoming steampunk book got a nice review in Booklist, which bodes well. Wow, only a little more than two months before publication. After waiting so long, it's coming up fast.
Which means I really need to finish the current book. It's a nice day, so the plan is to go do some intense brainstorming elsewhere outdoors. I don't know if I want to go all the way to the river or just to the park across the street, or maybe to the lake on the edge of the neighborhood. Somewhere near water, for sure. And then there will be some quality patio time.
Thursday, April 16, 2015
Caution: Choir Geekery
I made it through both children's choir and regular choir rehearsal last night, so I think I'm going to declare myself more or less well. I guess that means I now have to clean my house. It seems to have fallen into squalor while I was lying on the sofa with a tissue box.
And I need to get back to writing. I have that scene I need to fix before I can move forward.
Right now, I'm listening to John Rutter being interviewed on the radio. This weekend, he's conducting a world premiere of a new piece in Dallas, and our church choir is taking a field trip. He's one of my favorite composers, and definitely my favorite choral composer. This piece was commissioned by a local church choir, and I think if I'd known about this, I might have switched choirs for a while to sing with them for this. They're also doing his Requiem in this concert, and I love that Requiem. We sang that in a choir I was in about twenty years ago, and I still use the "Pie Jesu" from that piece as a way of working on my upper register.
But I'm not quite back to full strength for singing, as I'm finding singing along with the pieces they're playing in between bits of the interview a little challenging.
I now really want to listen to the entire Requiem, but it's hard to listen to that sort of thing while writing because I want to sing along.
And I need to get back to writing. I have that scene I need to fix before I can move forward.
Right now, I'm listening to John Rutter being interviewed on the radio. This weekend, he's conducting a world premiere of a new piece in Dallas, and our church choir is taking a field trip. He's one of my favorite composers, and definitely my favorite choral composer. This piece was commissioned by a local church choir, and I think if I'd known about this, I might have switched choirs for a while to sing with them for this. They're also doing his Requiem in this concert, and I love that Requiem. We sang that in a choir I was in about twenty years ago, and I still use the "Pie Jesu" from that piece as a way of working on my upper register.
But I'm not quite back to full strength for singing, as I'm finding singing along with the pieces they're playing in between bits of the interview a little challenging.
I now really want to listen to the entire Requiem, but it's hard to listen to that sort of thing while writing because I want to sing along.
Thursday, March 26, 2015
Torturing Small Children
I went through on my threat to make the kids sit in chairs at choir last night, and it sort of worked. There was less running around and hitting, though there were still a lot of behavior issues. The kids actually seemed to like sitting in the chairs. But there were still enough problems that stickers were withheld (to a kindergartener, that's practically capital punishment). There was the kid who was flailing around so much when we were rehearsing in the sanctuary that he hit another kid. There was the one who refused to sing and then sang the word "poop" over and over to the tune of the song. There was the kid who picked a giant scab off her elbow to make it bleed so she could get a Band-Aid. Apparently, little kids really, really like Band-Aids, so if there was no "you only get a bandage if it's bleeding" rule, they would basically all be mummies, wrapped entirely in bandages for all kinds of imagined owies. But then that leads to minor self-mutilation among the more devoted bandage fans who don't fear a little blood and pain in pursuit of the precious Band-Aid. Even one of our usually good kids got sent into the hall for a time out (I'm not sure what he did, but his mom is the other teacher, and she was the one who made him take a break). And when when we tried to do a circle game, it had to be cancelled when they were unable to form a circle. Our little diva inserted herself in the middle, refusing to be part of the circle itself, and then two other kids refused to join the circle because they couldn't hold one of the youth helper's hands (other kids were already there). That was when they were told that they could go sit on the chairs until their parents came (five minutes before the end of class) and there would be no stickers. There were a couple of kids actually behaving well, and I hated to essentially punish them, too, but I know from personal experience that it can be bad to single kids out for doing well, and maybe there will be some positive peer pressure if the kids are the ones telling the misbehavers to knock it off instead of giggling at their antics. They're singing in church Sunday morning, and I have no idea how that's going to go. They're usually pretty good when their parents are watching. And then I get a week off, and only four weeks after that. Not that I'm counting.
I'm totally counting.
Until then, I may have to give up on much writing productivity on Wednesdays. There's lesson planning and then practicing my own music, and then there's the dread looming over me all day. I'm hoping to get back on track today because I came up with what will happen in the next scene, and it should be delicious torture for poor Sophie, who will be forced to hold her tongue and play nice. My ability to write subtext will be stretched to the max because it should be one of those scenes where the surface conversation is relatively pleasant, while everything beneath it is along the lines of "DIE, BITCH."
And I have a whole day in which I don't have to leave the house and have zero obligations. Let's see how much I can get done. I'm about a third of the way through the book now, maybe a little more, depending on how long it ends up being.
I'm totally counting.
Until then, I may have to give up on much writing productivity on Wednesdays. There's lesson planning and then practicing my own music, and then there's the dread looming over me all day. I'm hoping to get back on track today because I came up with what will happen in the next scene, and it should be delicious torture for poor Sophie, who will be forced to hold her tongue and play nice. My ability to write subtext will be stretched to the max because it should be one of those scenes where the surface conversation is relatively pleasant, while everything beneath it is along the lines of "DIE, BITCH."
And I have a whole day in which I don't have to leave the house and have zero obligations. Let's see how much I can get done. I'm about a third of the way through the book now, maybe a little more, depending on how long it ends up being.
Thursday, March 19, 2015
Just a Spoon Full of Arsenic ...
Yep, yesterday was pretty much a lost day. My thinker was broken, so no real writing happened. I did work on music and did some lesson planning. But after choir rehearsal I just went home instead of going to the musical rehearsal. I was losing my voice and there was less than an hour left, so I figured it was better to rest and be ready for dress rehearsal tonight. I had nothing left after dealing with the kindergarteners, who were being little pills. One or two were being little sociopaths. Our teen helper had knee surgery last month. She's back to walking, but she's not at full strength, and these little demons were slamming into her legs and trying to pull her down to the ground. She asked them not to do that. It didn't deter them. I stepped in and explained that she just had surgery and they were hurting her, that it wasn't fun and this wasn't playing. A couple of them went right back to doing it. I then declared that all people in the room were lava, so no one could touch anyone else. That sort of helped, but then there were those going around and deliberately touching others so they could burn them. And there was the usual running around and screaming instead of listening. I think I'm going to be horribly cruel next week and line up chairs and make them sit, like in a regular choir rehearsal. That's what they'll get next year, anyway. If they're good, they may be allowed to use those chairs for musical chairs at the end of class, but otherwise, we may sit, since we have a song we'll need to sing in church the following Sunday. I just have six more sessions. We'll see if I survive.
Or if they survive. I'm re-reading Hogfather now because that's a "Susan as governess" book, with a fair amount of spoofing Mary Poppins, and I figure that's appropriate reading for backstage during Mary Poppins. I'm also getting ideas for dealing with kids, but I don't think I can get away with threatening to tie their elbows together behind their ears. These kids wouldn't even listen long enough to realize I was threatening them, and if they did, it would just give them ideas for what to do to each other. Incidentally, today is Terry Pratchett's birthday, according to my Facebook notifications. I think I have sent birthday greetings in the past, but it seems a little weird to do so now.
Today I hope to get back to writing, since I have an idea for something that should have happened in the last scene I wrote. And I need to figure out how this new thing I've figured out affects the overall plot. Then I will have my final rehearsal (yay!). I'm also going to run my errands today so I don't have to leave the house at all tomorrow.
Or if they survive. I'm re-reading Hogfather now because that's a "Susan as governess" book, with a fair amount of spoofing Mary Poppins, and I figure that's appropriate reading for backstage during Mary Poppins. I'm also getting ideas for dealing with kids, but I don't think I can get away with threatening to tie their elbows together behind their ears. These kids wouldn't even listen long enough to realize I was threatening them, and if they did, it would just give them ideas for what to do to each other. Incidentally, today is Terry Pratchett's birthday, according to my Facebook notifications. I think I have sent birthday greetings in the past, but it seems a little weird to do so now.
Today I hope to get back to writing, since I have an idea for something that should have happened in the last scene I wrote. And I need to figure out how this new thing I've figured out affects the overall plot. Then I will have my final rehearsal (yay!). I'm also going to run my errands today so I don't have to leave the house at all tomorrow.
Monday, January 19, 2015
Art Immersion
And we have yet another weekend I need a weekend to recover from. I could claim today as a holiday, since it technically is one, but I took Thursday off already and I have a lot to catch up on.
Thursday I did actually make it to the art museum. I don't know if it was just that it was a big exhibit or if it was that it was the last two weeks of the exhibit, but the museum was really crowded. I didn't spend all that much time in the big exhibit, just enough to revel in being that close to works by Degas, Monet and Renoir. Then I scooted over to the permanent collection in the museum's original building, which was a lot more peaceful, and I got to spend a lot of time up close with the works, including a small painting that may have been Michelangelo's first painting, from when he was around 12 or 13. That was rather mindblowing to contemplate. The big exhibit was on Impressionism, and while I went for the Degas dancers (they only had one of those), I ended up spending more time contemplating the clothing in the paintings with my steampunk work in mind.
Then it was two days of workshops for church music leaders. I spent Friday in sessions aimed at working with preschoolers. We had a smallish group, so there was a lot of discussion, with ideas being exchanged. When I got to our room early for one of the afternoon sessions, I chatted some with the workshop speaker, and she said I should be doing this full-time because I clearly understood children. Just the thought of spending more than 45 minutes a week with a room full of small children gave me a panic attack -- probably because I do understand them. Saturday I went to two sessions with a children's choir director -- the more serious musical kind, not the play around with small children kind. She'd worked in schools, in churches and in an auditioned city choir. I probably learned more about singing than about directing a choir from those sessions because my kids aren't quite yet at that level, but I did get some ideas. For the last session, I went to one just for my own interest on building a choir. I got some great feedback on tone, etc. (it was a small audience, I was sitting in front, and the speaker ended up mostly directing everything at me), but also got some ideas for things I could do with the kids. Then he did this really interesting exercise on arranging singers in a choir, which I had to be one of the demonstration examples for. He had a group of us line up, then sing in groups of three, and then he'd rearrange us and try with another group of three until he had us arranged in the best way. The result was almost magical. It was eerie the difference it made, both in the sound and in the way it felt. My choir director was also in this workshop, so I have a feeling I know what's coming Wednesday night. There may be a revolt because most people sit next to their friends. I'll be curious to see how this works. I tend to try to sit next to the people who feel right when we sing, regardless of social considerations, so we'll see if I've been choosing correctly.
In between those workshop sessions, they had "reading" sessions in which they passed out packets of music chosen by the various clinicians, who then led all the attendees in singing them. I think the idea was to expose choir directors to different pieces of music that they might then purchase for their choirs (I was sitting near my choir director, and he kept marking or folding down pages -- I made sure to let him know when I liked something). I found it valuable practice in sight reading and forcing myself to be more confident. I felt a bit out of my league surrounded by people who do this for a living and who have degrees in music, when I'm a volunteer with little "formal" musical training, just school band, church choir and a few community college music classes here and there. It was also weird not sitting by section, so I wasn't necessarily bolstered by other people singing the same part. I did get to sing first soprano, for a change, since I figured that parts weren't being assigned and I wasn't obligated to sing second. I got to bust out a high B-flat at the end of the last song, and some of the people sitting in front of me turned to give me thumbs up, and a few people approached me later to comment on me being the one with the B-flat. I got to act modest and say that in my choir I'm a second soprano. I was sitting next to my choir director, but I don't know if he caught the joke and the implication of what that said about our choir.
Then Sunday was a gorgeous day, so I went for a nice, long walk in the woods.
Now I have to catch up on housework (my kitchen got very messy) and regular work and get back in the swing of things.
Thursday I did actually make it to the art museum. I don't know if it was just that it was a big exhibit or if it was that it was the last two weeks of the exhibit, but the museum was really crowded. I didn't spend all that much time in the big exhibit, just enough to revel in being that close to works by Degas, Monet and Renoir. Then I scooted over to the permanent collection in the museum's original building, which was a lot more peaceful, and I got to spend a lot of time up close with the works, including a small painting that may have been Michelangelo's first painting, from when he was around 12 or 13. That was rather mindblowing to contemplate. The big exhibit was on Impressionism, and while I went for the Degas dancers (they only had one of those), I ended up spending more time contemplating the clothing in the paintings with my steampunk work in mind.
Then it was two days of workshops for church music leaders. I spent Friday in sessions aimed at working with preschoolers. We had a smallish group, so there was a lot of discussion, with ideas being exchanged. When I got to our room early for one of the afternoon sessions, I chatted some with the workshop speaker, and she said I should be doing this full-time because I clearly understood children. Just the thought of spending more than 45 minutes a week with a room full of small children gave me a panic attack -- probably because I do understand them. Saturday I went to two sessions with a children's choir director -- the more serious musical kind, not the play around with small children kind. She'd worked in schools, in churches and in an auditioned city choir. I probably learned more about singing than about directing a choir from those sessions because my kids aren't quite yet at that level, but I did get some ideas. For the last session, I went to one just for my own interest on building a choir. I got some great feedback on tone, etc. (it was a small audience, I was sitting in front, and the speaker ended up mostly directing everything at me), but also got some ideas for things I could do with the kids. Then he did this really interesting exercise on arranging singers in a choir, which I had to be one of the demonstration examples for. He had a group of us line up, then sing in groups of three, and then he'd rearrange us and try with another group of three until he had us arranged in the best way. The result was almost magical. It was eerie the difference it made, both in the sound and in the way it felt. My choir director was also in this workshop, so I have a feeling I know what's coming Wednesday night. There may be a revolt because most people sit next to their friends. I'll be curious to see how this works. I tend to try to sit next to the people who feel right when we sing, regardless of social considerations, so we'll see if I've been choosing correctly.
In between those workshop sessions, they had "reading" sessions in which they passed out packets of music chosen by the various clinicians, who then led all the attendees in singing them. I think the idea was to expose choir directors to different pieces of music that they might then purchase for their choirs (I was sitting near my choir director, and he kept marking or folding down pages -- I made sure to let him know when I liked something). I found it valuable practice in sight reading and forcing myself to be more confident. I felt a bit out of my league surrounded by people who do this for a living and who have degrees in music, when I'm a volunteer with little "formal" musical training, just school band, church choir and a few community college music classes here and there. It was also weird not sitting by section, so I wasn't necessarily bolstered by other people singing the same part. I did get to sing first soprano, for a change, since I figured that parts weren't being assigned and I wasn't obligated to sing second. I got to bust out a high B-flat at the end of the last song, and some of the people sitting in front of me turned to give me thumbs up, and a few people approached me later to comment on me being the one with the B-flat. I got to act modest and say that in my choir I'm a second soprano. I was sitting next to my choir director, but I don't know if he caught the joke and the implication of what that said about our choir.
Then Sunday was a gorgeous day, so I went for a nice, long walk in the woods.
Now I have to catch up on housework (my kitchen got very messy) and regular work and get back in the swing of things.
Thursday, January 08, 2015
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.
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.
Thursday, December 11, 2014
Caroling, Caroling
I survived my last children's choir session of the year last night, and it was a challenge because one of the preschool teachers is out of town, so since we're singing together Sunday we decided to just combine the two groups. I never had them still long enough to count them and each class took their own roll, so I'm not sure how many there were, but most of my kids were there, so we may have had more than twenty, ranging in age from three to six. We had three teachers, three teen helpers (though all of them were sixth graders, so rather young), and two parents hung around because their children were being clingy (I think one of the preschool kids whose dad stayed is special needs and he always stays). In the 45 minutes we had them, we needed to remind them of the song we're singing in church Sunday that they haven't practiced since before Thanksgiving, then rehearse in the sanctuary with the pianist. And then they went stark raving insane. There's Christmas excitement, there's the fun of that many kids in the room, and a number of them had younger siblings in the other group, so when the siblings were together they went crazy. My plan was to do a Christmas carol singalong, but after we tried a couple of songs without getting much attention from the kids running in circles, my co-teacher suggested we go caroling.
So we headed out to the fellowship hall to sing for the people getting dinner ready (and a few of the parents who sit out there while their kids are in choir -- a lot of phones came out to record them). We sang for a couple of Bible studies. The kids suggested singing for the babies in the nursery, so we went there, too. But I think they mostly wanted to play with the toys in the nursery. Some of the toddlers just went about their business of playing and didn't pay us much attention, except for the one with an older sister in our group, who gave off the "don't cramp my style, sis" vibes. There was one infant who just stared at us with wide eyes and a hilarious "who are these people and what are they doing?" expression. Then I had to confiscate nursery toys from my kids as we left. We got back to the room just in time to pass out candy canes and hand them over to their parents. I think I got bonus points from a parent for telling a kid who asked if she could eat the candy now that she needed to talk to her mom first and let her mom tell her when she could have it (the mom mouthed a "thank you"). The kids were surprisingly in tune. I started them off on each song, then backed off and sort of whisper sang so they'd be the ones heard, and they sounded pretty good.
And then I went to dinner and collapsed before having to go to my own choir rehearsal (there was some wine when I got home). Next week I just have to go to choir rehearsal, and then the following week it will be Christmas Eve. Yikes! Where did this year go? I do have my Christmas stuff up, but I still have shopping to do and some baking to do. I should know by now that starting a book at this time of year is not the smartest idea ever. I should let myself slow down a bit and enjoy the season. But first I have to get through this crazy weekend -- possible morning hike, mid-day get-together with friends, and evening party on Saturday, children's choir in the early service Sunday, my choir in the late service, then Christmas concert that evening, with "dress rehearsal" beforehand (since the choir hasn't practiced with the orchestra) and the choir's Christmas party between rehearsal and concert while the other groups in the concert do their rehearsals and sound checks. For some odd reason, the sopranos always get assigned the appetizers. Cookies, I could have handled easily because I'm already baking. I think I'll just pick up a cheese ball and some crackers at the grocery store. Or does being a second soprano mean I'm almost an alto, so I can get away with bringing dessert?
So we headed out to the fellowship hall to sing for the people getting dinner ready (and a few of the parents who sit out there while their kids are in choir -- a lot of phones came out to record them). We sang for a couple of Bible studies. The kids suggested singing for the babies in the nursery, so we went there, too. But I think they mostly wanted to play with the toys in the nursery. Some of the toddlers just went about their business of playing and didn't pay us much attention, except for the one with an older sister in our group, who gave off the "don't cramp my style, sis" vibes. There was one infant who just stared at us with wide eyes and a hilarious "who are these people and what are they doing?" expression. Then I had to confiscate nursery toys from my kids as we left. We got back to the room just in time to pass out candy canes and hand them over to their parents. I think I got bonus points from a parent for telling a kid who asked if she could eat the candy now that she needed to talk to her mom first and let her mom tell her when she could have it (the mom mouthed a "thank you"). The kids were surprisingly in tune. I started them off on each song, then backed off and sort of whisper sang so they'd be the ones heard, and they sounded pretty good.
And then I went to dinner and collapsed before having to go to my own choir rehearsal (there was some wine when I got home). Next week I just have to go to choir rehearsal, and then the following week it will be Christmas Eve. Yikes! Where did this year go? I do have my Christmas stuff up, but I still have shopping to do and some baking to do. I should know by now that starting a book at this time of year is not the smartest idea ever. I should let myself slow down a bit and enjoy the season. But first I have to get through this crazy weekend -- possible morning hike, mid-day get-together with friends, and evening party on Saturday, children's choir in the early service Sunday, my choir in the late service, then Christmas concert that evening, with "dress rehearsal" beforehand (since the choir hasn't practiced with the orchestra) and the choir's Christmas party between rehearsal and concert while the other groups in the concert do their rehearsals and sound checks. For some odd reason, the sopranos always get assigned the appetizers. Cookies, I could have handled easily because I'm already baking. I think I'll just pick up a cheese ball and some crackers at the grocery store. Or does being a second soprano mean I'm almost an alto, so I can get away with bringing dessert?
Monday, August 11, 2014
Music Week
It's music and art camp week, so I'm out in the mornings Monday through Thursday. I have kindergarten this year, so I'm getting a sneak preview of the kids I may have in choir this year. I already knew most of the kids in the group, and then I also have my ballet teacher's son, which makes me feel old because she was pregnant with him when I first started taking ballet classes. I really could use a nap, but I have a busy day ahead of me, with a lot of business stuff to deal with, a book to finish revising, and then a choir rehearsal tonight. And then I'm singing a duet Sunday morning, so I have music to learn and practice. I actually know the song and have sung it before in the choral version (we're doing the soprano/alto version that was probably written for a boys choir, which is just about identical in the soprano line), and that may actually be the problem. It's an earworm of a piece, and even though it's been years since I last sang it, it pops into my head from time to time, but over the years of not having heard it or seen the music, the version that pops into my head and that I find myself singing around the house has mutated. Now I find myself having to re-learn the real music and force the mutation out of my head.
My Friday-night birthday surprise turned out to be seeing the Dallas Theater Center's production of Les Miserables, which is apparently making news around the world because it's the first non-traditional staging of the musical. They haven't changed the text at all, but instead of it being set in the actual historical period, they've put it in a very near-future dystopia. So the clothes are mostly modern. The soldiers are wearing police riot gear. The student revolutionaries are hanging out in a coffee shop, with paper cups with those cardboard sleeves and plastic lids, and there's a laptop on the table. It actually works pretty well. It's also a very intimate staging, in a fairly small space with a thrust stage, so the stage is mostly surrounded by audience. We were on the second row, and it was amazing to see this show in a setting where you're making eye contact with the actors. They even interact with the audience. The revolutionaries go into the audience to pass out leaflets during the "Do You Hear the People Sing?" number, and some of the people on the front row got propositioned during the "Lovely Ladies" number (and in this version, not all the "lovely ladies" were actually female). It definitely worked to make me notice the show in a new way even though I have it memorized. It's a good thing I was dragged out of the house to go because it would have been a shame for someone who's as big a fan of the show as I am to not have seen this one rather avant garde production of it.
Now off to take care of a bunch of stuff.
My Friday-night birthday surprise turned out to be seeing the Dallas Theater Center's production of Les Miserables, which is apparently making news around the world because it's the first non-traditional staging of the musical. They haven't changed the text at all, but instead of it being set in the actual historical period, they've put it in a very near-future dystopia. So the clothes are mostly modern. The soldiers are wearing police riot gear. The student revolutionaries are hanging out in a coffee shop, with paper cups with those cardboard sleeves and plastic lids, and there's a laptop on the table. It actually works pretty well. It's also a very intimate staging, in a fairly small space with a thrust stage, so the stage is mostly surrounded by audience. We were on the second row, and it was amazing to see this show in a setting where you're making eye contact with the actors. They even interact with the audience. The revolutionaries go into the audience to pass out leaflets during the "Do You Hear the People Sing?" number, and some of the people on the front row got propositioned during the "Lovely Ladies" number (and in this version, not all the "lovely ladies" were actually female). It definitely worked to make me notice the show in a new way even though I have it memorized. It's a good thing I was dragged out of the house to go because it would have been a shame for someone who's as big a fan of the show as I am to not have seen this one rather avant garde production of it.
Now off to take care of a bunch of stuff.
Friday, June 06, 2014
Confronting Dislikes
Jam was achieved. All the jars sealed properly, so now I'm set for at least the summer. I may do another batch at the end of the summer when they put the last of the season's strawberries on sale, depending on how much I use during the summer. Normally, the jam is for getting me through the winter, since that's when I'm more likely to bake stuff like scones and homemade bread. But I discovered last night that since this is a rather soft jam, not a firm jelly, it makes an excellent ice cream topping, so I may go through more of it during the summer than I usually do.
I did not, however, get to the end of the story, mostly because the end moved on me, thanks to the insight I had while writing yesterday's post. I'd been worried I was setting myself up for a Return of the King type ending -- the big, climactic battle, and then an hour of resolution as we tie up each character's individual story and say our good-byes. Though in this case, it was big, climactic reveal->big, climactic rescue->big, climactic battle->sad farewell->resolving one character's personal story->some happy farewells. I had written up to the big, climactic battle and thought all I had left were the personal resolutions and farewells. Now, though, it goes more like big, climactic battle->resolving one character's personal story, which leads to gaining an additional ally->final confrontation with the villain->farewells. I spent most of yesterday figuring this out and rewriting the big, climactic battle so that it was actually more of a battle than a "y'all stop that." I still have some work to do on that. And then I have the final third or so of the book to write. I may still have to flesh things out a bit -- in re-reading the previous few scenes so I could figure out my next moves, I added more than 500 words just to clarify the action.
I will be commemorating D-Day tonight by watching stuff blow up (the weekly fireworks show at the lake). I discovered recently that I now have the American Heroes Channel (I think it used to be the Military Channel), and they're carrying all the WWII programming the History Channel used to have when it was actually about history, so I've spent way too much time this week watching D-Day-related programs. This is making me realize that it's been 20 years since I had knee surgery. I had the surgery in late April, but in early June I was still on crutches and still doing physical therapy, and I remember watching hours and hours of 50th anniversary commemorative programming while doing my home exercises or lying collapsed on the couch because just getting through the day was still rather exhausting. The scope of D-Day and the enormity of what those men did boggles the mind.
Then Saturday will be a working day, and I have an early Sunday because I'm singing in a quartet for the early service. I teased the choir director that he was trying to torture me because he knows how much I loathe this particular song. Really, it's the style of music I'm not fond of. It's a pop-style praise song in a choral arrangement, and that just doesn't work well (trying to get 50 people to sing together in random, irregular rhythms and patterns never works unless they're highly trained professionals). I figure that I'm allowed to have one kind of music I'm really not crazy about singing. I get ecstatic about early music. I'll sing Baroque and classical. I actually kind of like the modern tone-poem stuff. I'll sing opera and Broadway, old-timey Southern gospel and rocking African-American soul gospel. I'll sing in Latin, Spanish and French without complaining. I've even tackled a bit of Hebrew (probably badly) and could deal with German. I'll do Sacred Harp a capella stuff. There's very little they can dish out at me that will make me groan and roll my eyes. In fact, there's many a time when I'm the only person in the choir grinning about a piece of music. So I'm allowed to have one kind of thing that I really don't like. I guess it's good for my soul to have to confront my dislike and still do my best. What's funny is that the alto assigned to the quartet also doesn't like it. When the other people in the choir were saying it was just like you hear on the radio, we were the ones saying we don't listen to that kind of stuff on the radio. We listen to the classical station (and for me, also the big band station).
Ooh, I just found out what my first quarterly payment for the Enchanted Inc. series audiobooks will be, and I should have bought some champagne while I was at the grocery store this morning. It's far more than I expected, and far above what they were offering as a flat up-front payment for ten years vs. a smaller advance and royalties. I'm very glad I took the smaller advance and royalties.
Though the champagne may have to wait because I need to write and I have that early Sunday. I may have a nice me party when I finish the book, though. And I may finally buy that new dishwasher -- a purchase I've been putting off for four years now.
I did not, however, get to the end of the story, mostly because the end moved on me, thanks to the insight I had while writing yesterday's post. I'd been worried I was setting myself up for a Return of the King type ending -- the big, climactic battle, and then an hour of resolution as we tie up each character's individual story and say our good-byes. Though in this case, it was big, climactic reveal->big, climactic rescue->big, climactic battle->sad farewell->resolving one character's personal story->some happy farewells. I had written up to the big, climactic battle and thought all I had left were the personal resolutions and farewells. Now, though, it goes more like big, climactic battle->resolving one character's personal story, which leads to gaining an additional ally->final confrontation with the villain->farewells. I spent most of yesterday figuring this out and rewriting the big, climactic battle so that it was actually more of a battle than a "y'all stop that." I still have some work to do on that. And then I have the final third or so of the book to write. I may still have to flesh things out a bit -- in re-reading the previous few scenes so I could figure out my next moves, I added more than 500 words just to clarify the action.
I will be commemorating D-Day tonight by watching stuff blow up (the weekly fireworks show at the lake). I discovered recently that I now have the American Heroes Channel (I think it used to be the Military Channel), and they're carrying all the WWII programming the History Channel used to have when it was actually about history, so I've spent way too much time this week watching D-Day-related programs. This is making me realize that it's been 20 years since I had knee surgery. I had the surgery in late April, but in early June I was still on crutches and still doing physical therapy, and I remember watching hours and hours of 50th anniversary commemorative programming while doing my home exercises or lying collapsed on the couch because just getting through the day was still rather exhausting. The scope of D-Day and the enormity of what those men did boggles the mind.
Then Saturday will be a working day, and I have an early Sunday because I'm singing in a quartet for the early service. I teased the choir director that he was trying to torture me because he knows how much I loathe this particular song. Really, it's the style of music I'm not fond of. It's a pop-style praise song in a choral arrangement, and that just doesn't work well (trying to get 50 people to sing together in random, irregular rhythms and patterns never works unless they're highly trained professionals). I figure that I'm allowed to have one kind of music I'm really not crazy about singing. I get ecstatic about early music. I'll sing Baroque and classical. I actually kind of like the modern tone-poem stuff. I'll sing opera and Broadway, old-timey Southern gospel and rocking African-American soul gospel. I'll sing in Latin, Spanish and French without complaining. I've even tackled a bit of Hebrew (probably badly) and could deal with German. I'll do Sacred Harp a capella stuff. There's very little they can dish out at me that will make me groan and roll my eyes. In fact, there's many a time when I'm the only person in the choir grinning about a piece of music. So I'm allowed to have one kind of thing that I really don't like. I guess it's good for my soul to have to confront my dislike and still do my best. What's funny is that the alto assigned to the quartet also doesn't like it. When the other people in the choir were saying it was just like you hear on the radio, we were the ones saying we don't listen to that kind of stuff on the radio. We listen to the classical station (and for me, also the big band station).
Ooh, I just found out what my first quarterly payment for the Enchanted Inc. series audiobooks will be, and I should have bought some champagne while I was at the grocery store this morning. It's far more than I expected, and far above what they were offering as a flat up-front payment for ten years vs. a smaller advance and royalties. I'm very glad I took the smaller advance and royalties.
Though the champagne may have to wait because I need to write and I have that early Sunday. I may have a nice me party when I finish the book, though. And I may finally buy that new dishwasher -- a purchase I've been putting off for four years now.
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