Author Archives: Autumn

Weekend Roundup

There was polenta last night. There almost wasn’t, as I couldn’t locate my special recipe. Then I remembered that I’d published it in my last book, so into my office I went, pulled down my reading copy, and made my polenta. I used fresh lemon thyme from the garden, which made it extremely lemony — too lemony, actually — and the sharpest cheese I had on hand was old cheddar, so it wasn’t exactly what I’d been craving. But I fried two squares up today for lunch and they were better fried than fresh, as frying gave them a nice smoky flavour.

We had huge rare barbecued steaks and roast potatoes with it last night, and it was all delicious.

This weekend I also made a cake for the double birthday bash of Pdaughter and Sandman7, which was well received, and I enjoyed the associated party that we were both able to attend thanks to Blade agreeing to occupy our living room as the Designated Responsible Adult On Site. Sunday we finally went and got supplies so HRH can build me more shelves in my office cupboard (because one can only stack things so high on the ground and single shelf midway up). I’m currently in the throes of ‘must change office NOW’, and the plan is to box a lot of the current stuff in there (mostly teaching stuff in binders, etcetera) and store them downstairs, as they’re not currently needed (nor in the foreseeable future). Then with two new shelves in the closet, I can get most of what’s on the corner bookcase in there and perhaps eliminate the bookcase entirely, or at least reduce things enough that I can replace it with a half-size one, which will open the room up a lot more.

We had a lot of fun with the boy this weekend, watching him chase pigeons and laugh at ducks and run around the backyard. He had a three-hour nap both days. I’m guessing there’s a growth spurt happening.

This morning I at last figured out how to get the damned printer to handle duplex printing. And my in-box this morning held an advance view of Lu’s new collage series that she mentioned last week. I’m so excited; I can’t wait to see how the series evolves. I suspect I’ll end up commissioning a large diptych for my office wall.

Il Maestro Update

I give up. 471 new words; one new page. Mostly descriptive, and will very certainly be rewritten when the project reaches that stage, because it reads like a bad synopsis of something that should be (a) much longer, and (b) much more moving.

Bah. I will blame the humidity. (Also, perhaps I should have consumed more than an avocado dressed with balsamic vinegar for lunch, and a glass of white wine mid-afternoon. Lots of water, too, of course, that should go without saying.)

More Giants Passing

I just discovered via Curtana that Madeleine L’Engle passed away.

Madeleine L’Engle, Children’s Writer, Is Dead
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
Published: September 8, 2007

Madeleine L’Engle, who in writing more than 60 books, including childhood fables, religious meditations and science fiction, weaved emotional tapestries transcending genre and generation, died Thursday in Connecticut. She was 88.

Her death, of natural causes, was announced today by her publisher, Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Curtana posted the wonderful evocation “I name you…” from A Wind in the Door on her LJ in tribute. Carrying the idea forward, here is a quote from A Circle of Quiet about the need to respond to the creations of others:

“A great painting, or symphony, or play, doesn’t diminish us, but enlarges us, and we, too, want to make our own cry of affirmation to the power of creation behind the universe. This surge of creativity has nothing to do with competition, or degree of talent….This response on the part of any artist is the need to make incarnate the new awareness we have been granted through the genius of someone else.”

Thank you, Madeleine. Thank you.

Saying Thank You

Naturally, every show on CBC Radio 2 played Pavarotti recordings yesterday. Every time a new one started the boy jumped, turned around to peer up at the stereo, and said, “Hello! What are you doing?”

“That’s Pavarotti,” I said. “He is singing.”

“Oh! Otay.” Then he turned back to the stereo and chirped loudly, “Thank you!”

I’ve never been a Pavarotti fan myself — too much of the superstar thing happening, and besides, I’ve always been ‘meh’ about tenors and tenor arias — but the boy had it right. Thank you for singing. Thank you for making millions of people happy throughout your life. And thank you for sharing your love of music with the world.

My Day, By Me

The boy and I had a terrific day today. I think we both needed it. We drove HRH to work and did a couple of hours’ worth of errands on the way home (we now have a drying rack, huzzah, but we do not have cornmeal, which meant I couldn’t make the polenta I was craving). Then Sparky asked to watch a movie while I put away groceries and made him lunch. His nap lasted somewhere between two and two and a half hours, which gave me plenty of time to read a chunk of Sarah Monette’s The Virtu as well as play the cello for an hour. Just for kicks I’ve decided to start learning the second solo cello line of Vivaldi’s Concerto for Two Celli in G minor (RV 531 if you are a music geek, as I am), so I played through that and did remarkably well, although I discovered that I didn’t know the timing as well as I thought I did, nor the correct stresses and musical phrasing in certain places. Also, holy sixteenth notes that feel like thirty-seconds! Playing them at speed just isn’t going to happen just yet.

Then I played through a bunch of band stuff, proved to myself that I can actually play the solo from Enter Sandman (contrary to the evidence supplied by my performance on May 19), worked on my tone during Moon Over Bourbon Street, played Wheat Kings because I love the long tones, and really worked The Bonny Swans riffs. There just is no pretty technical way to play the first call and response phrase; I tried it in three different position combinations and there’s no way to win. It has to be the way I first worked it out because as awkward as the shift is, the alternate positions are even more awkward. Still, I worked that shift and the tone, and yeah, I can make it sound good. In fact, all of it sounded a lot better than I thought it would after not playing any of it since the gig, almost four months ago.

I am rather pleased: this marks the second time this week I’ve sat down and played. I’ve really ignored the cello this summer, partially because I am lazy, but also because the fretless bass is shiny and siren-like. Not that I’ve played Eva a heck of a lot either, but she’s easier to grab and mess about with than Adele is. However, I’ve played Adele at least an hour every couple of weeks, so she hasn’t been completely ignored. And really, I’ve been quite happy with my tone, too, and the quality of sound I’m pulling from her. I believe orchestra will be back in session next week, and I’m glad I won’t completely embarrass myself in whatever we end up playing. (Apart from whatever understandable embarrassment arises from sightreading things, naturally.)

Anywhats, yes, much with the cello playing while the boy napped. I heard him mumble an hour and a half into the nap while I played the Swans riffs and thought I’d woken him, but evidently he only surfaced for a moment and rolled over because I didn’t hear him again for another hour. And when I walked in to get him he was sitting in bed with a book, and said, “Oh, hi, Mama, I’m reading now.” “Oh, okay,” I said, “you just let me know when you’re ready to get up, then.” So I went back to chopping and frying the onions for the lasagna, and he didn’t call me back for another ten minutes. We made the lasagna together, the boy eating grated mozzarella and broken bits of uncooked lasagna noodles while standing on a kitchen chair supervising me. ( “Where go the noodles?” he said as I covered them with sauce, exactly the way he plays the Where’s Liam? game. “They’re under the sauce.” “Ah, otay, I see,” he said. Glad we’ve got all that straight, Sparky. Can we move on to the next layer now?)

Lasagna assembled, we hit the road to go pick HRH up, and treated ourselves to iced cappuccinos and doughnut holes on the way home. They were a comfort in the abysmal traffic and the August-like humidity that has returned to haunt us after a lovely cool week. Did I mention that everyone and their dog has returned to school? People are cluttering up my roads. That’s the one drawback to having the car while HRH is at work: we have to go pick him up at the end of the day and it’s lots of traffic both ways, being rush hour, and the boy gets very upset at being in the car for an hour and a half. Can’t blame him; I’m usually deeply unimpressed with the experience myself.

So, a good day all around. Tomorrow I will work on the Vivaldi novel again.

Il Maestro Update

Total word count, Il Maestro e le Figlie di Coro: 45,794
New words today: 1,372
Carrots: a couple (emotionally, if not directly applicable to the work itself)

I didn’t remember the last time I’d actively worked on this book, but the date stamp on the file told me it was last December.

Let’s hear it for rummaging through notes to find suggestions for scenes, and going back to insert them between chapters! There is now part of a Chapter 6 1/2 covering what happens in December, which is a good thing because the existing narrative jumped from November to late January. This is also a good thing in that I get to warm up: it eases me back into the feel of this novel without forcing me to write the Big Thing That Comes Next.

When I opened the file this morning I panicked because it was so much smaller than I remembered it being. I’d forgotten that I cut about five thousand words out of this novel because they sent it in a direction I chose not to take after all. Now, of course, it’s four pages longer.

Some more research has been done, too. I’d like to see a couple of documentaries filmed in the past four years but I can’t find a listing for them anywhere. I don’t think they’re anywhere near crucial enough to write to the production companies to ask where I might obtain copies, though.