Category Archives: Writing

In Which She Is Pretty Darned Happy

There was a glorious sunrise this morning, all apricots and burnished peaches and corals. It was slightly overcast, so when the sun rose high enough to be seen over the horizon it illuminated the underside of the clouds, so there were pinks and peach clouds floating in front of the overcast background, and a slice of brilliant glowing colour right along the underside of the overcast sky, and beyond that, bright blue. If there’s something good about the sun rising later at this time of year, this is it: we’re all awake to see it work its magic.

I got fiftyish pages edited yesterday. I’m taking out em dashes, rearranging words, tightening sentences up, removing things that create atmosphere but do it with too many words when I can do something to similar effect within the actual scene itself, weaving it into the action. I’m also picking up small inconsistencies (place names, timeline) and fixing them. Karine and I shared a lovely sushi lunch, too, after a couple of false starts (the place we once ordered lunch from closed, the place HRH and I defaulted to wasn’t open for lunch). O’Sushi (the name amuses me) makes decent sushi: firm rice that isn’t too sticky, velvety fish and crisp veggies, very fresh-tasting. The only thing missing was a bit of zing, so next time I’ll know to add wasabi to all the maki and nigiri (I usually avoid wasabi). Nothing outstanding, but very solid for an order-out place.

Today is more laundry, cupcake-baking and -icing, bread-baking, and then a trip to Ariadne Knits with Ceri to knit and nibble the aforementioned cupcakes (not only is it Ceri’s birthday, but it was Ariadne Knits’ birthday three days ago! Our favourite LYS is two!). I suspect I will actually step up and try out one of the Hound Design spindles the shop got instead of just petting them and weighing them in my hands, which may be dangerous. An afternoon off will be lovely. Not that it’s entirely off; I have some serious Yule gift work to accomplish while there

Tomorrow morning it’s cello, and then at 12:45 I’m moderating an hour-long Out of the Broom Closet panel with eight to ten of the local contributors to the anthology at the local Yule Fair hosted by Le Melange Magique. The boy has asked to be there, and he has been told that it depends on how his morning goes.

Mohair Dyeing Experiment #2

One ounce of 70% mohair/30% merino:

ETA: (Hmm. In daylight the colours aren’t that vivid. The above is kind of what I was going for; the actual colours are a lot more neutral and less saturated, like this:)

All the dyes need more brown in them. Yellows and reds take up so much faster than greens; I’m going to have to weaken the rust and gold solutions and intensify the green dye. Also, next time I try this colourway, I’m going to put green between the rust and gold sections as well, so a bright orange doesn’t result from the gold and rust blending. (A not unpleasant effect, but not what I was going for.) As much fun as I’m having with the Wilton’s gel colours, I’m looking forward to being able to measure out dye powder and blend it with a set amount of water to get a reliable solution.

I also got a repeat of my goddaughter’s wrap done last night, and yesterday I did a light edit on eighty pages of my Poppy book (which, to my astonishment, I do not hate; although I suspect I will fall less in love with it as I get closer to the end of what’s there and realise that I have to decide how to finish it properly, after six years). I got an assignment last night, though, so I know what I’m doing for the rest of the week: it’s a 180K-word general fiction title to evaluate. I’m hoping it’s above average for a quick report…

Dull

First, a pretty picture: I’m currently spinning some Louet Northern Lights in the Cactus Flower colourway. It’s my first foray into spinning dyed fibre, and it’s fascinating me. I probably wouldn’t have chosen this to spin, but it was a test done with fibre on hand, and it turns out it works rather well for a project I had in mind. More on that later, though. Show and tell first!

Okay. Now for the less than cheerful stuff.

I seem to be at a pretty bad fibro low. The cold/flu thing that tag-teamed me through September really kicked me hard, and getting back on my feet is a very long drawn-out process that’s not much fun at all. It’s also that time of year where I’m restless, but don’t want to leave my office. I want to be out being distracted by things, but I don’t have the energy to either do it physically or mentally, since dealing with People At Large requires a heck of a lot of energy. And as I no longer have the car, going out via public requires more time and physical energy as well.

So I’m spending a lot of time flipping dully through stuff on the internet hoping for inspiration, researching spinning and testing stuff out because it relaxes me and doesn’t draw a whole bunch of energy from me, and getting frustrated because I can’t work. Work is… draining. It’s at the point where I’m not being fulfilled by it, and it’s just a paycheque. Which is not a bad thing, because I never set out on this particular freelance gig seeking fulfillment; it was always intended to be just a paycheque, because money is good. It’s just really hard to open these documents and run a review on them, because most of the time they’re poorly written and poorly laid out, and that’s really depressing. I have to muster up a huge amount of energy to deal with them, and that’s draining on a whole other level. What would probably fulfill me more is actually writing, except that whole finite amount of energy and currently low levels means I need to direct the energy towards paying/deadlined work first. I feel exhausted just thinking about writing my own stuff, and not terribly inspired. What I need to do is rethink how I handle these assignments. Maybe read through them entirely before starting to pull out the broken elements for the report, then handle the report at the end rather than starting with it at the beginning of the read-through, because it slows things down.

Cello is feeling kind of sloggy at the moment too, because I’m trying to internalize a whole lot of stuff that’s coming up in lessons, mostly about technique, and as a result a bunch of other stuff is breaking down. This is not unusual; very often we have to unlearn things, or take things apart in order to reassemble them properly. I know this intellectually, but my emotional awareness just sees things I was playing decently now being played horribly and piles on the self-confidence crisis. Orchestra is a slog too, because I’ve been dealing with the take-apartness issues (I’ve played everything on this program before, so why can’t I do it now?), the past month I’ve been ill and unable to focus properly, and I’m experiencing issues with bringing things up to tempo. I can play them sub-tempo at home, and I’m not up to speed yet at rehearsal, which, let me tell you, is frustrating and embarrassing when you sit second chair right in front of the conductor. (I am very specifically not looking at the Beethoven, here. I know, I asked for a Beethoven symphony; I’ve changed my mind. How about some Haydn? Or some Boyce?) So rather than being excited about cello the way I was in the spring and early summer I’m dragging my feet.

There’s a wedding this Saturday for which I’m trying to muster up the enthusiasm to attend. It’s Thanksgiving, which means there will be a visit to the in-laws. Perhaps that’s part of my trouble; we usually visit my parents at this time of year, and maybe not going is messing with my seasonal pattern.

Ultimately it all comes down to being frustrated because I don’t have enough energy to handle everything I need to handle. I want to go out; I stay home because I know that if I go out I’ll exhaust myself for an undetermined period of time. I can’t focus on work. Cello is at a not-rewarding point.

The one good thing that’s happening is spinning. I am so thankful I discovered it at this particular point, because it’s productive and creative while being not overly demanding energy-wise. I just started my first spinning with colour experiment (see above), and it’s brilliant. Ceri got the fibre as a sample when we took our spindle class together in May, and found it while she was looking for something else during the crafting weekend. The bag of roving was a bit garish, but I test-spun it and lo and behold, it’s exactly my goddaughter’s favourite colours: hot pink, deep greens and blues, and some purples. The colours soften and blend so much during the spinning process that the single is quite attractive. I’m so glad, because finding a yarn for the wrap I wanted to knit for her as a Yule gift was becoming quite a trial (not that I was looking for a colourway with all her favourite colours in it; this was pure serendipity). I’m spinning a fairly fine single, and fingering weight (what the pattern calls for — well, actually it doesn’t, it calls for laceweight, but I’m knitting a heavier wrap so I’ll be using fingering weight) will be no problem at all. Thank goodness my beloved LYS Ariadne Knits had another couple of the small 2oz bags in stock; they’ve got those aside for me, and all together that will be 6oz and more than enough (she said, crossing her fingers and looking sternly at the spinning wheel, which is totally innocent). Of course, once it’s spun up and plied I’ll have to knit the thing, which is another kettle of fish entirely. I am also planning to knit a hat with earflaps for the boy, so we shall see what all these good intentions bring.

Chugging Along

Nothing like being the de facto principal cellist in the absence of the first chair on the first day of orchestra… and not embarrassing myself. Go me!

Yes, it was the first orchestra rehearsal of the season last night, and our principal cellist couldn’t make it. It’s entirely possible that the late notice caught her with a double-booking. Anyway, our new conductor graciously asked if I wanted to move into the first chair and I said, “Oh, no; I’m good right here, thanks.” So everyone else shuffled so as to be closer and the third chair moved up to sit first. And I discovered something: Even though we were sight reading, in general my rhythm and timing is more accurate. We all ran into problems with a badly printed copy of the music and nasty accidental-sown runs (oh, Beethoven, I love you but you’re a bastard, with your notation tricks of slurs across beats and those damn modulations within scale-like passages), but I was pretty reliable in entrances and so forth. I did lose my place more than I’d liked in the runs because everything was squished together, and I have trouble ignoring people who are playing the wrong thing at the wrong time to focus on my own technically correct stuff. Still, it was a good time, and bodes very, very well for the season. Also, yay for my intonation. Lessons and a new cello are working well.

And in related news, I can’t listen to the Schubert ‘Rosamunde’ theme without singing ‘Waltzing Matilda’ in my head. (Now you can’t either. Ha.)

On Tuesday I had a minor heart attack. I submitted my freelance project before lunch, and around five o’clock I got a note from them saying that they couldn’t read my file. “Are you using a Mac?” they inquired. “It looks like a conversion issue.” Oh great, I thought; the freelance people can’t read my Mac Word docs. They’re arriving corrupted. It hadn’t made a difference before when I used the iBook, but for some reason now it’s a problem. So I opened the file in Open Office, saved it, and sent it off to them, and all was well. Not only was all well, but they gave me an approval code right off the bat before reviewing it so I could get an invoice in by the end of the day to make the next pay period, bless them. I had deliberately not planned for that, figuring they’d be swamped.

My back’s been slowly improving each day, but yesterday I still had to spend a couple of hours lying down and reading. This morning I seem to be operational without the aid of tiger balm or painkillers, which is a huge improvement. Still being very careful, though.

While waiting for another freelance assignment to land, I was aimlessly wandering through the files on my computer, waiting for something to jump up and say “Me! It’s time to work on me now!” Nothing really did. I’m at one of those low points in the process where I’m not immersed in something and I need something to work on that I’m excited about. Slogging is necessary at times, but when one is looking for a new main project, it’s good to have at least some interest in what you’re about to sink time into. I found Wings & Ashes, the novella loosely based on Swan Lake I’d written a few rough scenes for two years ago. I knew I’d written more than what was in the file, so I dug through notebooks until I found what I’d done, and transcribed seven pages of writing. When creatively frustrated and uninspired, transcribing handwritten stuff from two years ago can help one feel not totally useless. And it eased me back into the story. We’ll see what happens now, because just before I logged off last night the next freelance assignment landed in my FTP folder. It’s a short one, though, so I’ll work on that this morning and do a couple of hours on Wings & Ashes this afternoon.

The dough for cinnamon buns is rising, I have the Schubert tenth and thirteenth string quartets lined up, and a full pot of tea. Let’s see how far I can get.

Checking In

This week has been an exercise in frustration. Monday I finally admitted that I had a cold, and that’s been dragging on, although today’s been the best day of it so far.

I didn’t want to start working on anything new this week because I was expecting to be hit with a freelance gig right off the bat. This is typical, because they’re usually swamped with assignments and pass them out hand over fist. But this time, a freelance assignment didn’t land in my FTP folder till last night, after three work days of waiting. In the meantime I read through a chunk of my short fiction from the last ten years, and discovered that while they are all definitely first drafts, they do not suck as much as I was afraid they would upon rereading it.

I woke up this morning to a seized lower back. I’d thought it was better after taking care of it over the weekend, but evidently not. It was back to spasming, shooting pain, and inability to move. I saw the boys off, checked email, took a muscle relaxant, and went back to bed with a heating pad. Work would have to wait. Soaked up heat for an hour, slept for another two, and woke up feeling groggy but at least I could sort of move. Came back after lunch and decided today would be the day I finally engaged with Bell customer service to try to figure out what the hell is up with my email. Since the switch to the Mac, I haven’t been able to receive or send from my Sympatico address, nor use the SMTP to send from any of my domain-associated addresses. Bashing at the problem on my own and trying increasingly arcane Internet fixes hadn’t solved anything. I detest Sympatico service people with a passion, as they are very obviously reading from a script and ignore the information I give them right off the bat. Part of the problem got fixed in a surprisingly competent chat session that lasted under ten minutes; somehow my password had been changed. Aha! I can now download email! But it didn’t fix the sending. A second chat with another agent proved pointless, because Bell doesn’t support Thunderbird (why not?) and since his scripts didn’t cover my program, the suggested course of action kind of went like this:

Customer service guy: I can’t fix your problem from my script. Can I take remote control of your desktop and try to solve the problem that way?
Me: NO.
*goes and checks the Terms and Conditions, wherein it states that the agent has the freedom to install or uninstall stuff and change settings as s/he sees fit and isn’t responsible for anything going wrong*
Me: HELL, NO.

Because I know they’d end up breaking things that are working perfectly well at the moment, and leaving me worse off than before. And the Terms say that if that happens, too bad! I gave up the right to hold Bell responsible! So no thanks. I’ll just keep using Gmail as my primary, like I’ve been doing for the past 9 mos. And now I’m going to use Gmail’s SMTP as my outgoing mail server for my non-Gmail accounts, too. You are yet another step closer to no longer being my ISP, Bell.

Then I got an response to yesterday’s e-mail query about the ETA for my wheel from my Local Yarn Store, telling me that the manufacturer’s North American warehouse is still out of stock, and that they were told it would arrive “sometime this month.” The rest of the order the shop placed that day is in, but my wheel didn’t arrive with it. I said some very nasty things and grumped for a while. I could have bought one of three used wheels I saw listed in the past six weeks (and I just saw a fourth listed in BC, the same model I ordered, only used), and even with shipping I’d have paid the same or less than I’ve committed to for the new wheel. I am particularly wistful about the used Julia model in Maine that was selling for the same price as the new S15 I ordered. It is tempting to query about the $250 used Ashford Traditional in Georgetown, in the meantime. Because I could always resell it, right? (I should have queried about the $175 Kiwi last night before someone else jumped on it.) Because I really, really want to be spinning. And if the S15 doesn’t arrive in time for the spinning and crafting weekend we’ve organized on the first weekend of October, I will be very, VERY cranky indeed.

It’s not my LYS’s fault; they’re not happy about it, either. The North American supplier needs to get a move on. But damn it, I decided in July I was going to do this, and it is now September, and I just want my wheel.

On the other hand, I was working on smooth bow changes yesterday, and by the end of the practice session I did not suck as much as I did at the beginning. Lessons begin again this Friday night. And the principals from each string section in orchestra met yesterday to work out bowings for the first set of music we’ll be playing this season, and I’m very excited to know what those pieces will be. I’m really looking forward to working with Stewart as our new conductor.

I have no idea what to make for dinner, either. My creativity has run out in that department.

In Which She Throws Down the Metaphorical Pen, Exhausted

A Twitter exchange between Ceri and I:

Autumn: Where are all the commas in this chapter? I usually have an excess of commas problem. Who wrote this?

Ceri: Cats! They’re in ur chapterz steelin ur commaz!

Autumn: Well, that would explain a lot. There must be a pile of commas in Kitty Wonderland. I’ll bet you anything it was Nixie.

Ceri: Someday, you will find her curled up asleep in a pile of stolen commas and it will be like a scene from a Jasper Fforde book.

But the point of this post is actually to say:

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a complete second draft of Orchestrated. *passes out*

In Which She Cuts Herself Some Slack

In self-defense (mental, emotional, physical) yesterday became a Tylenol-and-reading-on-the-couch day around one or two o’clock. I did manage to bake bread, and a pan of caramel pecan squares, which required brown sugar, but we didn’t have any, so I used a mix of white sugar and molasses, which changed the taste and now I’m all “meh” about them because they’re not what I was craving. HRH likes them, though. The day improved around five o’clock when the boys came home. I had a guerrilla cello lesson, snatched from the sea of heavily scheduled summer, which I was very excited about, because I knew I was doing things wrong, I just couldn’t figure out what. My teacher pinpointed them in no time at all, which was a relief. So was moving on from one of the things I’d started on my own after we’d tweaked a couple of things. “We don’t need to keep that one,” she said, and that was a nice little ego-boost. Part of what teachers do for you is isolate the point of an etude or exercise so you know what to concentrate on, and she pointed out that the two pieces I’d been working on were, in fact, designed to make me think of placing my third finger on the fourth-finger spot. Thinking of the ringing tones as the targets was one of the goals of those pieces. So aha, I wasn’t going about it all backwards, as I’d suddenly suspected. All in all, it was a very productive hour and a bit. I knew I was doing things wrong (couldn’t figure out what on my own, of course — yay, job security for teachers) but there were only three major issues: shifting while extending (bad bad bad — close the hand!), bowing too close to the fingerboard when playing in higher positions, and needing smoother bow changes. We’ve decided that smooth and flowing bow motion is going to be our focus for the next little while.

It was very nice indeed to be told that I’d been making progress over the summer. It may have been standard teacher encouragement, but it matters to me. I’m much too hard on myself as a matter of course, both in cello and everything else. I’m learning to let go gracefully, as a friend put it recently. I can’t do everything well. I have to allow myself to do things acceptably, so long as I enjoy them. Stressing doesn’t help the situation. Taking the afternoon off to lie down and read because I couldn’t face work with the headache I had is something I couldn’t have done a few years ago; I would have beaten myself up about losing work time. Having a child and being diagnosed with fibro taught me a very important lesson, namely that the standards I set for myself are too damn high and end up being destructive instead of supportive. Any day that you walk away from (figuratively, that is) is a good one.

Then I stopped by Ceri and Scott’s house to coo over Ceri’s current knitting projects, eat zucchini brownies that you’d never suspect were vegetable-ridden, and have tea. I was very good and only stayed forty-five minutes. When I got home I discovered that there had been unfortunate excitement, as HRH put it. The boy had gone to bed at the usual time and had thrown up an hour later. HRH had cleaned boy and bed up, but today I had to scrub the bathroom to get rid of the smell, and wash some toys that were unfortunate bystanders. It was touch and go this morning as to whether he’d actually go to the caregiver, as he hadn’t much appetite, and while twelve hours had gone by with no repeat performance or a fever, you can never be sure. He eventually decided that he felt well enough to go after waffling about it (he kept giving me woebegone looks; I think he was gunning for an extra day home with me) so off we went, an hour later than usual. We suspect it was simply something he ate yesterday, plus the heat and running around. His caregiver e-mailed me to say he’d had a great morning, ate lunch, and fell asleep almost immediately, so things appear to be all right again.

In flipping around the iTunes store I just saw that one of the top twenty classical albums is “Ultimate Chopin.” This makes Chopin sound like some sort of hard-assed extreme composer. Yo! Put on the ULTIMATE CHOPIN! We got some serious butt-kicking to do! I mean, really.

I can hear gentle rain on the leaves of the tree outside my office window. It smells wonderful. This is nice. I hope it stays like this for a while.

Now to switch the laundry, and maybe write that final [missing bit here] of Orchestrated. I wish I hadn’t lost my writing playlists in transferring to the Mac. I miss them.