Today was a dull, gloomy, very rainy day. And I ignored it all, and wrote all day long instead. The novella now stands at total of 11,174 words, which means 4,193 new words today (whee! — not that this is going to happen often). I encountered an interesting development in the form of passive-aggressive insistence from a character whom I had intended to be an old, dour, stubborn obstacle somewhere down the line insinuating herself into the storyline as a young, charming, sympathetic woman. I shall have to make the obstacle the board of governors instead.
I went to orchestra tonight feeling not as bad I generally have been feeling because I managed to get some practice in today, and it showed when I played the Beethoven. Unfortunately, I ignored the other pieces in favour of the Beethoven symphony because it’s what needed the most work, and that showed too, particularly because we played them last and my right hand has been stiff all day, so I kept fumbling the bow as well as missing fingering. Although I console myself with the fact that twice tonight, the Beethoven was so good that my throat closed up and I had to fight back a feeling of being swept away by the music.
Our principle cellist is test-driving a new cello, and she let me try it at break. Oh, it was so gentle on the fingers. I’ve been told by luthiers that my cello is remarkably easy to play, but it requires pounding and sawing in comparison to this one, which was incredibly soft and gave almost no resistance at all to fingers or bow. It felt as if it was cooperating in the creation of sound, as opposed to being played. I played a band solo on it, and some of the new sequences from the latest song we’ve been working on, and it was… well, I keep saying it over and over, so there’s no point in belabouring it: My cello was stiff in comparison. Although it made me despair somewhat, I’m glad I had the chance to play it because now I know how good a cello can be, and that’s the kind of thing I can look for when I eventually get to a point where I can seriously shop for an upgrade.
And from the file marked “Eep”, I realised tonight that we only have one more regular rehearsal before the concert date. I’m not quite sure when that happened. Possibly when the last half of October got eaten by my book deadline.