Monthly Archives: February 2009

Orchestrated Update

Look! I wrote!

New words today: 1,558
Total word count, Orchestrated: 65,567

This may not seem like a big thing to you (I do it for a living, after all) but it is to me. You see, for the past month I’ve been making the anthology my priority: contacting people (both original contributors for clarifications and new potential contributors), working things out, discussing drafts, pinging people with reminders and sounding them out about ideas, and going through the existing material to make notes about it and fact-check and such. And I’m brain-dead by mid afternoon, and there isn’t enough energy to address my own work when my brain officially notifies me about overdosing on the anthology. (Remember the whole fibro-and-shutting-down thing? Yeah, that too.)

Well, today I decided to sit down and crank out at least a thousand words of Orchestrated. I’d been dragging my heels on it because I had written myself into a boring spot and didn’t have much of an idea how to work through it. The past couple of nights as I’ve been lying awake I’ve been thinking about it, and decided to end the chapter where it was and start a new one two days later in the story. It’s moderately ironic because I’m a huge advocate of ‘just go to the next scene that you know how to write and leave yourself a note in between’, but for some unfathomable reason I just kept trying to slog along to connect the scene that was over and the next major event when they didn’t need to connected at all.

My goal was a thousand words by noon, and here we are at noon, and I have over fifteen hundred, and thank gods I’m past that stupid swampy bit that I didn’t even need to be in. There’s a substantial amount of the last chapter that will end up on the cutting room floor, I suspect. And the official new target is 70K, which means I need to wrap it up in 4.5K. I might be able to do it, too. If not, I know it will be edited down to between 65 and 70K once it’s all finished and gets tightened up in revision.

Right! Lunch, then anthology wrangling.

Weekend Roundup

Lying awake during one of the long wakeful stretches I had last night, I finally realised something. I’m somewhat shutting down overall. It’s a temporary thing, but it’s what’s happening in order to maintain basic services. I also finally talked to HRH about something that I’d figured out earlier, namely that I’m being immensely stressed by a set of circumstances from which there doesn’t appear to be any alternative other than trashing the whole plan, which is stressful in a different way. (And I did it in casual fashion, too, while we were making dinner on Sunday, instead of actually sitting down and talking about it face to face, which would have been its own kind of stress.)

Saturday morning I had my cello lesson, and it began beautifully. I did a smooth, beautiful tonalization sequence of arpeggios, and it was really even and balanced and in tune and soft and there are lots of other pretty words I could use to describe it because it was almost perfect. My teacher asked me how I felt about it and I kind of shrugged and said, “It was nice. I liked it.” (Which was an understatement, because I had been amazed at how smooth and effortless it had been, but it was a warm-up and I hadn’t been paying very close attention when I did it.) She said, “Well, I have goosebumps! That was beautiful!” And she was partly kidding, and partly not. But then everything started to go downhill, until it hit the usual point about two-thirds of the way through the lesson where it can’t get any worse and I start to freeze up because nothing I do works and I waver between abject misery and anger. I know what happens: my teacher starts pointing out things we need to fix and I try to keep it all in my mind, and the more I try to think about everything (bring the left elbow forward a degree more when shifting up and crossing a string, wrap the bow around the string by moving the right elbow forward or back, pronate hands, caterpillars, tunnels) the worse I play. Adding more things to the list of things I need to constantly check clogs up my brain and I start dropping basic things I’ve already internalized. It’s part of the learning process, but not a part I especially enjoy.

My teacher has an analogy for this: It’s like the drive shaft on a set of train wheels. At first it feels like you’re moving forward, but then the drive shaft starts going through the second half of the cycle and the illusion of going backward is created, even though the overall unit is still moving forward. And if I think about it I’m doing things now that I couldn’t do two months ago. But that doesn’t particularly comfort me at the two-thirds point of the lesson. My teacher told me as I was packing up to remember the tonalization, though, and to remind myself frequently that I have the wherewithal to make that beautiful sound.

It’s also rather frustrating because I’ve been spending so much practise time on the orchestra music and not paying attention to my lesson stuff, and as a result when I played the Lee that I’d played well a month ago it was awful and we had to spend time addressing the problems there. The plan for two spring/early summer concerts has been dropped (not directly related to how poorly I’m doing, but rather to people not all being available) and so I don’t need to worry about having it ready until a month after the original deadline, which after this past lesson is a good thing.

Saturday night we had dinner at Ceri and Scott’s house, where we met Scott’s brother and sister in law who are terrific people. After dinner a few more people showed up for a Rock Band party, although I spent most of my time upstairs by the fire knitting, which was delightful and relaxing and exactly what I needed.

Sunday morning the boy had his Pagan playgroup where they cut out a circle divided into sections to make up the Wheel of the Year, and drew pictures in each section to indicate what holiday or season it indicated. It took him longer to cut out his circle than any of the other kids, but I don’t think he’s ever used scissors for more than making random decorative cuts on scraps of paper. In some of the sections he scribbled random shapes, but in others he drew very specific and recognisable things: a tree for Beltaine, the sun for summer solstice, a loaf of bread and corn on the cob for Lughnassadh, autumn leaves for the autumn equinox, a pumpkin for Samhain. He drew a Christmas tree-shaped scribble for Yule (but in red instead of green), and he coloured the entire Imbolc wedge red and told me it was fire. Ostara was a blue scribble that is the Easter Bunny, apparently. The other topic of discussion was gods and goddesses, and when the facilitator asked who knew what a god or goddess was his hand shot up into the air along with his gods-sister’s, who fortunately was the one called on to explain. While she was talking he turned to me and said, “They’re statues!” Which is a logical answer from him because in our house we do have an inordinate amount of divine statuary, but would have by necessity initiated a discussion regarding representations versus the real thing that probably wouldn’t have been easily understandable for kids. We’ll work on that at home.

All in all, apart from the comfort of Saturday night, the weekend was… well, it’s over. Maybe my sleep patterns will settle into something better than three broken hours a night, and other things will improve as a result.

These Days

Headaches, fatigue, inability to concentrate. Oh, right; I have fibro.

*headdesk*

No, seriously; I tend to forget. Things got so much better and I became used to the new baseline that I have essentially forgotten.

So put my inability to remember what day it is, who to call back, how long something’s been sitting in my in-box, how to string words together to answer a simple e-mail, or how long ago I was supposed to hit ‘publish’ in the boy’s 44-month post (or anything not related to work, really) down to the fibro-fog and lack of available energy and memory. I’m somewhat relieved to realise that I have a genuine root cause of not begin able to focus on something properly, and for not being able to properly plan a month even when staring at a calendar. Work is the only thing I’m staying on top of, because, well, insane deadline.

I’m kind of listless, and I can see that reflected in the cello-heavy recent posts. I’ve just been marking down what’s going on, not really thinking or going beyond keeping basic track of what’s been happening. (Which isn’t much, because I’m not sure where the days are going, thank you, fibro.) I’ve been spending a lot of time just staring at things. Cello’s the only thing I’m keeping up with. Everything else is basically on hold or dropped along a wayside somewhere. I’m sure I’ll find them when the snow melts, a bit battered and worse for wear but essentially salvageable. No knitting; some reading, although I’m not retaining much of what I read so it’s basically light stuff only.

I scrubbed the bathtub this morning and was wiped. (No pun intended.) Thanks to the wonder of the stand mixer I was able to do bread, and a batch of cookies. The boy’s home with me today, so the cookies were a necessity, as were pancakes for lunch. I finally got him to nap; we’ll see how long that lasts.

And yes, the boy’s 44-month post is up. It sat there for a week, because all I had to do was upload the photos, but did I remember to do that? Not until today, I didn’t.

Not Dead

Bizet, why do you hate me so?

Actually, that exposed bit in the Overture? I sound surprisingly good. I suspect I am playing D sharps where I ought not to play D sharps, however, and am about to check with the CD. I am dragging my feet and muttering “don’t wanna” about practising that tenor/treble passage in the Carillon, though. Because Bizet and I, we don’t get along when we hit that particular point. I’m going to listen to the recording of that section till my ears bleed to internalize the theme, because I suspect that I am one tone off at that point.

I’m really enjoying this new guest conductor. You can tell she’s a cellist, because she’s chosen pieces with really juicy cello bits for us. Problem is, they’re exposed juicy cello bits, and I don’t particularly deserve to sit second chair, and these are only highlighting that fact. Also, she pays attention to us, for which I am grateful. Most of the time.

I went downtown for a lunch meeting today with someone I haven’t seen in sixish years, and it was great to catch up as well as talk about her research and her contribution to this anthology. It was wonderful to talk about paganism in an academic context; it’s something I miss. She’s sending me her Master’s thesis tonight and I’m really looking forward to reading it.

Work on the anthology proceeds apace. I’m almost done with the existing ms., and new contributions are starting to trickle in. It’s only going to get busier.

I’ve been dealing with nasty headaches over the past couple of days, too, the kind that are so bad they make your teeth hurt. No fun.

And aha, there are the flurries we were promised for today.

Post-Fundraiser Thoughts

I played in the local Suzuki fundraiser concert/play-in yesterday. I’d originally wibbled about this because ideally Suzuki pieces are learned by heart, and other than ‘Twinkle’ and ‘French Folk Song’ on a good day I retain absolutely none of my early Suzuki pieces. Then again, I didn’t originally go though the Suzuki method and therefore did not memorise them; my first teacher only used Books One and Two because they were well-done. Now, however, I am officially working in the Suzuki method, which is lovely and gentle and focuses on ‘See what you did well there?’ and ‘That was good, now how can we make it better?’ In other words, the approach I need so that I don’t throw my hands up in the air and burst into tears because I’ll never get it, never, never, AUGH, why am I even trying? But I still don’t have to memorise them, for which I am deeply, deeply grateful.

So I expected to demonstrate Epic Suzuki Fail because I needed sheet music. But it turns out that half of the back row of adults did and some of the third row of teenagers did too, so I was somewhat relieved.

I was also wibbly because eep, people! But it turns out that one is very happily anonymous in a crowd of forty-odd cellists on stage, especially when one is in the back row. Go group Suzuki concerts!

To my astonishment the cellist leading our portion of the concert (which was first, yay for having big instruments that require chairs and setup) announced the hardest piece first, when I’d expected the performance to begin with the easiest pieces and progress to the more advanced music. The most advanced piece was the Breval sonata in C, which I’d played at my one and only recital ever about ten years ago. I knew this was to be on the playlist (it’s in Book Four, I discovered) and I’d borrowed the Suzuki arrangement to look at it, but my teacher suggested that I might have enough on my plate what with orchestra and lesson work and prep for all the other Suzuki pieces to be performed. I agreed and didn’t look at it again, but I put a copy in my music folder just in case. And as I’d warmed up by messing with it, I decided to play along, just for fun. And I messed up in the middle runs of triplets and one or two of the shifts, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

I’d forgotten that Suzuki performances require the musicians to stand and bow smartly after every piece they’ve played. Heh.

And then things just got easier, and every piece there were more cellists who lifted their bows and played and took bows afterwards, right up to the last two songs which are the first two in Book One, where all the tiny cellists in the very front row were playing along. They were adorable and so well-behaved, waiting there on their little stools while everyone behind them played the more advanced pieces. It was like a musical game of Sardines.

Alas, there was a certain little boy in the audience who was not particularly well-behaved or patient. In fact, he had to be taken out of the theatre as soon as the solo cellist (who was a teenager who’d been sitting in front of me on stage, and her solo piece was was simply brilliant) had finished her performance and the flutes had gone up to play, because he’d been so disruptive. After thinking about it we suspect it was the lights going down that did it: he couldn’t see to colour or look at his books or play with his cars, so he was restless and squirmy and kept talking. At my orchestral concerts the lights don’t dim, so this was unexpected. He knew we were upset at having to leave a third of the way through the concert, too, and he knew it was his fault. We talked about it on the way home and he now understands that he is expected to behave himself the way the little cellists on stage did, as the youngest of them was only a year older than he is. It’s a respect thing, for the musicians as well as the audience around you. We will practise this. It was done and over with and there was no point in dwelling on it, but it still took both HRH and I a good couple of hours to shake our residual vibrating-with-anger-and-mortification. I did get a nice apology from the boy while I was changing out of my concert clothes, saying he was sorry he had been bad and we had had to leave, and promising that next time he would be very quiet at my concert. I have four (!) coming up between the end of March and the beginning of July, so he’ll have plenty of opportunity to demonstrate his dedication.

He has decided he wants a flute now, too. I’m thinking it’s a good thing we left before he saw the violins.

This year’s fundraiser was for Sun Youth, and judging from the number of people there (mostly families, of course, but even so) there was a decent amount raised.

Now I can go back to focusing on orchestral work, with a side order of lesson work.

Orchestrated Update

I should probably note down that over the past few days, between working on the anthology and cooking and running errands and things like that, I managed to do some work on Orchestrated.

New words Feb. 11-13: 2,644
Total word count, Orchestrated: 63,484

Slog, slog. I need to skip the little things and just get the characters and story to the next important thing on the list of things to write. I can smooth out transitions later. And not all of these new words are story, either; some of them are notes to myself in the body of the text to check things and rewrite sections with a different focus.

It feels like pulling hen’s teeth.