Juliette Greco

I've recently become obsessed with the music of Juliette Greco.  She has such an amazing voice.  Right now she's helping calm my nerves as I prepare for the book launch this afternoon.

Costumes and a Karaoke Man

This past week has been more than a little crazy, and this weekend I'm a bridesmaid for a friend's wedding.  Consequently, not much time for blogging, particularly since my newly rekindled self-discipline requires me to spend my spare time on the novel first, before the blog.  Yesterday, as I had a couple of free hours, this self-discipline led me to pack up my laptop and walk down to the park.  This method has worked very well for me lately.  I give myself a designated amount of time, I get to be outdoors in the sun, barefoot in the grass, and free from distractions.  Sans laundry, sans sewing, sans bills, sans internet access.

Yesterday, however, I realized I had unwittingly picked the one day of the entire summer when KaraokeMan sets up on the park stage.  I don't know his name, or why he does it, or anything else about him except that one day every summer he sets up a karaoke machine and belts out a motley collection of songs in the Chewelah city park.

I went around to the side of the park behind the stage, on the other side of the creek, where the music was not quite so loud, and settled down to write.  Wrote through a selection of ABBA tunes with slowly ebbing enthusiasm, which slowed to a drip as he started in on Whistle While You Work.  Then he started yodeling, and I gave up in despair, shut off my computer, and set out for home again just as he was settling in with Who Wears Short Shorts.

I just realized that I promised more costuming photos some time ago.  Here is one with three of my solo costumes.  Costumes for solos are the most fun, because you don't have to worry about being able to duplicate anything.  I'm in the center, with Lexie and Megan on either side.

Release, Richard, Rants, and a Feral Ballerina

The album release party was a success.  Everyone enjoyed the music, and we sold a number of cds, perhaps not so many as we hoped, but not so few as we feared either.

As a follow-up to a recent post, I must say that Richard III was quite good, the setting in the 1930s done very well, and Ian McKellen simply perfection as Richard, slimy and charming, wily and paranoid, all at once.  So the woman at the junk store was once again proved wrong, not that I ever listened to her recommendations much anyway.

I leave Thursday morning for my annual writers' conference, and find myself in a state of mingled excitement and worry, as usual.  Excitement because of the cathartic experience of spending four days in the company of fellow writers, concentrating on writing, writing as life rather than an accessory to life.  Worry, because of meeting editors and agents and exposing my writing (and through it, myself) to the scrutiny of others.  These things will always be harrowing experiences I think, no matter how my writing eventually fares, or how much confidence I gain.

The four days of the conference serve another useful (at this point indispensable) purpose as well.  They shall offer me a brief respite from work.  In general it hasn't been too bad.  I've met some lovely people, found an endless new supply of character ideas, and the tips aren't so bad either.  The last two days, however, have worn me down into a fine paste.  There are always days like that, there always will be, at any job.  At the coffeehouse there was the man who invited me out to his "ranch", the one who always asked you to stir his coffee with your little finger "to sweeten it up", the woman who went on a tirade when you ran out of her favorite salad dressing.  At the golf course there is the man who offered to be my sugar daddy, or the one who mocked me as I split up his tab, or the woman who insisted I stop and take her party's order as I was on my way to the kitchen with three water glasses in each hand, menus under one arm, and the ketchup and mustard carousel dangling from my little finger.  Not that my days are made up entirely of these occurrences.  Hardly.  There are generally plenty of good things to balance out the bad.  I don't mind cleaning up after people, really, and I actually quite like waiting on tables.  What I don't like, what makes me see red, is the air of entitlement which so often comes with the aforementioned actions, the attitude that the fact that you are waiting tables and they are not gives them the right to treat you in any way they see fit, to mock, harangue, or hit on you without compunction.  Meanwhile, they expect speed, efficiency, serenity, and grace from you.  Generally I can manage the speed and serenity, if not always the other two.  The last two days I've been slipping.  Four days of rejuvenating literary immersion should be just what I need.

Rant over.  By next Monday morning I will love customer service again, or at least see the amusing side again and dislike it a little less fiercely.

I must conclude this post with a photo of my alter-ego, the Feral Ballerina, from Stephen Pastis' comic strip Pearls Before Swine.

Work, Storms, Lettuce...tra la la!

Just home from the busiest Monday of work since the 4th of July.  Don't know why.  There wasn't anything special on.  Apparently everyone just decided to golf all at once, and then to eat breakfast all at once, and then to drink all at once, and then to lunch all at once.  I am now thoroughly exhausted in mind and body...but I did make good tips.

***

I wrote the above several hours ago, when the weather, which had been suffering from a severe personality disorder most of the day, decided to turn thunderous.  Stormy weather effects me in strange ways, and warm stormy weather always makes me want to caper about out of doors, which I am fully aware is not the wisest course of action when the storm is breaking over your head.  It also brings odd looks from the neighbors.  On this occasion, however, though I restrained the urge for an outdoor caper, the storm did a splendid job of restoring my post-work wilted lettuce person to something more closely resembling a crisp new leaf.  That and a visit from my Portland-based sister combined to make the latter part of the day quite splendid.


The album release is set for this coming Saturday at 7pm, as part of an all-day block party.  Looking forward to it.  I've been asked to bring some of my clothes to show as well.

The Next Step

My rewrite is finished, and two copies of the manuscript have been printed and given to two new readers.  One step closer.  Now I have to start working up my nerve for the really difficult part: the selling.  I like doing signings.  You don't have to talk much, besides smiling and saying "thank you" or "what name should I put on it?".  When my mom and I were actively working at selling An Amazing Alphabetic Anthology, we went several times to speak to a second grade class in Spokane.  The teacher had discovered our book herself and loved it.  She had several copies in her classroom and three years running she had us come in and talk to her class.  That was lovely, but it was especially nice because it wasn't just me alone.  Also, the kids were fantastic.  The first time we did it we didn't really know what to expect, and the two other authors who were there had perfectly planned presentations worked up.  We started out just talking about the book, but the kids had so many questions (really intelligent questions too) about it that we just turned it into a Q & A session, and they loved it.  Then another year the teacher had the second-graders pair up with the fifth-graders and each took a letter of the alphabet and made up their own stories.  The Chewelah elementary schools did something very similar.  I have four books, put together by the kids with their own illustrations, inspired by our book.  I've seldom felt so proud, or so honored.  Now, if I could get into doing things like that for my novel, I would be so pleased.


On another note, my ballet teacher has been working on choreography for a new piece (one that we're all very excited about) and has asked me to design costumes for it.  Talking to her about the music and the particular feel of the piece, it sounds as though we have a very similar vision for it, which is splendid.  It's amazing how well the process flows when you're in tune in that way and you're not just trying to match your design to someone else's vision.  I can't wait to start working on them.

Carbon Leaf - grey sky eyes

This is a beautiful song that I've been obsessing over lately. Yes, the autumn leaf pictures are a little premature, but we do have cloudy skies today, possibly preliminary to a summer storm. Fingers crossed.

Thoughts On a Rainy Wednesday Evening

I have decided to commence a massive rewrite of Ashford as a summer project, so this morning I tore quite ruthlessly into chapter one.  I think I've had the necessary distance from it to look at the thing a little more objectively now, so we'll see how it goes.  I am not, however, finding it any easier to cope with scathing critiques, particularly when they contradict each other.  And not, I don't think, because I can't accept criticism.  I've had critiques before from people who didn't like everything about the manuscript, who thought this or that could stand to be changed, improved, or simply taken out, but last week brought two reviews from separate individuals, both of whom clearly (and rather nastily) had very poor opinions of just about every aspect of my writing.  One claimed I didn't describe things enough.  The other insisted that I spent far too much time on the descriptions, even going so far as to say, quite spitefully, "it's no wonder the description is good, considering how much time is spent on it."


I am trying to take these conflicting opinions as gracefully as possible without letting them discourage me.  After all, a good friend, (who has, by the way, great taste in literature in general) read it through, then started again, reading it aloud to her younger sister, who then had to read it a second time herself.  Surely if she'd been thinking only of not hurting my feelings she wouldn't have felt the need to be quite so enthusiastic.  They are both in love with Perry now.  Not that I blame them.  I'm quite fond of him myself.


So I'm going back to the beginning and scrutinizing every sentence, determined to weed out cliches and unnecessary adjectives, knowing that I won't please everyone, but doing my best to please those whose opinion is most important: the would-be reader whose vision sees what I have feebly tried to show.


It's been a chilly wet day, but I'm cozy inside, wrapped in a blanket, listening to the combined sounds of rain on the roof and Aaron practicing for his album release party.  He recently completed his first album, and we're hoping to schedule a release soon.

Nocturne

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Donovan - Jabberwocky

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Cirque du Soleil's Varekai - Acrobatic Pas de Deux

This gives me chills. Such an amazing combination of music and choreography, grace and power.

Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues (Studio Version)

So, Fleet Foxes is proof that occasionally ordering an album unheard based on the band name and a few positive reviews on Amazon can sometimes work out beautifully. I stumbled upon these guys quite by accident a few years ago and I've been hooked ever since. Their music makes me think of trees and grass and mountains, rocks and rivers... all the real things. This is from their new album, due out in May.

Joyeux Noël (Merry Christmas) - Philippe Rombi - I'm Dreaming of Home

A beautiful song from my favorite Christmas film, Joyeux Noel, based on the true stories of soldiers on the Western front who laid down arms on Christmas Eve, 1914. Definitely the most human film I've seen. Watch it.

Remedy for a Bad Day

I'm somewhat ashamed to state that I've been rather grumpy lately, the combined result of a cough which refuses to leave me in peace even after a month and another form rejection which arrived recently.  En route home after work today I realized that this must stop.  Eight years ago I was in the midst of a stint of chemotherapy, had lost my hair and had two life-threatening allergic reactions to the drugs that were supposed to keep my immune system strong.  Yet I remember that being one of the most peaceful times of my life.  Weird, no?  People talk about living for the moment, but you never realize what that means until the moment really is all you have.  Somehow, at sixteen I was able to place my future, my life or my death, in the hands of God, and enjoy what I had.  Shakespeare was right, "the readiness is all".  Life or death, to be ready for either... and when I found out it was to be life, it was almost harder to get used to, because I'd all but forgotten how to plan for the future.  And now I get myself out of sorts because of a cough and the whims of a literary agent I've never met.  Have I forgotten?  Not entirely.  I still enjoy the simple things.  I still weave my life into a fairy tale of my own creation, and if the villains are a little darker, well, the heroes are a little brighter, for what is the measure of a hero if not the strength of the foes he has vanquished.  It is only a little harder sometimes to remember, so I am making a list of good things about today.


1.  The weather.  It's the end of Autumn.  You can feel the approach of snow.  The Mountain Ash berries are so bright they almost glow.  


2.  The patch of Sweet Alysium I found under a hedge on my walk home, still fresh and sweet-smelling after all this cold weather.


3.  My iTunes playlist... an interesting mix of Simon and Garfunkel, Giori, Beats Antique, The Weepies, The Killers, Jeremy Fisher,  Duke Special, John Tams and others, along with selections from Blood Brothers, Phantom of the Opera, and the Buffy the Vampire Slayer musical episode, Once More With Feeling.


4.  My delicious mug of tea, and the slice of birthday cake left over from Aaron's birthday party last night.


5.  Last night's birthday party belongs here too, even if it's not technically part of today.  Good times with great people.


6.  The cough, while still in evidence, did not wake me up at all last night.  Hurrah for a good night's sleep!


7.  My wonderful husband, lovely parents, and excellent sister, not to mention a whole parcel of friends, near and far, who make life interesting at all times.


8.  The new novel, which is finally coming together in my mind.


9.  Elephants!  Even if there aren't any nearby, just the fact that such a creature exists makes me happy.  Same with giraffes.


10.  Ballet class tonight.


11.  The fact that my moody spell seems to have evaporated.