Shift for the Better

I've been in a bit of a funk the past few days. Don't know why, exactly--it happens occasionally. Doesn't usually last 3 DAYS, but...

The good news is I feel *back* today, cheerful, optimistic. My usual self. Part of it is the character/plot revelation for SALVAGED I had in the shower this morning (yay Magic Water revelations). Part of it is also probably the show we saw last night, in the first concert of the season.

They're called CANTUS, from Minnesota. They were exactly what I needed.

Here's a song to lift your spirits too. Enjoy!

Sally as a Nun

After a lovely lunch of fried food, I'm feeling ready to...sit like a slug.

But at least I can do a brief blog post.

Last night we saw *Sally Struthers* LIVE in Nunsense. I expected it, honestly, to be awful. I expected it to be something I would sit through in disbelief and secretly mock, because it was SO bad.

I laughed my ass off.

Sally herself was really funny, though one of the other nuns (Sister Amnesia) stole the show. Her delivery was brilliant. The show's loaded with slapstick, yes, but also is a good balance of singing, dancing, and stand-up. From nuns.

Saturday, for something different: Romeo and Juliet. Don't know if I'll have quite the same reaction!

Concerts as inspiration

This will be brief, as I've got a pile of work still to do and a meeting in an hour. I kept waiting for "time to blog" today, but it looks like a block of time just isn't gonna happen.

But I did want to mention that we saw a kick-ASS concert last night, Empire Brass. It's a quintet with 2 trumpets, a trombone, a french horn, and a tuba. Man, they were sooooo good, perfectly crisp and clear. They played everything from classical to Gershwin and Copland, and we all loved it.

We go to a lot of shows around here. We buy season tickets for most of the series, so that's 5 symphony performances, 4 or 5 community concert series shows, 3 or 4 theater series shows, the kid's theater, and sometimes community concerts, ballet performances, or shows in neighboring towns. It's especially cool now that Child is 6, and actually pays attention and enjoys going. (Aside: the only year we did NOT bring her to shows was when she was 3--she was too wiggly. Before that she slept, and since then she sits nicely. Of course she taps her feet, conducts, or plays violin on my arm sometimes, but that's all good.)

Anyway, my point is that I love going to concerts, but I only pay attention to the music ones about half the time. The other half I spend pondering my characters in my head, or daydreaming new plot twists. There's something about sitting still, letting music pour over me, that induces book-thoughts. I get some of my best ideas in concerts.

Actually there are 3 places I get my best ideas (outside of sitting at my desk and writing):

1. The shower
2. Movie theatres, sitting there waiting for the previews (I'm often early)
3. Concerts

Apparently I need to force myself to be still to have the opportunity to ramble-think. How about you? What are your best places for inspiration, other than your writing place?

Choices

Things are hopping around here.

Last night Bill Clinton was in town, giving a talk at the local high school. Seriously! Not even an April Fool's joke!

I didn't go see him, though, because I had tickets to go with a friend to Little Women: The Broadway Musical. I'll take Jo over Bill, thanks. For the record (Little Women spoilers, if for some reason you've never read it or seen the movie):

--Yes, Beth's death still made me cry, even though I knew it was coming.
--I still hate and despise Amy. (What writer could EVER forgive the manuscript-burning scene?)
--Laurie was SUCH a cutie in this show (dimples!), I wanted to yell at Jo for not marrying him.
--But then Professor Baher was cute too, so it was okay.
--I am such a sucker for (a) musicals and (b) childhood books brought to life and (c) any theater, really, if the acting is good.

In other upcoming events, I'm going to hear Patricia Briggs talk tonight at our university author reception. And this weekend both Hillary AND Obama will be in town stumping. I couldn't get tickets to that--hardly anybody could--but maybe I'll get to see them!

Monday ups and snow

Hooray! The birthday party went GREAT. Everyone had a good time, including parents. I went to Child's birthday circle at school this morning--where I walk around the sun (birthday candle) with her 6 times, talking about when she was born and what she likes. It was very sweet, and both the teacher and I were misty at the end--this is her last birthday circle, as next year she'll be in elementary.

{sniff}

And, we went to a fantabulous concert yesterday. Check out the Jeni Fleming trio here. Here's a clip of Jeni singing "Better than Anything", one of my favorite jazzy songs. I'm downloading a couple of their albums in ITunes today.

The bad news about today is that it is snowing like mad. We got a few inches last night, and the streets are a slide-zone. Thank Goodness we're all safe in our respective places for a few hours.

Now, off to work!

Shows and blog posts and writing, oh my

It's show season in Montana. We saw the national tour (as hubby says, probably "a national tour" not "the") of THE PRODUCERS last night. Amazing. I actually hurt from laughing so much, and the performers were spot-on.

Yay! I love being able to see super-class productions in small-town Montana! 5 minutes from my house, with no waiting!

In reading back over my old blog posts just now, I'm embarrassed by the contrast to now. Now mostly I do random updates on my writing progress and occasional notes, with little else. I used to be much more verbose. Hum. Maybe I said everything already?

Or maybe not. I think rather I'm choosing other outlets for those thoughts, and that's okay. At least partly. You always have archives. {g}

Speaking of writing progress {cough}, I've been struggling with the writing on Ghost Girl over the past week or so, and I realized this morning why. Somehow, I'm holding back again. I'm not dumping everything into it and just having fun. I'm worrying. I think it's reflective of the rigorous query process I'm going through right now with JENNA, with all the emotional ups and downs and simply high-strung waiting that involves. There's so much guessing, second-guessing, market-consciousness etc. in that process that it's dribbling over into my current work. I'm LETTING it dribble over.

I. Must. Stop. This.

Starting today. I'll revise the first bits later if I have to, but I'm freeing it up today. Moving on deeper, but with less stress. Letting my character be whoever the heck she is, even a swearer or a little bit of a bitch, if that's what she is. For now. Remembering that this is a SFD, not a perfect first draft. That I shouldn't start second-guessing my premise at this stage. (if it sells, it sells. If not...I'm writing a story here. It's the story that matters, not whether the premise is popular.)

So there.

A moment

On Sunday night all three of us went to a wonderful show, with a pianist and a baritone, Leon Williams.

Wow.

Leon is a powerful singer, with a great stage presence and expression. He managed to connect with the audience and bring us along with him for a wide range of songs, from negro spirituals to Moon River to a kid's song Child has the book for, "Fiddle-I-Fee". His last song was the heady "Impossible Dream" from Man of La Mancha.

Tears sprang to my eyes. I looked over at this 5-year-old, beautiful, well-spoken, reading Child sitting next to me, watching with eyes wide, feet bouncing on the chair, and I flashed back in an instant to the first concert we ever took her to. She was 3 weeks old, still a red-faced wrinkled tiny person I still didn't have a handle on. Hubby's brother-in-law was singing the lead role in a community production of Man of La Mancha, and they convinced us to bring her. She'll be fine, they said. You need to see this. So we bundled her up and took her along, and as soon as the first notes started, she cried.

You thought I was going to say she loved it all, didn't you? But she bawled. SIL and I high-tailed it out into the hallway, where we could still faintly hear the songs through the walls. We took turns walking and rocking her for the rest of the show. And when "Impossible Dream" started at the end, I looked down at this perfect little new being in my arms, and I thought "There's my impossible dream, right there."

And here we are now, at a place I couldn't even imagine then. She's still perfect (to me), but she's BIG. She's her own individual, marvelous person. And she can sit with us, holding my hand and enjoying the song in her own way.

Life rocks, doesn't it?

What I did for my weekend

I did not go to a midnight Harry Potter party on Friday.

Instead hubby, Child, and I went to an amazing dance performance in Helena. Artisan Dance is a cool ballet company that hosts professional dancers from all over the country every summer for a workshop, then puts on a performance at the end. We saw it last year, and knew we had to go back again. Wow. During some parts I was leaning forward in my chair, hands clasped, trying to just be closer to it, it was SO good. Ahhhh. Ballet bliss.

Not to worry, though, I had my Harry Potter waiting on the porch for me when we got back on Sunday. Of course I'm only about 100 pages in right now, so I'm going to have to studiously avoid all blogs, newspapers, TV, and radio for about a week until I finish. DO NOT TELL ME WHAT HAPPENS! :)

I just glanced at Google Reader this morning and saw about three people whose first lines were "So I just finished Harry Potter..." Yeah. So not going there. I would've brought the thing to work so I could read faster, but I have too many other things I'm supposed to be reading/writing here...

Hope y'all had a fabulous weekend!

Whadjya eat? Leftovers; haven't had a chance to go shopping yet. But on Saturday we had an awesome dinner. I had TWO margaritas (good thing the restaurant was right next to the hotel, eh?). We shared an appetizer plate with shrimp "purses", fried scallops, onion rings, and jalapeno poppers. Then I had a salad with bleu cheese dressing, bread, and my entree: pork chops cooked in peanut oil, topped with pineapple and coconut sauce, and baked potato. Dude. I couldn't even touch dessert.

Back to reality

Another Scent sighting, from Davis-Kidd in Memphis. Thanks, Erin!

REMINDER: You only have until tomorrow, noon mountain time, to send me your picture and enter the contest. Details here.

We had an excellent weekend. Saturday was Date Night, and hubby and I went to see the movie Music and Lyrics (thumbs-up), to dinner, and then to see a marionette show. Yep, puppets for adults. Seriously, this man was amazing...the marionettes were so very lifelike in their movements, in the exquisite detail of everyday actions. As a writer I would do well to understand human actions as well as he does.

And Sunday we slept in late, then picked up Child and went swimming at the Hot Springs. Ahhhhh, the life.

Must go work now. Perhaps more later, after writing at lunch!

No, there is too much, let me sum up

Yay, lots of entries for the giveaway! This makes me inexplicably happy. I'll do the drawing at noon today and post the winners, so check back.

This weekend I:

--wrote about 1000 words on Book 2 (rock)
--made chocolate chip cookies with Child. Between us we consumed almost half the dough before it even got near the cookie sheet. (what?)
--took Child with me to the salon, where she got her First Ever Haircut by someone other than me. Just a trim, but it's groundwork, baby.
--went out to dinner with friends, and had lots of Chianti
--pulled Child on a sled around our yard (wheee) and made snow angels. It was gorgeous yesterday, clear and sunny.
--went to a concert to see The Watercarver's Guild yesterday with hubby and Child. A father/sons folk-y trio. Good stuff!
--plus errands and stuff that are, frankly, not interesting.

Busy, eh? But good busy. Today it's back to work for me. Hubby is home with some kind of weird low-level illness he is finally going to see the doctor about, so we'll keep an eye on that.

See ya in 3 hours for the drawing! (Er...that means 3 more hours from...NOW...to enter if you haven't. Just comment on the previous post.)

Medieval Word of the Day: evenlength: The time of year when the days and nights are of equal length; the equinox.

Hey, it's Franklin

Child is completely all better, and the rest of us seem to be skating by without catching the crud so far (cross your fingers)! So tonight we are off on a mini-adventure to Helena to see this show:

http://www.myrnaloycenter.com/series200607.htm#turtle

Gotta love live Franklin the Turtle. We try to take Child to these if they're showing fairly close and they're characters she knows well--so far we've been to Sesame Street Live and Dora the Explorer. She goes to enough of "our" performances! Besides, I really like Franklin (hey, he's Canadian, so he's super polite and well-mannered! {g}) so I'm hoping this will be a fun one.

I haven't been making much progress on the writing front since this is finals week. 1 paper down, 1 just started, and a 2-hour written final to do. Did I say I would be happy after Wednesday? I've got some more fun research books, though, and I have been sneaking reading bits about my characters here and there, so I will be ready to go once this other stuff is over. Then I swear I will get back to my regular schedule!

Medieval Word of the Day: Catabaptist: One that abuseth or depraveth, or is an adversary to the sacrament of Baptism.

Hey, it's still progress

Last night we went to a performance of the New York Theatre Ballet. Wow. They did theatrical dances to Gershwin (I love a Gershwin tune...), a classical piece, a couple of modern pieces, and the original choreography of Carousel. Afterwards the dancers all sat at the edge of the stage and answered questions. It was fabulous!

In other news, I'm moving along at snail's pace with Book 2, but I am moving. You NaNo'ers will scoff, but I seem to be writing at about 250 words a day right now. I know this is okay, because it'll pick up a lot once I settle into it a bit more. Right now for every scene I have to work hard to figure out who's there, what all their relationships are to each other (complicated!) and some approximation of how they look and how their surroundings look. Before they say a darned thing! I'm also proceeding with my first attempt at a SFD (shitty first draft). Since I don't know if any of these scenes will even be needed in the end, I'm not polishing them over and over. I'm improving them, but I'm leaving them a little rough, and a little vague on details. Those will come as I continue to do research.

I think one of my struggles with this book is going to be keeping my focus, and not including all these juicy details I keep finding out about these people. Murders! Lovers! Secret marriages! I swear, I could write a novel about each one of them individually and have plenty of material. Must focus on the two sisters. {s}

It's coming up on Thanksgiving, hurrah! I will probably be light to nonexistent on the blogging over the weekend (starting Thursday), since I never have time to sit down and do it at home.

Do you Americans out there have your turkeys all ready?

Medieval Word of the Day: citole: A stringed instrument of music much mentioned in 13-15th c.; originally the same as the cithara, though the mediæval name may have been given to a special form.

Still hanging in, waiting

Well, MY state is one of the two still undecided for the Senate race, leaving the nation hanging, waiting to see whether Democrats or Republicans will have control of the Senate. I'm very strongly pro-Tester, so I'm waiting and waiting and anxiously watching the numbers for any final result--go Jon!--but at the same time I'm secretly pleased that for once my vote has recognizable influence! In the past, my votes in California and then Montana always seemed to come in after most races had already been decided, which is frustrating as hell. At the moment Tester is ahead by about 1700 votes only, so we'll see how it goes today.

I did manage to write an eensy bit more yesterday, yay. Still very slow, very awkward, but I'm not discouraged. As long as I keep working I know it'll come. And I plan to write more today!

Last night I took Child to see the Ballet Folklorico Quetzalli De VeraCruz, an excellent show of traditional Mexican dancers and musicians. Wow. Favorite moments: the "Dance of the Little Old Men", when the four male dancers donned old men masks and canes, and mimicked the old-man shuffle interspersed with fancy footwork dancing; and the dance where the four women balanced burning candles on their heads, and the lights were turned off--they danced slowly, surely, in stark, ruffled white dresses, with the candles their only illumination. Beautiful.

We're all a little tired today, what with late show and later election watching, but it's worth it.

Medieval Word of the Day: maffle: To stammer; to speak indistinctly, mumble.