« 2007-10 | HomePage | 2008-01 »
11/26/2007
51k Words, 3 Concerts, 1 Competition, 0 Sleep
Well, I'm actually in pretty good shape, considering how much I've been trying to cram into this month. Right this very minute I really should be writing more of my novel, but *shrug*, I think I'd rather write in my blog for a little bit.
I've got about 51,000 words of my novel written, though I really don't have much of the plot written. I think a full draft, at this rate would run over 200k, and then I'd have to chop about 7/8ths of the rambling mess to get something that makes sense again, and has a hope of being interesting. I am happy I made it through to 51k words though. Here are some assets I had going for me:
* Characters that repeat themselves
* An ability to write an extraordinary amount of words about not very much
* OCD which finally stopped applying to procrastination and, for a week or two, applied to writing instead.
So there we go, I have a part of yet another novel written. For those keeping count, this is #3; there was NaNoWriMo last year, and both 3-Day Novel and NaNoWriMo this year.
Right now I'm relaxing in the eye of the hurricane that is the Christmas-season concerts & corresponding rehearsals. I just had 3 concerts over the weekend: 2 with an evangelical Christian choir/orchestra, and one with my regular orchestra. The 2 Christian concerts were entirely last-minute; it was a group from Toronto that contacted a colleague of mine in the orchestra, looking for musicians to replace the ones that couldn't come to Ottawa for the weekend, namely a couple of violinists, a flautist, and a cellist. So, the bunch of us got an email on Thursday, had the music on Friday, and were in concert on Saturday and Sunday, with about 10 minutes of rehearsal beforehand. I think this is the most spur-of-the-moment concert I've ever done. It was fun (Handel's Messiah with a modern twist), but I'm glad it's over and not a permanent fixture of my life.
Sunday night after the last Messiah concert I had a bit of R&R time, and just about didn't know what to do with myself and 2 whole hours of free time (I told myself I could have the weekend off of writing). So, I started reading. Which reminds me, I finally got one of the books I've had on hold from the library since July: The 100-Mile Diet finally arrived! So far it's an interesting book, and I'll hopefully have more time to read it starting December 2nd (on December 1st I have two rehearsals and a concert all in one day). I also have a big long list of books I'd like to get around to reading, especially some which are more philosophical or at least pensive in nature, which kind of suits my mood these days.
Today I was sent a poem which had been attributed to Gabriel Garcia Marquez, called A Farewell Letter. As it turns out, it's apparently a hoax, not written by this author but by some obscure Mexican, but nevertheless I think it's touching and full of truths. I enjoyed reading it. Sometimes for me, it's poems like this that remind me how human I am, and not so much the number-in-the-system I almost expect to be everywhere else in my life.
And, a last little nugget for the road. This blog entry about an African farmer popped into my mind again recently. A friend of mine spent a couple of years in Ghana with Engineers Without Borders, and at the end of it went on a trip along the Niger. It was incredible the amazing people he ran into along the way, and I think about this farmer every so often, and it inspires me.
Enjoy the rest of November!
23:07 Posted in Blog | Permalink | Comments (2) | Email this