Category: Spittle & Wisdom

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Spittle & Wisdom

Brown Bird and Last Good Tooth at The Ark, April 12, 2012

This week at work was, well, the puckered end of an ugly dog, and I’d considered hiding in bed rather than seeing Brown Bird at The Ark. I am glad I made the effort because the show revived my trampled spirit. Going into the show, all I really knew was that Brown Bird smoked through their set at the Ann Arbor Folk Festival. Their tone was dark; their music serious. These were no bullshit performers and I was hooked.

The warm-up band One Bad Tooth did not suck, no not at all, though an annoying buzz haunted their set like a drunken heckler. Their frontman was hip and jovial, introducing band members as “that guy, oh and that guy” when they joined him onstage. Instrumentation was a finger plucked hollow body guitar, a fiddle and a banjo and drums. As I told them in the merch area after the show, I don’t usually like bands with drummers but theirs, heck, I didn’t mind. They managed a nice interplay of textures on their pieces, melody overlaid with haunting obligato and churning rhythm underneath. Good stuff so check them out on BandCamp:

Brown Bird were a simply revelation. David Lamb and MorganEve Swain worked as true duo complementing each other’s performance with a bit of percussion here, a subtle line of harmony there and throughout a sense of mastery and freshness. It was like witnessing a high level musical conversation between two fully engaged participants. Their stage presence was friendly and warm without being chatty.

And they rocked. Performers like Brown Bird who display an innate sense for complex rhythms form the basis for my snarky prejudice against drummers, noted earlier. Their pieces were driving, rocking at times but never quite predictable. I wasn’t the only audience member dancing in my seat, so to speak. I get the same egghead pleasure listening to Brown Bird that I get from “math rock,” those brainiac metal bands who obsess over weird time signatures. Let me be clear: this is high praise.

But their beats weren’t their only innovation. The melodies were dark and intriguing. MyDearPatner asked later if all their music was minor and I had to say, they were minor, modal and everywhichway in between. I’ve forgotten all that music theory my grade-school piano teacher tried to impart so I can’t explain why but the melody lines were captivating, intriguing, like something barely overheard, “what was that again?”

I realize it’s a strange thing for a writer to admit but lyrics are quite literally the last thing I notice in music. Brown Bird’s songs, however, seem crafted and intentional. Repetition supports the meaning rather than merely extending the running time. After the week of drama and trauma at my workplace, might I note that I particularly enjoyed “Fingers to the Bone” off their Salt for Salt album. These feel like songs unearthed from a family crypt on an old stone-clotted farm, both timeless and vital.

I grabbed three of their discs after the show since I’ll want to re-play these memories for quite awhile. Even better, I got a poster of the gloriously surreal cover image from their latest, Fits of Reason. On Monday morning, I will drive the point of a thumbtack into the drywall of my cubicle and unfurl this poster like declaration, fair notice to all co-workers and managers alike: Don’t Tread on Me. Or at least, with Brown Bird playing in my earbuds, I’ll make it through another week.

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Spittle & Wisdom

Frank Fairfield, March 30th at The Ark

Frank Fairfield took the stage with an armful of instrumenents and more than a bucket full of folksy charm. He started out with a rambling monologue so quietly voiced it prompted a heckler to exhort him to “Mumble into the Microphone.” Clearly the heckler didn’t get the idea: that mumble WAS what Frank was saying. Throughout the evening, Frank Fairfield perfectly conveyed a self-effacing bumbler, but one whose mastery of performance contradicted this humility.

The set started with a medley of waltzes that started god-awful slow and dirgelike but gradually picked up to become spritely and finally, damned rambunctious. He’d done a similar ploy at the Folk Festival where I’d first heard of him. Piece after piece, he alternated among guitar, fiddle and banjo, congenially putting down the guitar to pick up the banjo in order to play “Lil’ Liza Jane” when an audience member requested it. The music was spot on, a bit coarse and primitive but well-polished and intentionally so. A barn-dance virtuoso.

It’s possible — just slightly possible — that Frank Fairfield’s stage personna is an act. He’s just so perfectly cut and pasted from a century or so in the past, from his handlbar moustache down to the long Firefly-like browncoat he wore. The performance didn’t have a drop of the Ziggy-Stardust-like irony to intrude on the fun.

And fun it was to bathe in Frank Fairfield’s stew of North American music, a song tradition that borrows and steals, boils down and percolates up through dozens of sources and millions of expressions. If I can poorly paraphrase one of his witticisms as a perfect epigraph for this sense of pan-musicality: “I used to know lots of songs. Now I just know a few. Eventually, maybe I’ll just know one.”

Before that hoppens, try to see Frank Fairfield while he still knows how to play an evening’s worth of merriment.

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Spittle & Wisdom

36th Annual Ann Arbor Folk Festival – SECOND EVENING

The format for the Ann Arbor Folk Festival, if I dig it correctly, is the first night presents acts that mess with any fusty old interpretation of “folk” music while second night settles back and celebrates  all the best of what hand-crafted, traditional music can be. What a celebration it was.

Before taking offense at the candor of my comments, check out my musical predilections that prefaced my review of the first evening. Take as your mantra “Your Mileage May Vary” as you peruse these remarks but I think it goes without saying that, clocking in at over four hours, the Ann Arbor Folk Festival remains fantastic value for money. This weekend The Ark exposed me to at least four new acts that I am definitely planning to follow.

Drew Nelson is the real deal, an honest song writer in the country vein. His direct songwriting addresses the personal impact of real world topics and I’m a sucker for that approach. Drew seemed comfortable and confident onstage and his brief inter-song comments revealed a guy I think I’d like to drink a beer with while discussing curent events.

Frank Fairfield was a delightful curiousity, perfectly portraying an eccentric almost bumbling afficianando of traditional music. He trundled onstage with an armfull of instruments and rambled away at a homey introduction that won my heart. Frank picked up his fiddle and started sawing away, intially with a carefree rhythm but building masterfully through a series of jigs that had my Celtic heart dancing. His set was an antique cabinet of wonders and a living testament to how gosh darn fun old-timey music can be. My second favorite performer of the night.

Steel Wheels, a zesty four-man string band, harmonized into one mic — need I say more? Maybe just a bit. Perhaps it’s a gimmick but it sure felt like an authentic technique with these fellows. Excellent handcrafted music like that made by Steel Wheels depends on sensitive listening and the ability to “self-mix” while singing parts is essential. “Rain in the Valley” I think is the name of song that sticks in my brain. Note to self: Hats are cool.

My Dear Loving Partner loves Dar Williams but to honest, her music never clicked with me that is, not until last night when I saw her perform. I’m sure part of the new-found appeal I discovered is based on her winsome, non-pretentious stage presence but truth be told, I was wowed over by the nerdy-goodness of her songs based on Greek mythology. I just gotta track down those recordings. Her last song about Storm King Mountain was particularly luminous.

Brother Joscephus and the Love Revolution Orchestra did absolutely everything right, but still left me unmoved. I had the overwhelming sense of watching a Broadway musical about 1970’s era tent revivals, so slick and pitch perfect but clapped between quotation marks. This perception is most likely a failing on my part, perhaps my miserable cold, because I surely can’t fault any particular part of their performance and I know the audience was absolutely on fire. The brass section entered raucously through the back of the auditorium and winded its way onstage, a simple but honest ploy to build excitment. When they assembled onstage, they were joined by Brother Joscephus, a larger than life frontman who led the massive band through a series of pulsing, soulful tunes. For someone like me who prides himself on being postmodern and so oh ironic, I am particularly sad to say I just didn’t get Brother Joscephus. I was likely the only one in the crowd who didn’t though.

I have a soft spot in my heart for Lucinda Williams and from my totally biased perspective, she did not disappoint. While she endured technical difficulties, the audience serenaded her with “Happy Birthday.” After the delay, she attacked her set with a gritty, almost grouchy fierceness. Those seeking sugary sweet consolation need to look elsewhere. This is the real world. Sure, sure, sure there were flaws in the performance but damn, I got my money’s worth just watching her short collection of tunes.

“Copenhagen” by Lucinda Williams

The Head and The Heart, I am sad to report, took the stage just my cold medicine started to wear off. A couple of their tunes sounded familiar and this relatively large ensemble certainly performed with confidence and power. But my spirit was already drifitng back to my sick bed so I feel awkward attempting any substantive commentary.

Somehow My Dear Loving Partner shipped my carcass home safely and installed it beneath warm covers. The angels in my fever dreams repeated sweet, sweet echoes from the 36th Annual Ann Arbor Folk Festival. Another year, another blessing.

 

 

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Spittle & Wisdom

36th Annual Ann Arbor Folk Festival – FIRST EVENING

Written into my will is the provision that if I die while holding tickets to the Ann Arbor Folk Festival, my remains will be propped in my chair so I can enjoy it one last time. This year, I came perilously close to exercising this provision due to a condition I’ve dubbed “The Death Cold” which has persisted in my head and lungs since shortly after Hallowe’en. I am happy to report that two nights of hand-crafted music were just what the doctor ordered.

Full disclosure: these are my highly idiosyncratic reflections of these two wondeful evenings. My tastes tend toward what Laurie Anderson described as “difficult listening.” For calibration’s sake, my personal musical highpoint of last year, for instance, was the University Musical Society revival of “Einstein on the Beach” that glorious, four-hour weird operatic work of Robert Wilson and Phillip Glass. I like my culture chunky, chewy and difficult to digest. But I also appreciate polish, showmanship, craft and the willingness of a performer to gratify an audience. At one end is “steak” and the other “sizzle” with no value judgement beyond taste weighing either end. My Dear Loving Partner and I are members of The Ark – the sponsoring venue of the Folk Festival – because it reliably delivers entertainment that is both intriguing and nourishing.

The MC for the evenings was Colin Hay, a performer forever doomed to be known as the former frontman for “Men at Work.” I confess that during the 80’s, that band could have been my musical nemesis, vacuously pleasant pop that hence was overplayed on commercial radio. It was a hard sell for me but, damn it, Colin nailed it. I caught myself humming one of his songs in the shower this morning, for goodness’ sake. He knows how to pluck a guitar and his tunes are wistful, sensitive reflections on life and there’s hardly much wrong with that, is there?

The first performer, Carl Broemel, got down to business with a tight set of tunes featuring, to my mind, a masterful use of the digital delay. Carl recorded and overdubbed passages and rhythms live on his guitar and slide that he then was able to pop into and out of quite seamlessly. (Amateurs on the digital delay let the loops drone on too long, IMHO.) The couple sitting next to us clucked their tongues at what they suspected was lip syncing but Carl actually made a tricky technique seem simple. The high point of his set, for me, was his witty rendition of “Lolly Pop” adding a layer of harmony to the chorus on each repetition.

I’d heard good things about Frontier Ruckus but didn’t know exactly what to expect. To be brutally honest, I was afraid they’d be a slightly precious “college band” but they turned in a solid performance, even attempting an un-miked number to test the fabled acoustics of Hill Auditorium. From what I could tell of the lyrics, the song and verse structures themselves were intriguing with buried rhymes and almost rambly sentment and line length.

Brown Bird were probably my favorite act of the first night of the Festival, but given my predilections, that’s no surprise. Gutsy, sometimes gutteral, spare and dark, this duo of a seated guitar and stand-up bass performed a tight set of balls-out gritty tunes probably a good choice for a revue type show such as the Folk Festival. I would like to hear what they do with slower, more introspective pieces. I will definitely be in attendance when Brown Bird flies back to the Ark later this year. Note to self: I shaved off my chest length beard a year too early. All the young hipsters seem to sport them nowadays.

When I glory in the sizzle of Delta Rae, please do not hear it as a criticism. These half dozen vibrant young performers were fully conscious of their presence onstage and disciplined every drop of their youthful zeal to churn out a performance that was both polished and authentic. I had the sense that these positive and professional younguns had perfected their chops while performing in church, the wellspring of so much great Ameican music. In the days before pyrotechnics and digital projections, bands had to captivate audiences with purely musical means, and Delta Rae is well practiced in these classic techniques. They used a shiny metal trashcan as percussion, for cryin’ it out loud. The tune “If I Love You” in particular was a great example of soulful, passionate, gospel tinged awsomeness. In my estimation first evening’s most enjoyable blend of sizzle and steak, Delta Rae rocked.

“Dance in the Graveyards” by Delta Rae

A brief intermission allowed me to suck a cough drop, stretch my legs and rub elbows with a fellow music lover who clued me into the utterly fantastic story of Rodriguez. Seriously, check it out. I usually try to exclude extra-musical information but wow, in this case knowing a few background details made his performance infinitely richer. Rodriguez was the oldest performer on the bill and was escorted onstage with the honor befiting a dignitary. His music channeled a different time, a time when music could be about love and politics, perhaps a bit repetitive and psychedelic, when difficult social problems could be confronted with little more than hope and optimism.

Trampled by Turtles, damn, I rather enjoyed them. They felt like a rock and roll band who accidentally picked up old timey instruments and I mean that as a compliment. Their chops were competent, sure, but they seemed to approach acoustic music unencumbered by past traditions. Their tunes were fresh and boisterous, snapshots from a musical journey still an adventure for the performers. If they were the house band at the local bar, I’d be a drunkard for sure.

Curmedgeon alert: I rarely enjoy the headliner at the Folk Festival. City and Color was, by that measure, pretty good. His between song patter was unaffected and engaging which made him seem personable. I have to give him special props for performing a song about night terrors. It just wasn’t my thing, which isn’t to say I might react differently if I encountered his work in a different context. I was feverish, achy and congested, remember.

A sparkling dust of snow had fallen while we were inside and My Dear Loving Partner bundled me up against the cold and freighted me back to my sick bed, the warming glow of the 36th Annual Folk Festival still pulsing through my system.

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Spittle & Wisdom

10,000 Words

Writing about my writing still feels a bit strange. I’ve decided to go for a more matter of fact approach.

Writing: On Friday, I compiled the draft of my ghost novel and was pleasantly surprised to discover it weighs in at just over 10,000 words. Feels like a milestone. I spent most of yesterday revising, editing, changing the typeface. I would love to write 2,000 words a day Monday through Friday, then revise on Saturday and Sunday.

Submitting: I have only one story out at the moment.

Reading: I am still taking great advantage of my reading glasses. I’ve recently finished three of Gail Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate books, namely Changeless, Blameless and Heartless. Yes, yes, yes, out of sequence. I’m taking a break from her effervescent wit and breezy style to read Brian Keene‘s The Conqueror Worm. A much more down to earth tale, shall we say.

 

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Spittle & Wisdom

ROW Checkin: April 22, 2012

At a certain level of abstraction my goals are: “Read more” and “Write more.” And assessed equally vaguely, so far so good.

Goal Part One: Read More: Since last check in, I’ve read all of China Miéville’s The City and The City. I have had several of his books sitting on the shelf for years but this is the first I’ve ever read. Miéville has a Ph.D. in international law or something and his writing suggests a conceptual depth far beneath its careful surface. Miéville is currently a darling of the nouveau fantasy crowd, and based on City and the City, deserves it. It’s not your daddy’s fantasy. The book was like hard boiled noir in a city designed by Kafka. Eastern europe… somewhere. A city that is internally segregated. Not like Berlin that had a physical wall dividing different halves. This city (these cities, technically) interlace the same geography and the inhabitants of one city are rigorously trained to “unsee” anything happening in the other city, and vice versa. If you make a slip, it’s called “breach” and a mysterious, terrifying organization called “Breach” apprehends you and… well, that’s part of the story. I kept waiting for more “fantasy” things to happen but the world was pretty believably depicted — as implausible as that set-up sounds.

After that foray into cutting edge specualtive fiction, it’s little wonder I had less success reading the first volume of the “Fahfrd and the Grey Mouser” stories by Fritz Lieber. They’re classic old school “sword and sorcery” but oh, my, my I couldn’t FORCE myself through them. Stereotypes, thin characters, awkward language for both dialogue and even twisted descriptions, names that are rather silly puns. For years, folks have been saying I would love these stories, that elements of my writing is reminiscent of these tales. I don’t know if I should be insulted! (grin) Then again, I started with the first collection of a multi-multi book series of tales. Maybe the ride gets smoother a little ways along. Again, maybe I didn’t cleanse my pallate after Miéville.

I am now just over half-way through Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter by Seth Graheme-Smith and am enjoying the hell out of it. I wanted to read the book before I saw the movie. Perfect summer-time reading, light, quick, clear sentences that don’t require (or repay) too much thought. Just clever enough without trying to go too far. It’s a fast read supplemented by the flavor of history that helps buoy up any lacking elements.It’s written in a pretty plain and direct style, intercutting bits from Lincoln’s “lost diary” with narrative that the author is composing. Nothing TOO profound but amusing as all get out.

Goal Part Two: Write More is actually supposed to be write 1,000 on the backstory to the haunted high school novel. Ish. I have a serviceable first draft of the whole first chapter. I feel that I’ve learned alot about Brandon, my protagonist by watching him act a bit. I also have completed this week an outline of sorts that draws on the Joseph Campbell “Hero with a Thousand Faces” archetype structure. I usually poo-poo any such grand metanarrative stuff but taken at the high level of abstraction that I used it, I found his schema rather enlightening. I am a bit light on the actual word count for my goal if I’m being a sticker for detail but ROW is definitely keeping my attention focused on one project, rather than a mishmash of too many little things.

 

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ROW Checkin: April 15, 2012

Goal: 1,000 a day on the Haunted High School novel

Progress? So far so good.

Change of goal, slightly. Initially, I started off writing prep material in hopes to start actual drafting during the next Round of Words in July. I completed a good chunk of character prepwork, somewhat less on the scene prepwork. But then I realized I might be trying to write a really old school way.
I saw Scott Sigler interviewed on Sword and Laser and he described that for one of his books he’d posted each chapter as a podcast as he was writing them. Once the draft was finished he presumably took down the podcasts and edited the work together more cohesively. The narrative went off in a different direction, I gather, during this editing process. The idea is fascinating since the podcasts would help drum up an audience for the work in particular and for the writer in general. It would give a treat for the “early adopters / true fans” and it would also allow a writer a way to stay before the public attention while writing a big work. Writing and marketing aren’t as separate as they perhaps once were. Having said all that, I don’t think I’m planning to release my first drafts as a podcast but I am going into drafting now. I know the story I’m going to write, to the degree anyone knows how tales will really turn out before writing “The End.” WHen I sense I need a bit of backstory of plan to help, I’ll devote my 1,000 words to prepwork again but I’m officially giving myself permission to start writing for real.

 

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Saturday Reading Update – April 14, 2012

I finished three books this week that I’d been working on for some time so don’t get the idea I’m some kind of page-turning wizard here. The point of these Reading Updates is to keep track of what I’ve read and to jot down a few notes of what I can take away from the works I read. I suspect that writers read differently than other readers, just like architects experience diferent things when they enter buildings and seamtresses notice different things when trying on clothes. My in-laws are all ceiling / lathing tradespeople so it’s fun to watch them enter a room and see their eyes drift up to the ceiling to check out the product used and its installation. I digress just a bit:

• A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin — Yes, I’m the last person in North America to get around to reading this. Notably this is the first complete, novel length work I’ve read on my iPhone. (I used to have the complete stories of Anton Chekov and the screenplay to the Big Lebowski on my Palm V way back in the day…) I now can say I *totally* get the idea of e-books. Sure it’s a different experience than reading an ink and paper book but if I had to carry around Martin’s tome, I’d still be reading it. I was able to slip out my iPhone and page through a bit while waiting for an elevator or for a checkout.

The depth of the world — It’s an epic so of course the world needs to have a sense of expanse bobbing just beneath the surface of the text. I usually despise that appendix-y sort of stuff but that probably has to do more with merely clumbsy attempts to integrate backstory into a narrative. I always had the sense that I was reading a narrative and not just a dramatized atlas. There was a great sense of familiarity about the world too while being fantastic. The echoes of the War of the Roses, I thought, added a sense of verisimilitude and plausibility.

Mulitiple character chapters — great strategy for depicting the expanse of the world. There was always a flavor of the writer’s style as a constant beneath each of the different tone and perspectives which helped for coherence. Characters were repeated enough to get a sense of emotional depth, something that I think I missed in, say, Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, for instance. Seems important that to avoid telling the tale from some character perspecctives though– my impulse would be to reserve the interiority of the less sympathetic characters for key moments. It would be fun to use the multiple character device to play up misunderstanding, fracturing the sense of an omniverse into a constellation of projections. Robert Coover’s story “The Babysitter” is a watershed proof of concept for that strategy but it succeeds largely on novelty. Susan Sontag’s “The Way we live now” (I think that’s the title) accented the multiplicity of voices in rumo and gossip (as I recall) I wonder if a longer piece could be written with multiple, highly contrasting voices.

Gentle insertion of the magical — The sense of truly fantastical was added in gradually. At the beginning there is a sense that oddities might be accounted for by exageration but piece by piece the fully fantastical elements were factored in. The problem of the re-enchantment of the world is one that a contemporary writer has to deal with in a different way, I think, than the speculative writer of the modernist era.

• The Magicians by Lev Grossman — I checked this hardcover out from the library after being turned on to it by the Sword and Laser reading group on GoodReads. Sword and Laser, as of last night, is also a new media video show on the Geek and Sundry YouTube channel. I am very eager now to read the sequel “The Magician Kings.”

Literate narration — the prose is easy to read, clever and well-turned. The danger in this facility is that sometimes it felt like I was being told more than shown, that the book was a bit clotted in summary. Though it might be a writing textbook no-no, these segments were very enjoyable and I get the sense that it was intentionally a strategy to depict Quentin, the major character who is so obsessed with finding happiness that he almost lives his life stuck on fast forward hoping to get there.

Gritty magic — A snotty dismissal I’ve encountered might be paraphrased “Harry Potter with booze and sex, then more of the same in Narnia.” But that dismissal misses the point. Sure, I get the sense that Grossman’s background is in the literary genre more than in the fantasy genre so his attempts to make magic feel “real” might be a bit clumbsy. However, the world depicted is interesting and fresh. Magician’s aren’t magically happy; in fact, there’s a real sense that magic stunts ones emotional growth and maturation (though I think being a member of the monied elite as these characters are, might also arrest development.) What results however is a book *about* late adolescence / early adulthood that might not really be appropriate for teenagers. File under the “youth wasted on the young” paradox, perhaps?

Character as tone — Another really literary aspect of the book is what I’m taking to be the use of Quentin’s jaundiced perspective as the novel’s tone. In contrast to GRRM’s straightforward use of character perspective for each chapter, Quentin’s character is fully drenched into the book. I think both what is noticed and how it is depicted is fully the view from Quentin’s head, or at least as much as a third person limited narration can accomplish. I keep thinking of Catcher in the Rye (a book I despised as I recall for some snotty reason or another.) This strategy is really “literary” and a lot of the readers on GoodReads didn’t seem to be able to cope with a non-heroic protagonist.
Again, can’t wait to read the sequel.

• The Wall of the Sky, the Wall of the Eye by Jonathan Lethem — I picked up this collection of stories at the public library booksale and I am nearly awe-struck. I won’t go through the stories one by one. I don’t know the last time I’ve encountered a writer who seems to be doing alsmot exactly what I am attempting with my writing. The experience is extremely productive; I stand convicted by his example. Where I think I tend to pull my punches and go for a merely literary “feel,” Lethem doggedly builds out his inventions to full, satisfying narratives while not sacrificing their inherent weirdness. I’m reminded of what a writing teacher told me “You’ve got to earn subtlety, kid.” Reading Lethem, I realized that I am way under-writing my ideas, to the detriment of my stories. He’s got a gently Dickian sensibility without the paranoia. His writing is clear an unaffected which allows the reader to focus on the fantastical elements he describes. I will definitely be reading more Lethem.

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ROW Checkin: April 11, 2012

Writing is writing, right?

And I continue to put word after word, despite the unusual busy-ness of the past week so that’s a triumph. Right? Right? I am not as far along as I’d wished with the specifics of my ROW Goal, namely 1,000 words a day on prep work for my haunted high school novel. I also realized that I forgot to hit “publish” on last week’s update. D’oh.

• I did some non-novel writing. I wrote a nice sketch of a ghost story about a sleazy hotel near where I work. I figured out who the ghost was and captured a few choice exchanges beween my two investigators. It all was sparked by a chance peek into the “lobby” of the establishment as I walked by the other day — usually the drapes are closed but they were open to reveal a wonderfully cluttered office and a bullet-proof glass window. The opening scene just started to happen before my eyes and I had to transcribe it. When writing comes that easily, it’s hard for me to say no to such a gift. I also hammered out posts on several different blogs to which I contribute. I find it hard to consider posts to be “real” writing though, to be honest.

• I caught up on some serious reading over the holiday weekend and I don’t feel guilty about that at all. I finished The Magicians by Lev Grossman (Harry Potter/Narnia crossed with Catcher in the Rye) and, yes finally, I finished A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin. I want to add “Read More” to my goals, though that’s a rather slippery goal. I joined the “Sword and Laser” online book club /pocast ( http://www.swordandlaser.com/ )to help encourage me to read.

• I have also embarked on a new interest in fitness. It would be presumptuous to call it a “program” and “goal” sounds a bit too purposive. How about we leave it at “a newfound awareness” and leave it at that. I’ve walked to work a couple times. I’ve been using the iPhone app “Zombies, Run” — though using a stationary bike instead of running — and enjoying the heck out of it. I’ve also established an area in the basement where I can lift weights without feeling like a total dork-a-saurus. And I finally have a nice solid chair where I can meditate. Last year, I did a course in Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (basically secularized Vipissana meditation) which definitely helps keep me sane. Until this week, the best place I’ve had to meditate is an overstuffed recliner where it’s far too easy to drift off to sleep.

 

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ROW Checkin: April 4, 2012

Goal: 1,000 words a day on prep materials mostly for my “haunted high school” novel

Check In Status: So far so good.
• I have three good meaty character descriptions for my three major characters — though everything I write uncovers more I could note. These descriptions have lead to a nice collection of quotations and situations that I’ve saved in my “Trapper Keeper” file for when I actually start drafting;

• a good start on descriptions of a couple more characters and I realized that there are other folks who I need to know about so I’ve appended them to my to do list;

• I am most proud of the several fair to good iterations of an outline following the fractal / “Snowflake” method. I started with a one sentence overview that I re-wrote 4 or 5 times and am now up to my third revision of a 5 sentence paragraph outline. The backbone of the story is becoming clearer. I’m trying to allow space around this story for the rest of the “trilogy.”

I find it exciting to focus on “prep work” even though I have a NaNo sized draft of the work. I love the deep revelations that backstory can give and left to my own devices, I fear I would stagnate there. The NaNo draft allowed me to gain first hand familiarity with the story and it got me to just start writing. Granted NaNoWriMo is just a writing spring, but I needed that starter’s gun. Taking the analogy further, I am reminded of the motto of a famous tennis shoe company “Just Go Ahead, Stop Planning and Fidgeting For Cry It Out Loaud and… Just Put a Few Words After a Few Other Words.” I think the tennis shoe company puts it a bit more succinctly.

If all continues to go well, I might be able to start drafting even before this ROW is up.