writing. sickness. guitar.

1. WRITING. Yesterday I broke my previous writing record. The old record was 10,000 words in one day, set in July of 2008 while I was sick with the flu. Yesterday, I wrote a whopping 12,000 words. WHOOHOO! I was on a roll, yo! I never write on Sundays (I mean on my novels--clearly I blog and journal and email and stuff), so I'm trying not to think about my novel until tomorrow when I can jump back into it.

This is the first novel I've ever:

- Plotted out fully in advance, beginning to end, and
- Refrained from ambitious plot twists in.

The story is straightforward. If I had to write a pitch for it...

Lena Clark is sure that nothing exciting will ever happen to her, and she's okay with that. Despite herself, she's blown away when she meets Nick, a handsome newcomer to her small Colorado town. As they get to know each other, Lena realizes that things with Nick are not what they seem, and that his past--whatever it is--is still haunting his present. And as her life and his begin to intertwine, she discovers that his secrets may lead both of them to untimely deaths.

So far it has 26 single-spaced pages. If it were in a printed book form, that would be... 53 pages. Word count's at 13,200 right now. I'm aiming at making it 65,000 words in total. If I can squeeze out 12,000 words every day (yeah, right) that would put me finishing the first draft by Saturday! How sweet would that be!

Judging by my outline alone, my outline originally had 37 scenes/plot points. Yesterday I wrote up 12 of them, for an average of each point taking up a little over 1,000 words. I'll have to flesh out a lot of scenes, I guess, to hit my goal for the novel overall.

I'm very excited about this book.

2. SICKNESS Carl spent the weekend ill, starting on Friday. He was sicker than I have ever seen him. Poor guy. Over the past two days, he's probably eaten maybe 500 calories. A bowl of Lucky Charms and four Saltines. He felt well enough to go to bishopric meeting this morning, where he is now. I hope he continues to get better--and that Nathaniel and I don't get what he had. Yuck.

3. GUITAR. Yesterday I decided to practice my guitar. I don't do that too often now, sadly. But I pulled it out, and found my old lyrics blog (not linking! but maybe someday) and practiced some of my old songs. I was superoverjoyed to realize that I could remember several songs I haven't played in years, and never recorded. I decided that I will for sure have to use my flip to record these songs and stick 'em on teh youtubes.

In other news, I realized this morning that I haven't restrung my darling guitar since before I met my husband. This is no good. We've been married for three years, dated for a year before that, and flirted for months before that. My poor guitar is going on five years of the same strings. No wonder they sound so weird.

Someone Like You

Reading this article makes me wonder if I am broken or something.

The article is about the song "Someone Like You" by Adele, and why it is such a tearjerker. Basically it's just got a bunch of sciencey proof behind stuff that I thought was just kind of like common knowledge. Well, not COMMON, but like, if you are trained to sing, then you would realize out of logic that duh, adding appoggiatura and emotion to a song would elicit more emotion. And people like to feel emotions when they listen to a singer. Your job as a singer is literally to elicit emotion using sound.

Anyway, apparently "Someone Like You" makes people get all emotional, except I am not one of them. Not only have I never cried during that song, I actually find that song really annoying because it is slow and lame. Personal opinion. But apparently everyone actually likes it (which explains why I can't turn on my radio without hearing it) and everyone cries over it (??).

I have always felt that as a person, I am very influenced by music. Possibly more than the average soul. Music is just in my brain. Rhythm and pitch are everywhere to me and it's hard to think without them. I am very prone to earworms, I have had numerous auditory hallucinations over the years, and there are many times where I'll just be chillin, and BAM there's a song in my head and I have to write it down. Music is really a central part of my life.

So why don't I even care about Someone Like You? Why does it just make me want to listen to something not boring, instead of making me cry?

I think it may be one of the following things, or both:

1. Musical training. I have been studying music since forever. Music theory is fun to me and I enjoy it bunches. So maybe, my more thorough understanding of music and what goes into a song could make me enjoy Someone Like You less.

Why this doesn't make sense: Even though I have that strong musical background, I can still be swept away by songs that AREN'T Someone Like You. For example, "Goodnight, My Angel" by Billy Joel can often bring me to tears.

2. The lyrics. Try as I might, I can't think of anyone not in my life anymore that I would want to find someone like, except my awesome husband. Who I am actually married to. So there's nothing in my own life that makes me able to relate.

I think this one makes more sense.

Or I guess there's a third option:

3. I am heartless.

Possible.

I would really like to see a continuation of the study explained in the article that compared the importance of musical qualities and lyrics in tear-inducing passages. Also, I would love to see a study on how relative familiarity with music theory and so forth impacts the effectiveness of tearjerking passages in music.

Christmas programs!

Things are just getting crazy in time for the ward Christmas events! I'm the director of our ward choir, and also I am a decent pianist, so that means that I am accompanying about half of all performances this Saturday night for the ward Christmas party, and then I am directing and/or accompanying all the music on Sunday's Christmas program. Then in the evening of Sunday I'll be accompanying a community caroling event in Urbana.

I just decided that for the ward Christmas party, I'll be playing and singing Down in Yon Forest, a cool hymn I just discovered like two days ago. I arranged myself a version of it an hour ago and I'll teach the ward to sing the chorus parts (the 2nd and 4th line of every verse are the same each time). Here's a choir singing it:



So pretty.

Also for the party, I wrote an arrangement of Silent Night and It Came Upon The Midnight Clear as a medley for piano and violin (surprise! I'm on the piano).

For Sunday's program, we'll be singing Lo How A Rose and Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day.

If our choir were an audition-only British boys choir, and they sang a way cooler and more difficult arrangement than we are, this is how they would sound:



I have SUCH A CRUSH ON THAT SONG. I wish we could pull off this... or well, anything by John Gardner.

We are doing an easy rendition I got for FREE (yay free, esp. when you have no budget for your choir), based on this melody featured in Rutter's arrangement:



I also love Rutter. Ah. Love him so much. Wish we could pull off a Rutter, too. Oh well.

I also wrote an arrangement of the Huron Carol for performance in sacrament meeting. It sounds only vaguely like this (in that it has the same words! yay):



And in final news, I decided that next year FOR SURE I want to perform Rejoice Greatly, O Daughter of Zion by Handel at some venue.

The end.

New Piano

It's Allie on Carl's account. Anyway, we GOT THE PIANO!!! It was crazy. The piano is an old-style player piano that no longer plays. Not a big deal (it can still be played manually), but it's extra extra deep. And our house is built on a hill. So not only could it not go up the stairs, it couldn't fit through ANY doors in the whole danged house. In the end they had to dismantle one of the back doors and we were able to get it into the living room. I'd hoped to have it in the front of the house--I had a whole music nook all ready for it and it was beautiful--but oh well. WE HAVE A PIANO!!



Also, here are some random pictures from this morning. Don't worry, Carl isn't actually asleep:






I love how we've done our bookshelves, organized by color and genre. I think they look so cool.

free piano!

I was the first to claim a free piano (in allegedly good condition!) on Freecycle! Woot woot!! We'll be renting a UHaul to bring it on over--and then we have to figure out how to get it into our house (which has a million stairs and is built on a hill) but FREE PIANO!!!

I have my music corner all ready for it. It'll have the piano, the guitar, my flutes and fifes and other woodwinds, my psaltery, the dulcimer. SO EXCITED!

AH BEST THING!!

WHY did I not know about this BEFORE?!?!?!?!

Eric Whitacre is one of my ultimate heroes. Ah. You have no idea. Sometimes when I am sad I go play his song "She Weeps Over Rahoon" and I sing all the different parts one after another. He is just the most incredible musical genius. Wow. Wow. Wow. Here is his blog. Now I guess I will have to read it daily and not miss anything.

Ah! What genius! The video I linked above is 15 minutes long but wow. So cool.

This was his first attempt at a virtual choir, Virtual Choir 1.0, Lux Aurumque: