Blogging in general

Okay, I have a goal.

I will teach for as long as my children are young, though I may find supply teaching to be better once I have several kids. But long-range plans include becoming a self-sustaining novelist.

I'm having so much fun with this book. It's like a really good romance novel of the kind I like to read - I can't put it down until I'm finished. The problem is that writing is much slower than reading, so finishing it will take months, even at my current accelerated rate. As rainwolf pointed out, if normanrafferty decides not to publish it, I could easily change the setting, make it non-furry, and get it published as a more traditional fantasy novel. The power of the book is all in the characters, and they are fun, fun, fun.

I've nearly finished the scene with Baron Affligeant. He's a scholar, neglects his estates in favour of his arts and sciences, and has some serious prejudices about red foxes and horses. Salvatore and Annarisse are a red fox and a horse respectively, so I'm having fun playing the three of them against each other. Meanwhile, Treeden's epiphany has left him confident enough to basically take over negotiations and act his rank. He's going to regress, eventually, but for the moment he's rising to the occasion and treating Sal and Anna as equals.

I'm at the point where I get to introduce etherlad's character, the tiger thaumaturge Kharaba. I'm still debating with myself what kind of dynamic will exist between the two magic-users on board the ship, and how Captain Sal will play them against each other. It is in character for him to do that, but I think he'll keep it light for Annarisse, since he's got a healthy respect for her power on all levels - priestess, healer, philanthropist, and governess, in that order. She's forcing him to grow up, and he knows he needs what she's doing for him. So he's going to seek to keep the friction between her and Kharaba to a minimum while still encouraging Kharaba to see her as a rival. Okay, I can write that now.

Annarisse, meanwhile, is playing the noble side of her character more than the priestess side at the moment. She's in Bisclavret territory, surrounded by a people she sees as her natural and political enemies, and she's working for one of them. She's still determined to see that Treeden gets as little as possible out of the entire expedition, but she doesn't want to leave the ship because she can't in good conscience go back to the Cathedral. So she's the priest for the peasants who don't know her, and she's the daughter of a powerful count around her host, Treeden, and Salvatore. The thing is, both personas are equally valid for her, and equally her. Redemption for her will come through embracing her faith as a separate entity from her career in the Church.

I need to go eat something. Writing is hungry work.

Then I'm going to do some marking while Piet works. Eventually, I'm going to have a nap, since that was my reason for staying home today.

I wish novel-writing paid better.

Music

I was marking literacy folders this afternoon, a boring job requiring no more than one third of my brain (mostly because my kids aren't very good writers.) To liven it up, or at least, to keep the boredom from being terminal, I put in a CD I haven't listened to in a while. It was a very good recording of three Beethoven sonatas - the Appassionata, the Pathetique, and the Moonlight. I realized a few things while listening to this music which I have been very, very familiar with for most of my life.

1) Remember what your guidance counsellor at high school used to tell you about listening to classical or instrumental music while you study, as white noise? Well, it doesn't work for a musician. I listen actively to everything. In fact, I listen more actively to classical music than I do to pop music, because the interplay of melody and harmony speaks to me more. If I really want to concentrate on something, I need quiet, or at least, noise that I'm willing to block out.

2) I did not need to concentrate to that extent today, so playing that music had a slightly different effect from what my guidance counsellor would expect. I got to engage the part of my brain that is most starved at school - the side that is both analytical and artistic. I can break down the chords and rhythms in my head, all the while reveling in the sensory experience of them, and not lose either through concentration on the other. This is also, incidentally, the side that is exercised when I write. Hence I cannot write and listen at the same time; both require active thought of the same type.

3) I need a copy of the sheet music for the Apassionata. It's beautiful, and mostly very gentle. That's good, because I don't get the time to practise that I'd really like, so I will never have time to learn the more difficult parts - even assuming I still have enough skill to learn them at all. I think I'd have trouble with the fourth movement, though.

4) The Pathetique, second movement, can be played much gentler than I usually play it. (This was one piece I should not have listened to while trying to work; for the second movement, I ended up closing my eyes about three bars in and just losing myself.) I tend to give it a lot of movement and some very big dynamic changes, and my tempos are all over the map as a result. I'm going to try it with the mood of the recording, and see what I think. It should make some of those trills easier, if nothing else.

5) Last, but most important - the reason I need to make time to listen to these CD's is quite simply that they feed my soul. I need to pull back from my mentally and emotionally demanding job, and just be. I can do that when I listen, and sometimes when I play. I can certainly do it when I sing, if I know and love the song. But I don't do any of those things often enough. The opportunity to experience some of my favourite music with my whole being was the greatest gift of this day off.