So I fell off the blogging wagon. I just having felt much like keeping things up-to-date this year. I've been feeling busy and frazzled, and frankly not much like regular writing either. That's the problem with having a job that requires brain-power all day, it frequently leaves me spent by the time I get home. Despite my best efforts, I've been pretty unproductive all around. Hrm. I'm not sure I can honestly say I've put my best efforts into things either, there's been plenty of nights where I've blown off writing or barely made an effort. Where did all my focus go? When I was still just an RA I could pretty easily put an entire night into writing, at least 3 hours, get a minimum of 2,000 words written. Now I'm lucky if I get 1,300. Yesh.
On a related note, I recently received another rejection letter for Nora. She's been to at least a dozen agents and five or six publishers who actually accept unsolicited manuscripts. I fear it's time to put her to bed; that she is unpublishable; that I write too sweetly for YA lit these days. I've had a few people suggest that I should try self-publishing. I'm pretty sure I've written about my reservations regarding self-publishing here before. On top of my concerns that it's not a truly accepted form of publishing (i.e. I think most people still look down on self-publishing as a way for untalented writers to get their books out), I also completely lack a sufficient social network to turn a profit. My circle of acquaintances are small, and I don't feel comfortable talking about my work to about 95% of them, let alone try to market/advertise my book to them.
I don't know what to do. I've considered just posting the manuscript here, a few pages at a time every week or maybe twice a week. Of course, posting Nora here, freely, with little-to-no exposure doesn't really seem like a great plan either, but I don't have to pay anything to do this (self-publishing isn't free from what I've seen). She's reasonably well edited, and complete. Maybe a few people with stumble upon her. It would at the very least be better than letting her waste away unread and unloved on my computer hard drive. I could cross my fingers and hope some editor somewhere will stumble upon her, but I doubt that's likely to happen either.
I should probably make a few changes to the title and description of my blog, but expect to see chapters of Nora appear here soon--unless somebody out there has a great alternative suggestion for what I can do.
Ciao,
Andrea
Monday, June 11, 2012
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
A night of musical magnificence at the ESO
This past Friday (January 27th) was our first ESO Masters series concert of 2012. It was quite the night to get back into the swing of things (not having had a concert since early November). The program's line up included Mahler, Shostakovich, and Rachmaninoff. This was just the sort of concert that suited me to a tee. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this before but, I love Russian composers. So, with Shostakovich's first symphony in the first half and Rachmaninoff's third piano concerto taking up the whole of the second, I found the whole night musically magnificent.
Many people (especially Canadians) are familiar with the Adagietto from Mahler's Fifth Symphony, although possibly without knowing it. Excerpts from this movement were used for Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir's Olympic winning free dance. Their interpretation of the music was exquisite and I had the pleasure of seeing them reprise their performance at the 2010 Stars on Ice show in Edmonton, where they skating an abridged version of this program. Anywho, I'm writing about the ESO concert, not figure skating (alas I missed the ESO show just a few weeks ago which involved Toller Cranston [1976 Olympic men's bronze medalist] as MC). I've been familiar with the Mahler long before Virtue and Moir skated to it, and have always loved it for its wonderfully romantic theme. It lived up to my expectations in the skilled hands of the ESO musicians. A lovely way to start the show.
Changing gears completely, next came Shostakovich's Symphony No. 1 in F Minor, Opus 10. Although, according to the program notes, the Lento movement has more than once been compared to Mahler's Adagietto, so perhaps it wasn't a complete shift. I loved this selection right from the first, highly rhythmic notes--they made me think of Wile E. Coyote, scurrying in between hiding places on tip toe. Actually, the whole symphony reminded me of movie music because it was so changeable and dramatic. It seems this might not be such an unheard of comparison as Shostakovich made ends meet by playing piano in a movie house at the time he composed this music. Sometimes when the ESO performs the slightly more unusual, less known selections the audience isn't quite sure what to make of it. There seemed to be no problems on Friday as the nearly full house clapped enthusiastically as the guest conductor ran about the orchestra queuing featured musicians to stand and take a bow (there were a lot, it took a while).
Finally, after the intermission came the biggy, the masterpiece: Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor, Opus 30. Wow. This is one seriously massive work, not only in terms of length (almost 40 minutes), but the skill required by the solo pianist. Known as one of the most remarkable pianist ever, Rachmaninoff wrote this work to showcase his skills for his 1909 tour of the United States. As a listener, if feels like a non-stop barrage of notes, not in an unpleasant way, of course. It's just so busy. The pianist almost never gets a break. Recordings of Rachmaninoff playing the piano still exist. I've heard them played on the CBC before. According to Wikipedia, Rachmaninoff recorded his third concerto with the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1939.
The guest pianist for Friday's performance was Alexander Korsantia. He's originally from Tbilisi Georgia, although he currently lives in Boston and teaches at the New England Conservatory. He was a rather unassuming soloist, coming out in a simple black button down shirt and black pants. Even when he finished the piece, he turned to congratulate the first and second violists, and the conductor before taking a bow. Korsantia was also simply magnificent. Sometimes I envy pianists, and wish I could play as well as them. Oddly, on Friday night I felt no envy, just awe. Rachmaninoff's third piano concerto if far beyond anything I could even hope to play (my fingers barely stretch an octave). Despite the length of the concerto, it flew by, then almost the second the final cord was struck, shouts of 'Bravo!' filled the Winspear. It didn't take long for us all to get to our feet.
Ciao (I'll try to write again soon),
Andrea
Many people (especially Canadians) are familiar with the Adagietto from Mahler's Fifth Symphony, although possibly without knowing it. Excerpts from this movement were used for Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir's Olympic winning free dance. Their interpretation of the music was exquisite and I had the pleasure of seeing them reprise their performance at the 2010 Stars on Ice show in Edmonton, where they skating an abridged version of this program. Anywho, I'm writing about the ESO concert, not figure skating (alas I missed the ESO show just a few weeks ago which involved Toller Cranston [1976 Olympic men's bronze medalist] as MC). I've been familiar with the Mahler long before Virtue and Moir skated to it, and have always loved it for its wonderfully romantic theme. It lived up to my expectations in the skilled hands of the ESO musicians. A lovely way to start the show.
Changing gears completely, next came Shostakovich's Symphony No. 1 in F Minor, Opus 10. Although, according to the program notes, the Lento movement has more than once been compared to Mahler's Adagietto, so perhaps it wasn't a complete shift. I loved this selection right from the first, highly rhythmic notes--they made me think of Wile E. Coyote, scurrying in between hiding places on tip toe. Actually, the whole symphony reminded me of movie music because it was so changeable and dramatic. It seems this might not be such an unheard of comparison as Shostakovich made ends meet by playing piano in a movie house at the time he composed this music. Sometimes when the ESO performs the slightly more unusual, less known selections the audience isn't quite sure what to make of it. There seemed to be no problems on Friday as the nearly full house clapped enthusiastically as the guest conductor ran about the orchestra queuing featured musicians to stand and take a bow (there were a lot, it took a while).
Finally, after the intermission came the biggy, the masterpiece: Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor, Opus 30. Wow. This is one seriously massive work, not only in terms of length (almost 40 minutes), but the skill required by the solo pianist. Known as one of the most remarkable pianist ever, Rachmaninoff wrote this work to showcase his skills for his 1909 tour of the United States. As a listener, if feels like a non-stop barrage of notes, not in an unpleasant way, of course. It's just so busy. The pianist almost never gets a break. Recordings of Rachmaninoff playing the piano still exist. I've heard them played on the CBC before. According to Wikipedia, Rachmaninoff recorded his third concerto with the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1939.
The guest pianist for Friday's performance was Alexander Korsantia. He's originally from Tbilisi Georgia, although he currently lives in Boston and teaches at the New England Conservatory. He was a rather unassuming soloist, coming out in a simple black button down shirt and black pants. Even when he finished the piece, he turned to congratulate the first and second violists, and the conductor before taking a bow. Korsantia was also simply magnificent. Sometimes I envy pianists, and wish I could play as well as them. Oddly, on Friday night I felt no envy, just awe. Rachmaninoff's third piano concerto if far beyond anything I could even hope to play (my fingers barely stretch an octave). Despite the length of the concerto, it flew by, then almost the second the final cord was struck, shouts of 'Bravo!' filled the Winspear. It didn't take long for us all to get to our feet.
Ciao (I'll try to write again soon),
Andrea
Monday, January 9, 2012
I haven't posted in a while.
Woops.
I haven't had much of interest to post about, but I thought I would at least write to say: I AM ALIVE.
Well, I am alive and it's now 2012. So, does that mean anything in particular? No. Not really. Sure, there are a couple of new things on my plate, but other than that things are pretty much operating as usual.
I'm finally the official librarian at work. I've been the only librarian in my group for almost a year now, so nothing really changes except the title under my name on the sign outside my cubicle. I also get more pay and more vacation. Definite bonuses, but in the grand scheme of things, everything is still the same.
I'm planning to participate in a triathlon in June. Just the sprint level (750 m swim, 20 km bike, 5 km run), nothing major. Since my IT band doesn't seem to like long distance runs I've given up on the half and full marathon idea, but I feel I'm still capable of endurance sports so I thought this might be a nice compromise. Plus, I actually enjoy swimming, and biking is still one of my favourite things to do on a temperate day with minimal wind and the Alberta blue sky appears to go on forever.
And I'm still writing. Okay. So I haven't written much in the last two weeks (I think Christmas holidays is something of a misnomer, what I experienced was not a holiday or relaxing), but I'm back at it now that I'm home. I'm still fixing up Cimwai, but I hope to submit it soon. I've also started watching my email and snail mail for responses from Tor regarding Nora, even though it's way too early.
That's about it for me.
Ciao,
Andrea
Woops.
I haven't had much of interest to post about, but I thought I would at least write to say: I AM ALIVE.
Well, I am alive and it's now 2012. So, does that mean anything in particular? No. Not really. Sure, there are a couple of new things on my plate, but other than that things are pretty much operating as usual.
I'm finally the official librarian at work. I've been the only librarian in my group for almost a year now, so nothing really changes except the title under my name on the sign outside my cubicle. I also get more pay and more vacation. Definite bonuses, but in the grand scheme of things, everything is still the same.
I'm planning to participate in a triathlon in June. Just the sprint level (750 m swim, 20 km bike, 5 km run), nothing major. Since my IT band doesn't seem to like long distance runs I've given up on the half and full marathon idea, but I feel I'm still capable of endurance sports so I thought this might be a nice compromise. Plus, I actually enjoy swimming, and biking is still one of my favourite things to do on a temperate day with minimal wind and the Alberta blue sky appears to go on forever.
And I'm still writing. Okay. So I haven't written much in the last two weeks (I think Christmas holidays is something of a misnomer, what I experienced was not a holiday or relaxing), but I'm back at it now that I'm home. I'm still fixing up Cimwai, but I hope to submit it soon. I've also started watching my email and snail mail for responses from Tor regarding Nora, even though it's way too early.
That's about it for me.
Ciao,
Andrea
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Wyrd Sisters: a twist on *that* play, you know the one
Andrew loves British author Terry Pratchett. His books take up about a row and a half of our bookshelf. If you've never read any of Pratchett's books, let me briefly describe: he's a satirist, primarily of the fantasy genre, but he'll occasionally make fun of well known popular cultural stories (i.e. Masquerade makes heavy reference to the Phantom of the Opera). They all take place in his fictional setting of the Discworld. He also has a large cast of character's he draws upon to populate his books (different books focus around the wizards, witches, the city guard), and Death MAKES AN APPEARANCE IN ALMOST EVERY BOOK (I'm not going to explain my seemingly inexplicable use of caps, you'll have to figure it out yourself). I enjoy Pratchett's books as well (although not quite as much as my hubby) and I haven't read all of the ones on our shelf. I think in particular I enjoyed Night Watch, Thud, Going Postal, and the Tiffany Aching series.
A week or two ago after we'd were finished up at the gym Andrew noticed a slightly unusual picture on the front of the University newspaper. It showed three women poised around what looked like a weird bust or something--but as we were heading to the locker rooms we didn't get a close look. Later as Andrew waited for me to finish changing he picked up the paper to fill his time and discovered the image we'd seen was from the play version of Pratchett's Wyrd Sisters as performed at the Walterdale Theatre. We seem to be knocking a lot of Edmonton firsts off our list as of late--probably because we know our residence here is coming to a close. We've never been to see anything at the Walterdale, and this seemed as good a time as any. Thankfully Andrew ordered the tickets ahead of time, or I suspect we would've been out of luck as the theatre was packed.
The Walterdale is nice small theatre. For those of you who don't know, it's housed in the old Srathacona fire hall, so it has these huge arching doors as a part of it's exterior facade, which would have once been the exit for horse drawn fire trucks. The interior theatre is basically a black box and I wonder if they create other seating/stage arrangements depending upon the requirements of the play. For Wyrd Sister's the stage took up one corner of the square, while the seating covered the opposing corner and two lengths of the square. Andrew managed to snag front row seats on stage left. I thought for a little theatre the costuming was quite good, especially given that this play required medieval-type dress, and although the set was minimalistic, there were a number of excellent special effects, especially the scene that had been photographed for the newspaper.
Wyrd Sisters is not one of the Pratchett books I'd read, so I didn't know the plot, but it didn't take long to figure out it was based upon that play. You know, the Scottish one. Or for those of you who aren't superstitious (including myself) it was based upon MacBeth. It starts off with three witches standing around a cauldron, but very quickly breaks from the 'creepy-mysterious' mood it was trying to create to parody as the witches pull out their pocket books and try to find a suitable date for when 'they three will meet again'. From there it's off to the races as the witches are intrusted with the care of a infant king, whom they secret away to live with a traveling band of actors. Meanwhile the king is dead, killed by his cousin, Duke Felmot. Here was a neat twist on the MacBeth storyline; it was the duke who continued to envision blood all over his hands rather than his lady. They continued to play with the scrubbing of the hands theme, starting out with a simple cloth, moving to sandpaper, a file, then a cheese grater. I have a pretty strong stomach for grossness, but even I flinched as the show progressed, and blood and fake skin was worked into the makeup.
I thought the acting and over all production quality was quite good--especially given it's little theatre (not that little theatre can't be good, but it can be bad). The actors who played the witches were especially strong, rather important, given they're the central characters. Granny Weatherwax was appropriately steely and unflinching, Nanny Ogg jolly, and Magrat a bit flighty (although I don't think I've read any books with Magrat, so I can only assume this is how she normally appears). As I mentioned above they did a really neat affect when the witches call up a demon to answer their questions. It looked like an empty brick fireplace with a metal pot on the top, but in fact, there was an actor hidden inside the fireplace who came up out of the pot (with excellent makeup I might add).
The only criticism I have, and it's not of the actors or techies, but that the play does a lot of cutting back and forth between different scenes, which gives the show something of a choppy feel. As Andrew and I discussed later we thought this amounted to the difficulty of translating Pratchett off the page, and into another medium. So much of what he relies on language and watching it versus reading it takes something away from that. Also, Pratchett often does a multiple timeline sort of story, so jumping back and forth in a book helps to layer in the plot, but in action it just becomes jumpy.
Overall, we both enjoyed Wyrd Sisters. We haven't seen a play in a while, so it was enjoyable to go see one, especially one that we were disposed to like before it even started.
Ciao,
Andrea
A week or two ago after we'd were finished up at the gym Andrew noticed a slightly unusual picture on the front of the University newspaper. It showed three women poised around what looked like a weird bust or something--but as we were heading to the locker rooms we didn't get a close look. Later as Andrew waited for me to finish changing he picked up the paper to fill his time and discovered the image we'd seen was from the play version of Pratchett's Wyrd Sisters as performed at the Walterdale Theatre. We seem to be knocking a lot of Edmonton firsts off our list as of late--probably because we know our residence here is coming to a close. We've never been to see anything at the Walterdale, and this seemed as good a time as any. Thankfully Andrew ordered the tickets ahead of time, or I suspect we would've been out of luck as the theatre was packed.
The Walterdale is nice small theatre. For those of you who don't know, it's housed in the old Srathacona fire hall, so it has these huge arching doors as a part of it's exterior facade, which would have once been the exit for horse drawn fire trucks. The interior theatre is basically a black box and I wonder if they create other seating/stage arrangements depending upon the requirements of the play. For Wyrd Sister's the stage took up one corner of the square, while the seating covered the opposing corner and two lengths of the square. Andrew managed to snag front row seats on stage left. I thought for a little theatre the costuming was quite good, especially given that this play required medieval-type dress, and although the set was minimalistic, there were a number of excellent special effects, especially the scene that had been photographed for the newspaper.
Wyrd Sisters is not one of the Pratchett books I'd read, so I didn't know the plot, but it didn't take long to figure out it was based upon that play. You know, the Scottish one. Or for those of you who aren't superstitious (including myself) it was based upon MacBeth. It starts off with three witches standing around a cauldron, but very quickly breaks from the 'creepy-mysterious' mood it was trying to create to parody as the witches pull out their pocket books and try to find a suitable date for when 'they three will meet again'. From there it's off to the races as the witches are intrusted with the care of a infant king, whom they secret away to live with a traveling band of actors. Meanwhile the king is dead, killed by his cousin, Duke Felmot. Here was a neat twist on the MacBeth storyline; it was the duke who continued to envision blood all over his hands rather than his lady. They continued to play with the scrubbing of the hands theme, starting out with a simple cloth, moving to sandpaper, a file, then a cheese grater. I have a pretty strong stomach for grossness, but even I flinched as the show progressed, and blood and fake skin was worked into the makeup.
I thought the acting and over all production quality was quite good--especially given it's little theatre (not that little theatre can't be good, but it can be bad). The actors who played the witches were especially strong, rather important, given they're the central characters. Granny Weatherwax was appropriately steely and unflinching, Nanny Ogg jolly, and Magrat a bit flighty (although I don't think I've read any books with Magrat, so I can only assume this is how she normally appears). As I mentioned above they did a really neat affect when the witches call up a demon to answer their questions. It looked like an empty brick fireplace with a metal pot on the top, but in fact, there was an actor hidden inside the fireplace who came up out of the pot (with excellent makeup I might add).
The only criticism I have, and it's not of the actors or techies, but that the play does a lot of cutting back and forth between different scenes, which gives the show something of a choppy feel. As Andrew and I discussed later we thought this amounted to the difficulty of translating Pratchett off the page, and into another medium. So much of what he relies on language and watching it versus reading it takes something away from that. Also, Pratchett often does a multiple timeline sort of story, so jumping back and forth in a book helps to layer in the plot, but in action it just becomes jumpy.
Overall, we both enjoyed Wyrd Sisters. We haven't seen a play in a while, so it was enjoyable to go see one, especially one that we were disposed to like before it even started.
Ciao,
Andrea
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Baby, I'm amazed
"It's a popular fact that
90% of the brain is not used and, like most popular facts, it is wrong. Not
even the most stupid Creator would go to the trouble of making the human head
carry around several pounds of unnecessary grey goo if its only real purpose
was, eg, to serve as a delicacy for certain remote tribesmen in unexplored
valleys, it is used. One of its functions is to make the miraculous seem
ordinary, and turn the unusual into the usual. Otherwise, human beings, forced
with the daily wondrousness of everything, would go around wearing a stupid
grin, saying "WOW" a lot. Part of the brain exists to stop this
happening. It is very efficient, and can make people experience boredom in the
middle of marvels"
-Terry Pratchett, "Small Gods”
-Terry Pratchett, "Small Gods”
Yesterday I spent the day tweeting amazing things. I hadn't planned to do so, it arose out of the simple reason that first thing in the morning, I often don't have anything of particular interest to remark upon and therefore tweeted this:
Then I decided it would be fun to carry on throughtout the rest of the day (they're in reverse chronological order and okay...there's one that doesn't follow the theme at all).
We do live in an amazing world.
Ciao,
Andrea
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