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An Unscheduled Night Off
So I got back from home tower practise* and found this in my Twitter feed:
tessagratton In Which My Friend Sends a Piece of God in a Pink Envelope: http://tinyurl.com/232y7g3 @mstiefvater @robinmckinley
And I figure if your sins** have caught you out, you might as well get a free guest-post substitute out of it.*** Furthermore, how often is a hellgoddess† truly granted her rightful divinity?†† This is obviously a moment that should be commemorated as widely as possible.†††
PS: Tessa, I hate your fingernails. Because I am horribly jealous. I stopped bothering with make up way early.‡ But I would have liked to play with nail varnish. I can’t: I’m allergic to the stuff. It makes my fingernails fall off.‡‡ Curses.
* * *
* I have to ring a quarter peal the day after tomorrow. Somebody. Please. Shoot me. Just a nice little tranquillizer-dart gun. You want to do it Sunday morning, so someone has an opportunity to discover my unconscious body and find some other eighth ringer by 5 o’clock in the afternoon.
** I still haven’t decided if that should have been ‘who’ or ‘whom’. As you will notice by its strange indecipherability. Pretend it’s like Vina in The Menagerie.^ It will be whatever you want it to be.
^ Pathetically geeky ST: The Original reference. Menopause brain has wiped out most of my higher learning. Star Trek, however, remains.
*** It’s also here: http://tessagratton.livejournal.com/563891.html I’m dubious about how many times a link will copy and paste and stay linky.
† You will note the pink envelope. I almost sent her a red one in acknowledgement of her position on the arc of unusual public personas, but I decided that no, the hellgoddess should be manifest in this case.
†† Mind you, I read it and went ‘eeep.’ Although I read her original BEAUTY post and went ‘double eep.’ Possibly quadruple eep. I’m also very impressed that she had the generosity of spirit to be willing to read anything that contained a so obviously drippy useless heroine with a serious skin condition and pink horns.
††† Although I wish to point out that I am never weird, as regular readers of this blog already know.^
^ Except on days beginning with M, T, W, F, or S, and between the hours of midnight and 11:59 pm.
‡ I’m creeped out by the choice of photo that seems to be everybody’s favourite for copying, which is from the wedding I went to two years ago in which I am wearing lipstick. Ewwww. Okay, my fault for posting it, but how was I to know that would be the one?
‡‡ Speaking of ewwwww.
5 October
THREE DAYS.
And . . . I am brain dead. I am toast. I am ash. And behind on necessary-pages-got-through-today count. I have produced Quality Page Tweakings . . . but not enough of them. I really have cancelled my voice lesson this week—tomorrow—whimper—but I can’t spare the two hours or the energy. Very annoying really when I have spent some time* learning to shout HE WAS DESPISED! (Are you hearing me?) AND REJECTED! into gaps in the conversation. (A man of sorrows! And acquainted with grief!**) Fortunately the hellhounds don’t mind and Peter is used to me. Next Tuesday I am going to go in there and blow the top of Blondel’s neighbour’s head off with the ferocity of my attack.
But that’s next Tuesday.
At the moment I am cross-eyed and grxmiskering. And if you want to know what grxmiskering is, it’s what happens three days before you HAVE to turn your new novel in, and you’re not ready. I would also be enjoying the Clash of Titans between the deadline adrenaline buzz and the ME*** if it were happening to someone else. At least I did get some sleep last night. That was interesting and . . . er . . . novel. And yes, by this phase of proceedings I usually am dreaming about it. Didn’t I mention some time recently those dreams you have of being on stage but you’ve forgotten your lines? When your imagination is short-circuiting anyway it can come up with some really splendid variations on this theme. But PEGASUS is your basic roast suckling collywobble on a plate, complete with apple in its mouth, in terms of handing your depraved imagination hearty fodder: my dreams at present have to do with being a few thousand feet up and suddenly realising I haven’t got any wings.
Shalea wrote:
It’s the Little Things that Make You Run Mad with an Axe.
I love this line. See, you are a very good writer and will be just fine.
This is not really the direction I wish to be going just at the present moment. Among other things I can’t afford to kill off my chief villain quite yet. He has to cause forty-seven kinds of mayhem in PEG II.
blondviolinist :
Dear Story Council,
If you are going to bother Robin with stories, the *least* you could do is send her a little help before she goes (more) crazy.
It’s tooooooooooo late. Toooooooooooooooooooooooo late.
Pegasus I has a deadline, which you surely knew before you sent Robin the memo about this novel actually being two novels.
Sent me a memo! Well I blistering well wish they HAD sent me a memo! And not the kind that looks like a torn-off envelope with some of your own illegible handwriting on it!
Far be it from me to accuse the Story Council of incompetence,
It’s been done. They just file it. They have a warehouse. . . .
but it is becoming apparent that important information is stuck in the pipeline, and needs to be delivered to Robin soon. Like tomorrow, or the day after.
Like last month. Like last year. Especially the bit about two novels.
Your prompt attention to this matter is greatly appreciated.
::RUDE NOISES::
Sincerely,
Blond Violinist
PS: We, the members of Robin’s forum, like you bothering Robin with stories. We just don’t like you torturing her with them.
They don’t seem to realise that clear directions, regular updates, and a steady supply of Green & Black’s would work wonders. I might even get PEG II done by next autumn. But . . . naaaah.
LRK :
| Quote: |
| It’s the Little Things that Make You Run Mad with an Axe. |
So true. It’s best not to have an axe handy.
Yes. Um. The shiny blade. The beautiful squared-off corners of the head. The way the handle slides so smoothly against your palm. Um. . . .
jmeadows
GO GO GO GO GO GO GO!!! Fly, PEGASUS, fly!
[urgent flapping noises]
(I suppose now is not the time to ask if PEGASUS II is really going to be called that? May I suggest SUPERPEGASUS or RETURN OF THE PEGASUS? ;) )
The Fellowship of the Pegasus. The Silmarilliopegasus. Er. The Pegasus from 50,000 Fathoms. Faster, Pegasus, Kill . . . er. [wrenching noises] The Pegasus of Monte Cristo. Barchester Pegasus.
sixpence:
Pegasus Flies Again?
Oh, no, not pegasus flies. They bite worse than anything.
Black Bear:
Attack of the Space Pegasus Pirates?
Attack of the Space Pirate X-Pegasi. Wolverpegasusine is very scary.
(I think the title “EBON” was bounced around on a prior blog post.
Yes. But I was still marginally sane then.
But I’m asking you, who WOULDN’T buy Space Pegasus Pirates? They’re flying horses in space! What could be better? Except maybe Attack of the Space Pegasi vs. the Zombie Dinosaur Pirates….)
It’s getting too late at night for this, and I’m weak from grxmiskering. Attack of the Shape-Shifting Space X-Pegasi vs. the Zombie Dinosaur Pirates from the Black Hole of Zagonda. Or possibly Grxmisker.
jmeadows:
This is starting to sound like a series. We’ve got titles to keep Robin writing PEGASUS books for decades!
I DON’T WRITE SEQUELS. In this case, fortunately.
Black Bear:
Oohhh…. don’t get me started, I can go on like that for HOURS if given the slightest encouragement….
So can I. Let’s not.
Maren:
Well, Terrebonne Parish is in need of a new alligator wrangler.
I totally love this story. [Run your mouse over 'alligator wrangler'. For some reason it's not showing up as a link.] And he doesn’t look anything like Steve Irwin. For one thing, he’s still alive. I notice they don’t say anything about insurance premiums, however.
…NONONO you’ll get it done. Writing is a lot more lucrative now that no one’s buying gator skins anyway.
Yes. Sigh. And the entry level wage at the Kleenex factory is disturbingly inadequate.
jmeadows:
| Black Bear wrote on Sun, 04 October 2009 19:52 |
| Oohhh…. don’t get me started, I can go on like that for HOURS if given the slightest encouragement…. |
Hey, if it keeps you off the streets.
No, no! Streets are GOOD! There are many worse places to be than Zombie Dinosaur Alley or Grxmiskering Avenue.
blondviolinist
| Black Bear wrote on Sun, 04 October 2009 19:47 |
| But I’m asking you, who WOULDN’T buy Space Pegasus Pirates? They’re flying horses in space! What could be better? Except maybe Attack of the Space Pegasi vs. the Zombie Dinosaur Pirates….) |
If Robin ever writes a book titled anything of the kind, I’ll… I’ll… I can’t think of a threat serious enough. (No, I haven’t read Pride & Prejudice & Zombies. Nor do I intend to.)
Well I’m with you there. (Sense, Sensibility, and Pegasi. Mansfield Pegasi. Pegasuasion.) And have you noticed there’s a sequel? Ewwwwww.
Black Bear:
The day Robin takes one of my title suggestions will be the day they start selling sno-cones in Hades. You’ve got nothing to worry about…
Pegasi from Hell! Dairy-Queen-Peddling Really-Irritating-Jingle-Humming Pegasi from Hell!
Libby Gorman:
It will all come together Robin! You can do it!
Except that this is your first comment and I therefore want to be NICE to you so you’ll stick around, I want to say, WHAT will all come together? And HOW will it all come together? ‘Wham’, ’squidge’ and ‘splat’ are not the noises of choice here . . .
blondviolinist :
(I just don’t do the zombie thing… I’ve put down perfectly good books because zombies showed up. Of course, I don’t do vampires either… with the exception of one certain book.)
I don’t do zombies either. Or ghouls. And I stopped doing vampires with DRACULA. Won’t touch the deplorable recent ones. None of these modern chits understands vampires. (And have I mentioned recently that I don’t write sequels?)
Diane in MN
I’m also into the Pathological Back-up Phase. PEGASUS at present exists on up to four computers and two memory sticks. I’m spending almost as much time updating back ups as I am telling minor anecdotes to keep it the frell down.
An unenviable chore. It’s hell maintaining files in more than one place and on more than one system. May yours always match!
OH GODS. Yes. I’m also at the more-than-brain-dead phase that when I go to update anything, since there is invariably a lot of moving-one-thing-to-another (computer to memory stick, memory stick to another computer), I may stare at the little ‘do you want to replace’ box for thirty seconds or so while I check and recheck and rererecheck that I’m doing it in the right direction. . . .
I AM GOING TO BED NOW.
* * *
* When I start leaking off the chair I go lie on the sofa for a while and apply the standard hellhound poultice^. Once or twice I’ve turned the TV on. Um . . . is Warehouse 13 utter and complete tosh or did I just see the wrong ep? And does Sanctuary ever get around to making any sense? And whose brilliant idea was Amanda Tapping with a British accent?
^ First perfected with whippets and the first BBC run of BUFFY.
** Please note that I love this piece . . . er . . . it appears to be an aria. How very frightening. But I am rude because it is an ingrained habit and a way of teasing myself out of paralysis. I love this music.
*** This being of course a contradiction in terms like ‘Robin sings’ or ‘hellhound trots quietly at hellgoddess’ side’. One of the standard symptoms of ME is adrenal exhaustion. I’m on about my fifth set of adrenals, I think, and the organ bank is starting to get a little testy when I show up again with another requisition slip.
1 October
Seven days. For the next seven days everything but PEGASUS is a footnote.
I didn’t go ringing last night*. I cancelled handbells tonight.** Although I admit I am going to try to go to tower practise tomorrow.*** And I got out in the garden for about an hour this afternoon† because even when your novel is due in seven days you can’t stare at your computer screen for twenty hours straight. At least not seven days in a row. Actually, I think I did use to, but that was a long time ago, I was younger, and besides, it was a typewriter.††
. . . And great blasted bloody and ravening nether regions of the literary dominion. I hit a sticky spot today where I had to stop and go back and look at what I’d done previously because I was pretty sure this bit didn’t lead out of that bit comfortably (it didn’t), so which bit was I going to preserve and which bit was I going to wrench around to fit with the kept bit? And then I decided I didn’t like either one and I had to come up with something else.
I haven’t got time to come up with something else. Seven days! Seven frelling days!
Furthermore I’m always looking nervously ahead to the ending I don’t know. Have I said here yet that I really, really don’t know how PEGASUS ends? Seriously don’t know? Much more seriously than usual? I know I’ve told you about the end of HERO—that as I was writing the rough draft (and that was still in my yellow legal pad, pre-computer days) I had assumed the book ended with the battle in front of the city—that the whole business with Maur’s head came as a surprise, although this only goes to show how stupid writers can be, since obviously there was unfinished business there. What a good thing stories are usually brighter than you are. Anyway. And while I knew the part of the end of SPINDLE that makes traditionalists cross, and inspires them to write me nasty emails, there’s quite a bit of that final confrontation with Pernicia that I didn’t know about till I got there. But I knew there was a final confrontation. And the five-years-later epilogue to DRAGONHAVEN is a relatively late addition; by the time DRAGONHAVEN had stopped being a short story (ahem) I knew there was an epilogue, but I thought it was just going to take me/you back to the beginning, when his dad’s nagging him to get on with it. I didn’t know about Sophy and Donato, although by the time I got there it was like the end of HERO: well of course, you moron. Sigh.
But PEGASUS. . . . In what is now volume two there’s a Harry-pulling-the-mountain-down, the-merrel-stooping-through-the-hole-in-the-roof or, speaking of things that make traditionalists write me nasty letters, the little-knife-that-crucially-distracts-Guy-of-Gisbourne, moment, which is where PEGASUS began: it’s one of those knock-you-down-and-sit-on-you††† scenes that tell me there’s a story there. But like all the ones I’ve mentioned, it only comes three-quarters or so of the way through the story . . . it may be the climax, but there’s still the denouement to come. And I haven’t a clue about the denouement. Or rather, I have several incompatible clues. Eeep. I would rather have got through the entire first draft—even if I was going to get two books out of it later on—so I’d know where I was going.
So every time I hit a rough spot, here in part one, and have to stop and untangle it and smooth it down, I think, okay, is this going to give me a reliable hint about how it’s all going to end? Because the rough spots are often the crucial bits. It’s a crucial bit I’ve been wrestling with today.
But it didn’t tell me what I want to know.
Eeep. Eeeeeeeep.
* * *
* Although that also had to do with the NaNoWriMo pep talk. Remember I said I sent it in? Remember I said that I only do two lengths, blog entry length and novel length? They wrote back and said it was too long. So one of today’s little extra traumas was cutting the freller down. However all is not lost: whenever they get round to using their streamlined version, I’m going to use the long version for a blog entry. NaNoWriMo entrants who also read this blog may think they’re hearing an echo, but anyone trying to write the first draft of a novel in a month is going to be hearing worse things: the creaking sounds of ultimate mental breakdown, for example. The streamlined version of my encouraging words is probably, you know, better, in a classical sort of way, but I had to cut a couple of good jokes, and why should I waste them?
** And Niall has been thinking evil thoughts at me all evening. They keep pinging off the windows. Fortunately it’s a chilly night so the windows are shut.
*** I should at least be able to help fill in to ring plain hunt for Cordelia—and have I mentioned we’ve got a new learner? So we’ll be filling in to ring rounds shortly. A bell rope in my hands would probably be comforting, so long as no one says ‘Kent’.
† Fumbling around in a mindless sort of way, and cautiously testing empty-looking pots for the hidden presence of bulbs. It was a beautiful day, I can’t afford the brain energy for handbells, at least I can take on a little vitamin D. And plant a few of the 1,000,000,000 spring bulbs that are stacking up in the greenhouse. One of the nurseries rang me today to say that my order would arrive tomorrow, if that was all right with me, and I restrained the hysterical laughter that threatened to break forth and said that was fine, the sooner I could get them planted the better, and she said, well, it’s too early for tulips, but you can start on the other things. And I did not say, stuff gets planted as I get out there to do it, and tulips planted in October is better than tulips planted in March, and I should know.
But who was it told me that nothing eats hyacinth bulbs? Wrong. I had a whole little colony of hyacinths under a climbing rose of which there are a few rinds left. Feh. I need more mouse-flummoxing plastic netting: I’m getting through it at a colossal rate. And if the local mice are cranky enough, or possibly creative enough^, to be eating hyacinths, which they’re not supposed to do, does this mean they’re creative enough to figure out how to find the edges of the netting that covers the bulbs planted in the ground? Or possibly to obtain tiny mouse-sized drills to go through the sides of pots?^^
^ You know, a little oregano, a little grated Parmesan
^^ Graham Oakley’s mice would certainly be capable of drills. http://www.ils.unc.edu/~david/oakley/
But then Graham Oakley’s mice I could negotiate with. I’d provide plenty of Parmesan, and they’d leave my hyacinths alone.
†† And Azmodeus has been sending me links and info about the Panasonic ‘toughbooks’ that a few of you have told me about. The ones that I can pour tea on and shed infinite numbers of crumbs on—and knock off the table to crash to the floor. Right. Fine. If the paperback CHALICE, the new FIRE, the reissued SPINDLE’S END or the first volume of PEGASUS sells a million copies, it’s definitely on my list of purchases.
††† It appears to be hyphen-day-today.
AGGLEBLAGGLEDORGLE* URK! Also GALVINIZED BLISTERING EEEEEEK!**
Or, there are Serious Disadvantages to Living in a Separate House from Your Husband, husbands being made for dealing with Certain Things. Look at what I found waiting for me at the cottage last night:
[insert more strong language HERE. Blah! Arrrgh! YAAAAAH!]
Peter always says ‘oh, poor thing’ and picks it up gently in his handkerchief. EEEEEEEE. I’m not a true arachnophobe; mostly I pursue a policy of live and let live.*** And I think I told you I had an ethical crisis when I found out—not all that long ago, given my age and my fond belief that I pay attention to crittery things: while we were still in the old house, AKA Spiderhaven—that house spiders die if you put them outdoors. Oh gods. Okay, okay, I can stand a few indoor spiders.† BUT THERE ARE LIMITS. This one is clearly and definitively over the limit.††
I don’t think she was too happy to see me either. She was spread-eagled—and I mean eagle—on the upstairs hall wall, probably screaming in a little high beyond-human-ear-range, especially middle-aged-human-ear-range spider voice: Turn that light off! She was sufficiently dazzled that I had time to race downstairs and grab a glass and race back upstairs again, slap it over her—which EWWWWWWWW required convincing her to DRAW HER LEGS IN A LITTLE EWWWWWWWW—and then stand there, sweating and panting and thinking, uhh, I forgot the piece of cardboard.††† Gaaah. Fortunately there were two (or possibly three) empty cardboard boxes sitting on the stair-ladder to the attic‡ at my elbow (ow). I will leave the details of ripping a flap off one of them with one hand, two feet, and some teeth to your imaginations.‡‡ We got there in the end.
She was probably further traumatised by the camera flash going off in her face. I hope it will give her a dislike of the cottage.‡‡‡
And then I dumped her out the window. And closed all the windows on that side of the house.
And it was cold last night. I am a bad person. But just in case you’ve forgotten since the top of the page, this is what she looked like.§ Look at those hairy legs! Look at those mandibles! 
Do you really want this hanging down from the canopy of your four poster some morning as you’re groping for glasses/radio/kitchen timer§§/alarm clock/brain? I don’t think so.
* * *
* Peter wishes me to point out that words like ‘ungleblarg’, ‘dranglefab’, and ‘aggleblaggledorgle’ are clearly derived from the Dickinson vernacular.^ This is true. They are directly inspired, not to say stolen, from the sort of thing Peter says when he drops something or trips over something or is otherwise confounded and discomposed by the material world. Some of us just swear.
^ The urk is mine.
** It is a source of continuing sorrow and frustration to me that Wordpress titles won’t go bold or italic.
*** And one of this summer’s peak experiences—have I told you this already?—was whapping a housefly midair—sometimes you can knock one down long enough this way to finish the job—and having it sail straight into a spider’s web and stick there, buzzing furiously. The spider got it. Yaay. I’m not a good eco-greenie either: I see no excuse for houseflies or mosquitoes or slugs or cockroaches. Most things I’m willing to negotiate with/about.
† Especially if they catch houseflies, even if this does result in having to clean the corners of remarkably adherent remains of dinner and spider effluvia.
†† I’ve got a UK things-with-too-many-legs guide somewhere but I can’t find it. So I’ve been cruising the web^ hoping to find a good UK spider ID page and what I find instead is a cheery site saying, hey, we bet you think that you’re safe in the UK. Wrong. There are all kinds of UK spiders that would loooove to sink their fangs into your flesh! Let us tell you about them!
^ Shudder
††† And before anyone, for example, from Australia, wants to laugh condescendingly and send me some links to Australian spiders . . . I don’t live in Australia! The wolf spider that lived in the sitting-room curtains^ of the house we were staying in when we were in Melbourne “oh don’t worry, just leave it alone” cured me of ANY lingering romantic feelings I might have had about further exploring the territory that produced Elyne Mitchell!^^
^ I know I’ve told you this story before. I will tell you again too. There are certain milestones in my life you’re just going to have to get used to seeing here occasionally. If you say Melbourne to me I will still say kangaroos, wallabies, wombats, dingoes, Healesville+, mangoes++, bougainvillea, eucalyptus, wolf spider in the sitting-room curtains.
+ http://www.zoo.org.au/HealesvilleSanctuary Nice bats too. Note: I am not a koala fan.
++ The memory of fresh mangoes almost overcomes the memory of the wolf spider. Almost.
^^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elyne_Mitchell I spent a sizable proportion of my preteens being Kunama, Daughter of the Silver Brumby.+
Elyne Mitchell probably had whole packs of wolf spiders in her sitting-room curtains. She wouldn’t have minded. I am a wuss.
+ I’ve probably told you this before too. See above.
††† You all know the glass-tumbler-over, piece-of-cardboard-under method of dealing with unwanted wildlife, yes?
‡ As there often are. I have a love-hate thing with cardboard boxes. When you need one, you never have one in the right size. This leads to hoarding behaviour.^ I had managed to break myself of this addiction when we moved into two little houses but Third House’s attic is affecting me like offering Green & Black’s to a someone on a slimming diet. No, no! The attic is for backlist! —Oh, I’m sure there’s room for just a feeewww cardboard boxes!
^ In the old house we had an entire attic devoted to my cardboard box collection. No, really. But we did have five attics.
‡‡ Moments like these I get a little wistful about Lassie. I’m sure she/he knew how to rip cardboard flaps off boxes if Timmy asked her/him to. Hellhounds say, What do you want cardboard for? She’s no fun to chase in a glass!
‡‡‡ Er. Not the kind of dislike that results in her and her sixteen Godzilla-sized friends coming back for a rematch.
§ I had two service rings yesterday, the second one for the harvest festival at Old Eden. While we were waiting for our last stragglers we were looking up at the ceiling, as we often do at Old Eden, where the cobwebs are thick and luxurious—and well beyond the reach of anyone but a tall person on a ladder with a broom-handled duster, and life is short. Vicky was saying that it has been a particularly good summer for spiders, and I was nodding sagely. . . .
§§ Best alarm clock I’ve ever had. Except I occasionally have a little difficulty with the adding and subtracting thing. Let me see, six hours from now would be. . . .
Tuesday Afternoon
. . . has already become Sacred Voice Lesson. Rats. There’s Sacred Home Tower Bell Practise, Sacred Variable Music Lesson Usually Including a Piano, and Almost Sacred Wednesday Tower Bell Practise.* I’ve been taking voice lessons, what? Is it as much as two months yet?** They have no business entering the sacred category this quickly.*** I object. I protest. Okay, listen up, all you regular blog readers. If I ever start saying things like ‘I’d really like to try . . .’, ‘I’m thinking I want to try . . .’, ‘I’m getting old so if I’m ever going to try . . .’ I WANT YOU ALL TO FALL ON ME IN A BODY SHOUTING NO, NO, NO, NO, YOU DON’T WANT TO DO ANYTHING ELSE. REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED WHEN YOU DECIDED TO TAKE VOICE LESSONS. Are we quite clear about that? Dranglefabs. Geez.
So you can take quite a lot of last Tuesday’s entry as read again. I’ve been telling myself I should cancel my voice lesson, blah blah blah, I should cancel everything, blah blah blah, till I get PEGASUS done† (blah blah blah). I was even thinking a tiny sore throat—just the veriest tinge of a sore throat: just to last a few hours of Tuesday morning—just enough for me not to want to risk it, or to risk Blondel††, and cancel, and stay home and work on PEGASUS. As soon as I made the fatal phone call the sore throat could go away again.
I feel fine.†††
So I hurtled hellhounds in a timely manner so I could get down to the mews and run through my repertoire before I had to go pay money to make someone listen to me sing. ‡ Saints preserve us, what a noise. ‡‡
But.
But I noticed . . . when I practise at home, because it’s all so difficult, and there are so many bits to remember, I cut it up in lots of little pieces. One of those little pieces is the frelling Italian. (Or Latin, in Panis’ case.) This week—with doing my exercises and having the occasional run-through of the melodies just so I don’t forget them, which is about as much as I have time for at the moment—I’ve been trying to do something about the frelling words. I do this chiefly by muttering, as I play the piano with one finger. Today I thought, hmm, I should probably have a try, you know, singing the words. Words and music. And one finger dragging me through the tune. ‡‡‡
You need to realise that my muttering is just muttering—it’s just my ordinary voice, which is to say it’s also the voice I used to sing with§, before I started in with Blondel. And I had this revelation this morning, when I moved into singing that . . . something is really happening. I know I said last week that I was producing the occasional note that sounded like a note. It’s not that I’m (yet) producing that many notes that sound like notes. But what is clearly happening is that when I sing now my voice climbs out of my throat and the top of my chest and moves into my belly and the front of my face. I can’t keep it there, and things do keep falling over or closing down or§§ going catastrophically flat—but it’s still clearly something happening.§§§ This is thrilling.¤
And I love singing with a music stand. Even if waving my hands around is kind of one more dratted thing to remember, and I keep getting stuck. I will eventually stop getting stuck because waving my hands around is obviously part of the system in terms of Me Singing.
And he gave me another new piece—after I’d finished bashing and caterwauling poor old Panis and Caro. I’m beginning to think that Blondel, far from being the calm focussed young professional he likes to present as, is just as nuts as . . . oh, as Oisin, say, in his own way. More music! he says. Mwa ha ha ha ha! Keep ’em off balance! Keep ’em moving! Keep ’em from getting too bogged down in what they can’t do yet! Let ’em develop confidence¤¤ and flexibility by having a go at lots of stuff! Today he said cheerfully, I have something from the Messiah I thought you might look at.
The . . . what? —I suppose it depends on how seriously you take your Handel. There are those who think he is sort of the 18th century Elton John¤¤¤. I would not be one of them. I think he is a Great Composer. And I’m in the early stages of deciding he’s a frelling ratbag of a Great Composer—or that Blondel has an Interesting Sense of Humour. Or both. He’s given me ‘He Was Despised’. We sight read it together—ha ha ha ha ha–okay, at least he sang it with me. But the only reason it wasn’t so embarrassing that I had to throw myself out the (open) window£ is because I know the Messiah pretty well because I love it to death, so the absolutely diabolical tune only finished scaring me to death in the places where the singer has to come in alone. Alone! And I know Blondel will be expecting me to sing it by myself next week!
But gods and glory, what a gorgeous piece of music. If Blondel can stand listening££, I daresay I can stand having a go.
* * *
* There’s also Sacred Handbell Practise, but that’s still a bit mutable, to Niall’s unending anguish. And there’s hellhound hurtling, of course, but that’s not really sacred. That’s more . . . preservation of life as we know it. I don’t really want to imagine what a couple of unhurtled hellhounds would be capable of. And one must have hellhounds, of course, if one is a hellgoddess.
And there’s also planting thirty roses, but I’m not thinking about that yet.
** Tactfully disregarding the fortnight’s holiday Blondel took shortly after I began taking lessons. How careless of him.
*** Piano lessons with Oisin did. And look where that got me. Composing^, and . . . voice lessons.
^ And I refuse to disregard Finale, composing software programme Infested with Demons.
† Preferably by the 8th of October. Eeep.
†† There are advantages to external instruments. That you buckle up in cases or close the door on and that never have head-colds. And which you don’t need to use for Loud Remonstrance at offspring/ spouses/ colleagues/ hellhounds/ computers/ rosebushes/ All Stars’ shoelaces/ doorframes/ other drivers etc.
††† Well, my brain is squishy, but I have been working on PEGASUS. I just stopped for two hours this afternoon. I’m also a little short on sleep. I was reading TWICE-BORN last night. Peter says there’s a cameo for a hellgoddess in it. I haven’t got to her yet.
‡ One of Blondel’s few faults is that he has this obsession with fresh air.^ And today it happened. I looked up from my music stand and Blondel’s neighbour was outdoors in his garden hanging up laundry mere feet from Blondel’s open window. Aaaaaaugh. He had a pretty tortured expression on his face too.
^ So do I, of course. I have two or three windows open at the cottage till there are positively ice crystals forming on the glass. But I don’t sing at the cottage. And I close all the windows at the mews before I get anywhere near the piano for any reason.
‡‡ What do you think, whose neighbours start cruising the real estate ads first? Violin teachers’ neighbours or voice teachers’ neighbours?
‡‡‡ This is multitasking of a very high order, words and music and a finger on the piano. –I don’t know how all those self-accompanying singers do it. There must be a Z chromosome or something, X for a girl, Y for a boy, and Z for being able to play and sing at the same time.
§ Chiefly Gypsy Rover, Suzanne, and Green Grow the Rushes Oh
§§ Speaking of the neighbours and estate agents’ ads
§§§ I’m also making more noise. Oh dear. This is not necessarily a good thing. See previous footnote.
¤ Easy endorphin high, remember? That’s me. This body/mind has many drawbacks and weaknesses, but that’s one of its virtues.
¤¤ Well, confidence is pushing it
¤¤¤ Hey, he can play and sing at the same time . . .
£ I would of course try not to land on the laundry-hanging neighbour
££ I’m not sure what we do about the neighbour . . . can’t he get an OFFICE JOB?
