What are you writing with/on/about?

I've barely touched my fountain pens since October.  For writing at work and at home, with few exceptions, it has been graphite all the way: either my assortment of woodcase pencils, or my new favorite mechanical pencil, the Graphgear 1000, which I love for its pocket friendly retractable mechanism and its solid feel.  It goes everywhere with me.

At some point in the future, I'll almost certainly snap out of this phase, get annoyed with the way graphite smears or the lack of contrast compared to a strongly colored ink, but at the moment, pencils are where it's at.  No messy liquid ink, no delicate nibs to worry about, no gizmos to wear out or break, no surprises.  Scrape the point on a page, it makes a mark.  If the point gets dull, put it through a few turns of the sharpener.  Doesn't get much simpler than that.  Current favorites: the Musgrave Test Scoring 100 (may have more complete thoughts to post regarding that one in the next week or so), General's Semi-Hex, California Republic Golden Bears, Palomino HBs, and (perhaps surprisingly) Ticonderogas--though I still feel a major difference between the Mexican made ones and the Chinese made.  The Chinese ones are way better.  As for paper, I'm still stuck on a combination of composition books and loose-leaf.

I admit, what with my current music obsession, I've mostly slacked off on all writing save my journal.  But this week, the itch is back.  I've started scribbling notes and ideas again.  This weekend, I plan to read back through my NaNoWriMo story--such as it is, what there is of it--and think about continuing.  And I'm about done editing a short story.

I also should really write some letters.  I am the typosphere's worst correspondent, bar none.  The competition isn't even *close*.

I haven't been using the typewriters much, for whatever reason.  I'm sure that pendulum will swing back eventually.

So...what are *you* working on?  And what are you writing with: a particular pen/pencil/typewriter/program?  What are you writing on: scrap paper/favorite notebook/fancy journal/large stones?  And what have you been writing about?

Well...that was interesting. Ice storm!

Lazy photo post today, because I'm still in recovery.  We had a beautiful snow storm on Wednesday, and I was stuck at home, but it was kinda pleasant: I had electricity and heat and all, and I baked bread and read and played music and watched the snow fall.

Pretty snow...

Wednesday night, it was supposedly going to warm up rather rapidly overnight as the snow turned to freezing rain and then plain rain.  The roads were predicted to be bad early in the day, but then everything would thaw out and be just messy and wet.  Yeah.  Right.  Instead, we got ice, and lots and lots of it.  By the time I woke up on Thursday morning, the power had been out for several hours, and the temperature in the house was beginning to drop.

Icy trees and cables

By the middle of the day, you could stand outside and hear a constant cracking, popping, thumping sound from the woods all the way around, as one tree after another lost its battle with the thickening ice.  It was eerie, really.  One of the trees in my backyard fell, one trunk at a time, about making jump out of my skin each time.  That was loud!  Fortunately the dog was in the house when it fell, and it didn't take anything out with it.  Some houses and yards weren't so lucky.

What a mess!

Between all the fallen trees and the heavy ice hanging on cables themselves, it's no wonder there were so many outages...

I played mandolin quite a bit on Thursday, before the house cooled down to the point where it was too cold to play much.  Wrote this tune, which remains untitled, more or less...or maybe I'll leave the temporary title in place in memory of this week:

Iced In

Power remained out until last night, and it got down into the low forties in the house and stayed there.  Cold enough to see your breath.  I hung out with neighbors on Friday, though slept here--with a sleeping bag and a bunch of blankets, it was OK, except I kept dreaming of power trucks coming and fixing the lines.  And yesterday, I was *finally* able to get my car out of the snow and ice and out of the drive.  The wreckage out there is humbling: trees down everywhere, and you can imagine just how many were over the roads before work started.  I spent much of yesterday hanging out at coffee houses and grocery stores, reading and just savoring warmth.  My Kindle really helped keep me sane in all this, I gotta say.

But it was soooooo awesome to get home last night and finally find the power on.  Hot showers, real coffee, the ability to do *laundry*!  I missed them so much!

The wind is really picking up out there as another smaller storm comes through.  Crossing my fingers that it won't be enough to break things all over again...

Couple more ice pictures, just because...

Friends and Nemeses (and Emma)

I could mention that I did *try* to do a typecast version of the index card note, since you're likely getting sick of trying to decipher my handwriting, but my typewriters don't care much for these cards and after a certain amount of arguing with them, I gave up.

OK, some of you asked for mandolin samples.  This will teach you to be careful what you ask for.  Here are a coupla tunes:

1. Emma's Waltz, with a friend playing chords.  It's a little too slow.  Also, because I'm petrified, there are no dynamics or variations or that.  I do love this tune, though.  It's purty.

2. Lark in the Morning.  This second tune is one I've been fighting with tooth and nail: a four part Irish jig they play at the local Irish session pretty much every week.  I took an instant dislike to it and it became a nemesis of sorts: every time I tried to learn it, my brain put up an instant barrier.  "Uh-uh.  Not letting THAT THING in here.  No sir!"  But this past weekend I decided to put aside past differences and try to make friends with it.  It's rather growing on me now, though there may be a certain amount of Stockholm Syndrome coming into play.  This is an imperfect take, but it was also about take fifteen.  Good 'nough, I guess.  You get the idea.  Keep in mind that at a session, I'd be just one of a dozen instruments playing it...kinda boring with just mando, and you hear every stinkin' flaw.

I've gotten to practice a bit today, since I'm currently snowed in, and could potentially be so again tomorrow.  Pretty stuff, though!

Not Dead Yet

Reason #1 I haven't been blogging: I've been obsessively practicing mandolin and learning new tunes.  Tunes I've learned since the beginning of November:


OK, I confess, I'd played Banish Misfortune before, but not memorized it, so maybe that one's a lie.  Still, not bad all told, if I do say so myself.  And most of them, I know well enough to play at the local Irish session, without toooo many stumbles.  However, the list of commonly played tunes they gave me when I first started attending is sixty tunes long, and it seems like people toss out new ones every week, so this list is a drop in the bucket.  I still have a lot of work cut out for me.  Fun work, though, for the most part, with the exception of Lark in the Morning Jig.  Don't ask me why, but I developed an instant antipathy for that tune.  Maybe I'm not as much of a morning person as I thought I was.  But I'll beat the Lark yet.

Reason #2 I haven't been blogging: I've been sucked down the e-reader rabbit hole.

Quite a number of family members have obtained Kindles over the past few months and all have been raving about them.  And these days, you can borrow library books on them, which knocks down one of the mental barriers I'd set up against them.  The selection of library e-books isn't great, but it's growing.  And Kindles have come down a lot in price.  A few years ago, they were what, $350?  Now, they're under a hundred. 

I got to play with my sister-in-law's new Kindle Touch for awhile over Christmas, and then when I was at Target on New Year's Eve, they had a returned one marked down to $69.  Plus I had a Target gift card.  Plus I am weak.  It came home with me.  Ended up having a bad USB cable, but my phone uses the same cable so I could charge it straight off, and Amazon customer service was happy to send a replacement for the original.  Good deal.

I have to say, I'm smitten.  There is much to be said for the ability to carry many, many large, heavy books in one bitty package, and the ability to request any classic (and a lot of other stuff) for free at the touch of a coupla buttons, without even getting off the couch.  Also, it's lighter and more comfortable to hold than a lot of big books, lays flat, and I can lazily turn pages with one hand whilst eating lunch or what have you.  I haven't bought much yet, aside from Mr. Speegle's short story collection, and Life of Pi, which I've been wanting to read for awhile and which I got for a dollar as one of the "special offers."  But I've gone through half a dozen library books with more in the queue, plus have a bunch of classics and out-of-print goodies waiting in the wings. (First up, some lighter reading: lotsa PG Wodehouse and a smattering of Mary Roberts Rinehart mysteries.)

It doesn't replace real books by any means.  There are still an awful lot of things not available for Kindle, for one thing, and I'm still likely to drag home large stacks of cheap used books, which isn't an option for e-books.  Still, I'm seriously pleased with the little thing.

Anyhow, between reading and music, I've barely had time for things like, oh, bathing, let alone blogging.  What did I miss?  Are we there yet?

Awkward

I wear a hat to bed in the winter, and use a sleeping bag as a comforter.  This lets me turn the heat down at night, thus saving money for more entertaining things than heat.  My favorite hat for these purposes is a thoroughly goofy thing I would never, ever, ever wear out in public: it's blue and white with a pseudo Nordic sweater print, a big pom-pom, ear flaps, and (at the ends of the ear flaps) two long blue and white yarn braids, like ragdoll hair.  It's wild, but it's warm

So...Saturday morning, I get up relatively early, and--still wearing my goofy hat and my long johns--become engrossed in messing around on the mandolin.  I found a really neat Russian klezmer-ish sort of tune and was all but dancing around the living room with the mandolin going to *town* on that tune (not your typical fare, but ooh, it's fun stuff!).  And then there was a knock at the door.

My landlady wanted to let me know someone would be by soon to work on a minor plumbing issue.  She was nice enough not to comment on either my attire or my odd choice of noise-making.

I have no idea what she must think of me now.

Out but not Down

Halvah taking advantage of a momentary break...

I am officially throwing in the towel for NaNoWriMo 2011, at least as far as hitting 50k is concerned.  If I had more free time, maybe I'd do some frenzied catching up, but I don't, and music is still taking priority. The fact that I feel great relief rather than guilt in letting go of this particular goal tells me it's the right thing to do.

I wrote a lot over the course of this year, pretty consistently, usually two or three pages a day.  I've proven to myself I can take a story and finish it without needing a contest as motivation, so I'm not too worried.  If this story is worth writing, it will be written.

Now getting ready for the type-in in a bit here!  Wouldn't miss that, even if I'm no longer a Typewriter Brigade member.

Also working on a set of polka tunes: Bill Sullivan's / Dennis Murphy's / Sean Ryan's.  Bill Sullivan is a decent chap, I'm in love with Sean Ryan, but Dennis Murphy is not my friend at the moment.  Maybe I'll record these (albeit in rather bland solo mandolin format) once I get them down.

Music 1, NaNoWriMo 0

Musical things I did this week: 
1. Went to two concerts: one jazz/swing, with Paul Anastasio, an excellent fiddler (he played with Asleep at the Wheel, and for Merle Haggard, among others), and also saw Randal Bays, who is a highly decent Irish fiddler and also a great guitarist, both fingerstyle and rhythm (he was the rhythm guitarist on Martin Hayes' first few albums, for those of you who know who Martin Hayes is...)  Both concerts were at a very small local venue, where you could really see what the musicians were doing.  Lots of fun!

2. Went to the local Irish session for the second time.  It's a somewhat humiliating experience in that I don't know the tunes yet, so everyone assumes I'm a rank beginner and treats me with the sort of condescending kindness reserved for beginning musicians in such situations.  They're all very nice--don't get me wrong--but it can be a blow to the ego.  Not that I'm advanced, but...I know I'm better than I seem to be.  I hate that feeling.  The other frustrating aspect is that the mandolin is *so* much quieter than a whole crowd of fiddles and whistles, so I can't hear myself at all.  Even on the tunes I do know, I have to more or less hope my fingers are going where they're supposed to, and I'm very reluctant to experiment with playing along on tunes I don't know well because I can't hear how wrong or right I am.

We shall see how this develops.  I'm determined to go regularly and really work on learning the music, no matter what, but I'm developing fiddle envy.  The concerts didn't help this.

3. Practiced "some whole bunch," as a younger sibling used to say, including visiting a friend so we could practice Emma's Waltz, which we're going to do as a duet at the open mic portion of a monthly jam we both attend.

And I'm working on chords (memorizing plus executing), a bit of theory (modes and scales, mostly), and trying to learn the Irish session tunes, one or two at a time.  It will be a long while before I've got even a fraction of them down well enough to play at full speed. :\  But you have to start somewhere.  I also foolishly picked up a pennywhistle this week, and have been goofing around with that.  Too fun!

NaNoWriMo stuff I did this week:
OK, so maybe it isn't quite a *zero* score.  I have about thirty letter-sized pages written as of this afternoon, which I'm hoping to transcribe over the next few days.  But even though the story is fun and the narrator interesting, I'm really struggling to stay focussed and motivated.  I had some time off this week due to the wisdom teeth yanking on Monday (which went fine, by the way), and hoped to get ahead of the game, but I figure I'm about a day behind instead (hopefully a bit less by later today).  Here's hoping the time change helps give me a boost over the next few days.  I've learned from past NaNoWriMos that morning writing time is the make-it-or-break-it element for me: I simply cannot just make up for it in the evening.  My mind doesn't work well at night.  At all.

Now, if you'll pardon me, I gotta go play "Cup of Tea" about eleventy billion more times.

Lazy Update Just to Update

I'd like to say I've not posted much because I've been so busy mapping out my NaNoWriMo story, but the truth is I've been obsessing about music instead.  Note to self: the week before NaNo is not the best time to rekindle a fanatical interest in one's primary instrument of the moment (mandolin, in this case).  But I still want to ride that wave as long as it lasts.  So we'll see how November goes...

I did get out and wander a bit yesterday, in town and out, and pictures (even poor cell phone photos, as is the case) make for easy, lazy update fodder.

First off, I went back to the downtown Olympia, WA antique place I'm always yammering on about: Finder's Keepers, on 4th Ave.  It's almost always a fun place to browse, whether or not I buy anything.

There were a number of typewriters this time around, some of more interest than others.  This Royal was in pretty rough cosmetic shape and didn't have a case.

This Smith Corona standard is absolutely gorgeous...but it's also $75.  Lovely thing, though.

This little guy tucked away on a bottom shelf looks kind of familiar, and likely a good candidate for a crazy paint job.  But for forty dollars...um...no.  Not even if I was in buying mode.

I was tempted by a number of vintage index card/recipe boxes.  They almost always have some pretty ones there.

Oh, and toys!  Look at this little doll house desk!  Isn't this adorable?  (Sorry about the glare--it was in a glass case, and I couldn't get a good angle).

I also saw this somewhat puzzling toy typewriter.  I guess you had to rotate the little wheel for each and every letter.  Good way to teach kids patience, I suppose...or drive little Johnny completely mad before his seventh birthday.

It was a beautiful sunny day, so I went off on a ramble down the trail as well--days like that are rare here this time of year!  Most of the fall has...fallen, and the trail is thickly carpeted with leaves, still colorful (though not the jewel-toned brightness of the sugar maples back home in Vermont...).  Along the way I saw a note posted on one of the mileposts offering a reward for the finding of a lost gold ring, and had to feel for the author: how is anyone to spot one tiny spot of gold in all that natural richness?

These little guys are out in force.  I lost track of how many I saw along the way--dozens, for certain.

And now I suppose I should buckle down and NaNo plan for one whole day.  Or an hour or so.  I have wisdom teeth coming out tomorrow (joy!), so I doubt I'll be doing much in the way of deep thinking.

Untitled (and likely to remain so)

Some of us have no trouble coming up with titles, sometimes even before we know what we're going to put in the story to go with the title. At the other end of the spectrum--the very, very, very distant other end--that's where I live.

Most of the poems I've written over the years are untitled. In my head and in my journals, I refer to stories by clumsy monikers like "the time travel story with the dog," and "the Philip and Maggie story," "the old space story," "the new space story," and "that amnesia thing." A very few have working titles, but even those tend to be awkward, hokey, or cutesy (examples: "Dangerous Memories," "Unlikely Angel"), and I pretty much uniformly dislike them all.

I've been trying to come up with some sort of working name for this year's NaNoWriMo, and once again feel like bashing my head against a wall. I have the basic story sort of laid out (in short, it's a rather goofy detective novel set in a future where there's magic, a frog turned into a woman who wants to figure out who did this to her and why, an impulsive and rather bossy fairy, and assorted other characters), but can I come up with a name? Of course not. I'd like something that sort of resembles the titles of old detective novels, being as how this is almost a parody...but the closest I've come up with are "The Color of Jealousy" and "When Worlds Collide," both of which sound disturbingly like bodice-rippers. Oh dear.

And so, little NaNo novel, you are likely to remain "the magic detective story." It's OK. I'll love you (and hate you) just as much as other folks do all their tidily named tales, I promise--bless your undefined heart.

NaNoWriMo Pencil Reunion

That was then:


This is now:

(Click the pics to view on Flickr if you'd like to see identifying notes).

They're all a bit battle-hardened (or shell-shocked) now.  They've seen things--terrible things: some of the worst prose ever penciled.  You young guns can't possibly understand until you've been there...

I did use some other pencils--Rhodia, a few different Staedtler pencils, a General's Layout...whatever happened to find its way into my pencil box on any given day. But those pencils took the brunt of the work. The relative length isn't necessarily an indication of how loved they were. I'm actually not sure how the Golden Bear came through so unscathed, for one thing! And I had trouble with the Oxford lead breaking, so that's part of how it ended up so dinky.

Another NaNoWriMo approaches now, and as I've mentioned, I'm starting off with pencil again this year, though I reserve the right to switch to fountain pen or typewriter or what-have-you (do *you* have a what-have-you?) if burn out or whim strikes.  This year's line-up looks something like this:

Somewhat in the same line as last year, with a few new faces.  Yes, that Blackwing 602 is already sadly shrunken and marked up.  What can I say?  It's getting used.  I really like it.  Once I use up the first Blackwing 602, I'll probably save the rest for journal writing and short story scribbling and other less crazed writing pursuits.  I can't resist using at least one in this mad venture, but it isn't as though I don't have plenty of other pencils to fill the void...

I'm still getting to know the Musgrave Test Scoring 100 pencil (which needs a shorter and less fussy name...maybe I'll call them all Bob).  In feel, it's a little like the Helix Oxford HB, though slightly less...waxy?  Seems to hold a point better than the Oxford, which makes me wonder if I was over hasty in classifying it as something like a 2B.  I'm not really sure *what* it is, grade-wise, but so far I like it, despite its rather poor reviews in the pencil blogosphere...which makes me wonder if my opinion is at all valid, or if I'm too ignorant to know good pencils from bad.  Or maybe I just need to spend more time with it before disliking it...heh.  I may yet do a highly subjective mini-review one of these days, after I've had more time to develop an accurate opinion.

I'm pleased to welcome some Ticonderogas back into the mix.  I had a few newish Mexican-made ones around last year, but was unhappy with them: the lead was scratchy and pale.  At some point in the past year, I picked up some Made in China Ticonderogas (the unsharpened kind that come in paper boxes), and these are entirely different.  Not sure if it's batch variance, a different formula for boxed vs. pre-sharpened in blister packs, or the country of origin...but I quite like the new ones.

I guess I don't have to run through the entire line-up.  They're all good, solid, dependable and (most importantly, perhaps) easily obtainable, so I don't have to feel afraid of using them...aside from maybe the Blackwing, which is so pleasant to use I just don't care.

Out of the running: I don't think I'll bother with any Mirado Black Warriors this time around.  I *so* wanted to like these, but at least in their current iteration, they are disappointingly poor quality.  I think the lead itself is actually pretty nice, but of those I've sharpened so far, one was warped to the point where the lead rattled and clicked inside the bent casing at certain points in its life, and others had lead so poorly centered that they were almost impossible to sharpen and they wobbled as you wrote.  Maybe there are some good pencils in the package, but I don't have the heart to mess with them quite yet. I haven't had the same issues with the yellow Mirado Classic.  Just lucky? I'm not sure.

You'll notice I have more in the line-up as a whole. Part of this is just because I...um...they kept following me home. Part of it is because I learned last year that variety is the spice of NaNoWriMo, and because I found it was much easier to keep my flow going when I had a whole bunch of pencils sharpened and at the ready for each writing session rather than stopping to sharpen along the way. I'd sharpen before I went to bed, and work through pencils the next day, tossing one aside when it got dull and reaching for another.

Now if I just had some idea how to start writing this thing....