Another Blog (There Always Is)

Having an extra three minutes in my day, I decided to start another blog, an "official" arts and entertainment blog for the newspaper. I haven't decided exactly what to do with it, but am starting with a series on area coffeehouses (the musical sort) . I'll include my various reviews, along with other thoughts; and try to make use of blog features (links, pictures, audio, video, comments, etc.).

I am calling it "Notes on the Arts." It's not terribly creative, I know, but if you think of "notes" as musical notes, it creates a nice mental image. Perhaps a good graphic would convey that.

It is in Wordpress, which seems like a foreign language to me, after Blogger, so I haven't figured everything out yet (and am resisting change, though there seem to be some advantages to Wordpress). It's not publicly online yet, but I will keep you posted.

Slow month, blogwise

This has been my slowest month, postwise, since I started this blog. This will be my ninth post this month, much fewer than usual. It's not that I don't have anything to say; it's just that I have no time to say it. Or maybe that I have nothing bloggable to say.

On the other hand, according to Sitemeter, this shortest month is my highest month ever, in terms of people dropping in to read what I have to say. Perhaps there's a strategy there. Thanks for reading!

A quick update on my musical activities: I have a cello recital coming up soon. My good friend and violinist Laura is playing piano for me and coaching me, and I thank her!

My flute performance at church went well (the one where I slept through the rehearsal). I have another flute performance at another church (my own) on Sunday. This time, I am accompanying the choir, which I love to do, but I have not gotten all the entrances down yet. There is a final rehearsal just before the performance, when, I am sure, everything will fall into place. We have a wonderful conductor, and I need to rely more on him instead of my thus-far-ineffective combination of watching him, the vocal line, the flute line, and counting. (I don't have separate flute music for this, so am reading off the vocal score.) Going with the flow is the best option for this piece, about caring about the person whose hand you take at church.

There is a women's fiddle session on Saturday. I enjoy these because we are working on a limited number of tunes, we allow sheet music, and we generally play slower than with the larger group. It gives me a chance to try and work out some appropriate cello lines, though I never have enough time.

I need to practice! But, first, back to work....

NaNoWriMo

I have never written an entire short story, but I have decided to write a novel in November. I am participating in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) this year. Participants are expected to write a novel (50,000 words) in a month (1,666 2/3 words per day, according to the NaNoWriMo web site). It doesn't have to be great literature, and no one will actually read it unless you want them to. The idea is to just encourage people to write, to dispel that starting-at-a-blank-computer-screen writer's block, and get going. Your efforts may be sheer drivel, but out of that drivel, the organizers say, will come some good things, maybe even some good writing. You're not supposed to edit as you go, just write, ignoring your inner critic, and (finally) produce that novel you've always wanted to write, or at least a portion of it. (You edit in December or January.) The social support and pressure of thousands of people around the world doing this at the same time is supposed to encourage and sustain you. There are online and local support groups, tips and suggestions, and a guidebook, No Plot, No Problem! A plot is helpful though.

NaNoWriMo began in 1999 with 21 participants. Last year there were 79,000, with 13,000 finishing 50,000 words by the end of the month.

You're supposed to tell everyone you know that you are participating. According to NaNoWriMo:

Tell everyone you know that you're writing a novel in November. This will pay big dividends in Week Two, when the only thing keeping you from quitting is the fear of looking pathetic in front of all the people who've had to hear about your novel for the past month. Seriously. Email them now about your awesome new book. The looming specter of personal humiliation is a very reliable muse.

So, I'm telling you about my novel. It will (probably, maybe, possibly) be about a woman in her 50s or 60s, who reinvents herself several times (not necessarily successfully) as she ages and about the other people, mostly women, who influence her. A friend referred to this, in a kindly way, as a "menopause novel," and it probably is. My concept is, of course, somewhat autobiographical, drawing on my life, my mother's life, several relatives and friends, people like Elizabeth Layton, and a dreadful woman who entered my life 10 or 11 years ago, just about a year before she died, suddenly, of ovarian cancer. We collided, and I kind of ricocheted off her in an ultimately positive way. There will be cellos in my novel, of course, and chamber music groups, artists, and someone who owns a restaurant. It will probably take place on Cape Cod because I like Cape Cod-based fiction and so that, should I ever finish it, there will be a spot for it on local bookstore shelves. I'll probably write in first person, perhaps from several different characters' points of view. It won't be a memoir; it will be fiction, just loosely based on my experiences, so that I can veer off and climb Mount Everest or actually master the cello in my novel, if I choose to.

Write what you know, they say. Or, better, write the novel you want to read. My novel could easily change change direction completely, of course. Fictional characters do have a way of going off in their own directions.

I do not intend to blog the novel as I write; I am quite sure it will need significant editing before it sees the light of day. I don't really expect to reach 150,000 words either. Even though I tend toward long, verbose posts, 1,666 and 2/3 words every day are a lot of words, and I am already a little overextended. But this is something I have always wanted to do. I do spend a bit of time on the Internet; perhaps I can convert that time into a novel-like substance.

As required, I will not begin writing the novel in advance of the November 1 start date, but I have, as recommended, started jotting down some notes and trying to figure out a plot and define some characters.

Mostly, though, I am reading other people's novels for inspiration. I just finished George Hagen's The Laments and starting Andromeda Romano-Lax's (what a name!) novel inspired by Casals: The Spanish Bow. One of these days I would like to write a novel based on an historical figure in music. I loved Marrying Mozart, for instance. But I don't think NaNoWriMo is the time for that. An historical novel requires at least a little time for research.

Oh, and I also signed up for NaBloPoMo, National Blog Posting Month. All you have to do is post to your blog every day in November. This one I'm sure I can do. I don't think there are any length or content rules. I have looked at the blogs of random participants, and they seem to be bloggers serious about their content, not people who would post "I blogged today!" and call it a post. There are various self-identified subgroupings of bloggers. I joined the one for people doing both NaNoWriMo and NaBloPoMo, though I don't think anyone in this group will have much time for posting there. There is another group dedicated to commenting on other participant's blogs. There is a music group, but it seems to be for those who like to embed or link to music clips, rather than create it.

This particular post is over 900 words. Maybe it won't be impossible to write 1,666 and 2/3 words a day--at least once or twice.

Technorati, for blog searches and tools

Those interested in searching for other blogging cellists or blogs about any other topic might want to check out Technorati. Technorati is a highly rated blog search engine and also provides information about your blog, such as how many links there are to your blog from other blogs. You can "claim" your blog to provide additional information.

You can check out blogs by popularity. Most of the top blogs have to do with technology news. Technorati also has many blog tools, none of which I have had a chance to explore yet, but some look useful.