Another 50k!

Today, I wrote until I had two and a half pages, then got annoyed that Adir was being so blah today, and wrote someone else until I had gotten through 2k. I took a break to play Star Wars cards with Tom (which I lost, miserably, surprise). I kept writing until my word count hit 50k, then came over to check and see what the Official NaNoWriMo Word Counter sapped out of my count, while another scene was still in my head to write.

AND IT ADDED WORDS!!!!?!?! This has neeeeever happened to me ever. I gained almost 200 words.



So, as usual, I came nowhere NEAR the end of the story itself. Just as well really, as I now have like 473902 other side-stories that need battered into shape. For as much as I meant this year to fill in gaps of the first version... I've added so, so much content. Relationships like whoa. I'm really, really happy, I feel like it adds so much depth, having given the characters more room to spread out a bit and gain some extra dimensions. (We'll just ignore today's bit with Adir - he killed Sadie out of desperation, really, he had to do SOMETHING. bleck.)

As usual, more will be added to the story as time rolls on. Haven't decided if it will go here, or if I'll be a more reasonable person and build a page for the story itself, now that I'm moving so many chapters and things around. If you're interested in the few bits I haven't re-posted here, follow the link on the right to the '07 Amaranthus - the Carey chapter near the end is probably going to be changed to Adir, and maybe be tacked onto the crappy Adir section I just wrote. There will be some more ominous bad things that happen, and then the last chunk posted over there, with Luce and Azal. Things get REALLY bad, and then everything goes to hell. Only sort of literally. <3

Notes

Alright! Just shy of a day behind on the wordcount. I snuck in an hour or so of writing last night before bedtime, which helped a little. I wrote a little extra today, and hopefully can squeak some more in. If not.. well, I'm off work on Monday and Tuesday, which are the last two days of November. ;)

The Official NaNoWriMo Word Counter usually tells me I have fewer words than I'd thought (every word count works differently) - I just found a forum thread that explains what Open Office's issue is. It likes to count the end-quotation marks as a word. This can be fixed by turning off the smart-quotes-like feature, so the quotes all stay straight instead of curly.

...unfortunately, mine are already all curly. I have a TON of conversation in the novel this year. I miiight go in and find-and-replace the quotes, but... more likely, I'll just write extra, cross my fingers, use the official word count, swear and fume and spew out a few hundred more words, and then hopefully hit 50k. Next year maybe I'll set it up properly from the start, and avoid the annual trauma.


On another topic - yes, I forgot about Cerise too. ^^; I've already made note to bring her into the middle areas of the story more, sometime when re-writing. I need more female characters! And she's a lovely little contrast to everyone else. Also, she will be a catalyst for the closing scenes, and.. well, she was in my dream that gave me the opening scene at the rose party. So, she stays, and needs to gain enough presence to merit staying. I have no idea why Luce, of all people, is her escort, but that's what he demanded of me this morning.

I'm glad I thought of a way for them to die, but be incapable of dying. I think it's a good balance. They need to be generally immortal, but... I suspect Veri ought to die, and it's going to break my heart to do that to Meres. Honestly, they were supposed to have a happy sweet little reunion like two scenes after the rose party! I have no idea what is happening to them, but it's making me really, really sad. It was supposed to be the love between the two of them that was the bright spot in the story...

Note - music

EEEEE!!! So, writing this morning, I have fiiiinally gotten Mephisto to wander over to the room with the hydraulis in it. (This has been making me crazy, because it's such an awesome-sounding instrument, that I had to use it, but couldn't yet.) I think there's one in a song or two among the 734820 I downloaded last week, but, wasn't sure, so went back to this video I posted a link to the other day, to get a refresher on the sound.

It's the Song of Seikilos!!! I didn't even know! The video was one of the earlier things I looked at that day, and it wasn't until later that I sat down and taught myself the song. (I now have it memorized, and it makes me very, very happy to be able to sing.)

...of course, now I have a *third* version to listen to, and so far each one has slightly different pronunciations in it. As I know no Greek whatsoever, I'm going to have to arbitrarily decide between them. hmm.

Notes - Tday and other things...

Boo for all the scary red squares on my NaNo graph! But, I got almost two days ahead before we left, so... I should be able to catch up?

Tom and I drove down to NC to spend Thanksgiving with his family, which was really, really lovely. On top of that, he chose this trip to propose to me.

So, yeah, writing? Little distracted. ;) (Full story - which is not the best engagement story ever, but, our story! - will be up on my personal blog eventually.)

I did manage to sneak like 600 words in one night, but couldn't get anybody's device to play nice with the wifi, so didn't update anything. It'll be in with today's posting... assuming I can focus long enough to write today. ^^;

Notes - Ancient Greek Music

Aaand a few hours later, I have decided that apparently my Phistos are going to have a Greek party. Very original, isn't it? But I now have a full page of tiny scrawl about ancient Greek instruments, and vague notes on the different tonalities.

Highlights of the day's internet digging:

Reconstructed hydraulis, video.

A site I have read in its entirety... and though I was here for the Greek, the Hurrian melody has really.. well, eaten my soul. Music in cuneiform!!! There is a midi file there, and then there is this guy, who has a lyre and plays not only that song, but the Delphic Hymns to Apollo (138bc! most of it intact!), and loads of other interesting things.

The Song of Seikilos is the oldest intact piece of music, and the lyrics translate like this:
While you live, shine
Don't suffer anything at all;
Life exists only a short while
And time demands its toll."

There are also these folks, who are working to make digital reproductions of instruments that no longer exist. This is fascinating to me. So far, they've managed the Greek epigonion, but they're working on a handful more - and I reallyreally wish some snippets were available of the others, but... I have some descriptions (thanks wiki), at least.

...all of this, will be more than enough for the probably single paragraph at most of describing the scene I should have written hours ago. whoops. At least I've learned that the aulos, in all its various forms, is not a pretty little flute-like thing. It's a reed instrument, and has that harsh edge to the tone that oboes and bagpipes and things do. Luckily there are loads of stringed things, and the syrinx (pan-pipes).

History of Recorded Music

Aaaand I just spent nearly two hours pouring over phonograph history. I had a hunch records weren't around in the late 1800s (not even the giant breakable shellac ones). I remembered seeing cylinders put into a phonograph-like thing in "An American Tale". That was all.

Thanks to Wikipedia, I now have the entire early history of sound recording lodged in my brain:

The phonautograph - earliest sound recorder, but was NOT intended for playback. Just took down the waveforms, essentially. Two years ago someone finally figured out how to reproduce the sound, and thanks to FirstSounds.org, I got to listen to a scientist singing in 1860s - a scrap of music that went completely unheard, and unlistenable, for over 150 years. Really, really haunting.

But obviously, that is not what my characters would have had on hand. Cylinders (which could both record and play back) showed up around the 1870s, so that's plausible. I spent awhile over on Tinfoil.com, which has A FREAKING TON of recordings from old cylinders - there are select recordings from the 1890s onward posted, and you can purchase cds (and in my case, listen to samples) of things from cylinders going back to the 1880s. Peeeerfect.

Only, Edison used tinfoil-covered cylinders first. A couple years later, wax ones came along, which had much better sound and were easier to handle. So, I need to decide which I'm going with - this feels like a HUGE decision to make, as it basically decides whether my story takes place after 1886 (wax cylinders patented).

...this, of course, is not something that aaanyone would nitpick me on. I don't think anachronisms within a couple of years count for much, when the setting is over a hundred years ago.

Still, I'm oddly fascinated by this stuff. I went through about half of Rene Rondeau's amazing site filled with pictures and descriptions of the early machines. (A talking doll from 1890?! With a tiny little wax cylinder player in her chest! I am all kinds of delightfully terrified by this thing.) While most of the recordings on Tinfoil.com are very static (wax cylinders wore down after about a dozen plays, plus mold and age do not play nicely with them), there's a video embedded on Rene Rondeau's site, that shows a recent demonstration of a tinfoil cylinder. Sound quality? Is *really*, really impressive, especially for music. So impressive, that I think Mackie is going to get one. Well, maybe a wax one - I suspect Mackie is going to be the very first audiophile. XD lmfao.

...and, there, wiki's article on phonograph cylinders: commercial ones would play about 2 minutes of music. That's what I was looking for. (Descriptions of gorgeous tinfoil machines like this one - which I am insanely in love with - mention things like "could only record 50-60 words". Not quite enough to work with.) Tough to find pictures of machines from before 1900, and apparently the material the earliest wax cylinders were made of...uh, didn't survive well. Many fogged during the summer due to high heat, and inconsistent ingredient formulations were an issue. (The tinfoil ones can't be played back anymore at all. That's so sad.)

The cardboard tubes the cylinders were packaged in? Just gave company name, artist info was hand-written on them. No marking on the cylinders themselves at all - though an announcer often gave that info at the start of the recording. To hold one properly, you should stick your fingers inside the cylinder at either end, not touching the wax part. (This, on further thought, makes an awful lot of sense. You could buy attachments to shave flat - and thus erase - recorded cylinders.) Such odd little details, things you'd never think of questioning...

Also - I suspect that, come editing time (and/or desperate-for-wordcount-time), I am going to make some serious, serious use of this stunning collection of old sheet music. What a truly amazing resource, I cannot WAIT to dive into it!

...but I should probably remedy my word count first. Worked early yesterday, so only had time to put in about 700 words in the morning, and when I got home, there was a football game to watch with Tom, and then we decided to have a nice lil evening. (Didn't post on here yesterday - backdated it when posted today.) Poor lil word count.

One last link: piano recording, no date, though I'd guess late 1880s-early 1890s, since it's a white cylinder of a metal soap, which was tried shortly after wax ones came on the market.

November 1st again!

Hello, NaNoNovember! Halloween was, as always, total insanity at work. I have, as usual, too many crochet projects on my plate that really absolutely need worked on. I have not, as ever, been in the habit of seriously writing for months.

But I know full well how happy I always am during November, when I'm fully engrossed in the world of whatever story I'm working on. So, despite the usual trepidation, here I am again. :)

I'm sototally breaking the solemn interdiction of NaNoLand, and going back to work on an old novel. You're not supposed to do this, because a) it's restrictive, and b) insanely tempting to go into editing mode, rather than free-write mode. However, I'm feeling pretty confident after winning the last three years, and (sort of) feel up to the challenge. Also, I have huuuuuge swathes of story that need written in between the bits I wrote that year. Bits and pieces were added over the last couple of years, which I'm going to try desperately not to put toward my wordcount this month (if I decide to get them typed up). :p

Haven't yet decided if/what I'm going to re-post here - the early version has had several bouts of revision, lots of little things added, so I might copy-paste those sections here where appropriate, so anyone reading doesn't have giant chunks left out of the story. We'll see what time allows.


...and now it's past noon on Day One, and I haven't even finished re-reading the first chapter of the original version, in order to get back into my characters' heads. But! I have an outline! With vast expanses of asterisks and ideas sketched in and things that need to be added. (I only have ONE section from Veri's pov??? Really??!?) So I will be clinging to that, and lots of coffee&tea&hot chocolate& cookies.

Time to read, shower, think. And I think I'll copy-paste over here the early sections of the novel, as it stands in its latest revision. (I got about halfway through last time around, so these will definitely read prettier than the things to come!)