Time
for the monthly #IWSG check for insecure writers for November. I, for
one, am truly glad Alex reminded us to keep “on topic” and to
visit others. You see, I have a tendency to ramble, deviate, run down
blind alleys, and about them participles? Let them dangle. What an
unholy mess! But, that is kind of the story of my life. Believe it or
not, I'm really happy with it, the way it is. I not only sight-read
music pretty well, and write by the seat-of-my-pants (poor
#NaNoWriMo; a 3rd novel that is a sequel to nothing, if
you get my drift), so, why not live my life by the seat of my pants?
I've
Scoobied my way out of so many messes, it's become my default state.
Want me to edit something? Ya better give me a blank piece of paper,
or a paper with a bunch of anagrams on it, and I'll cobble something
up for you, just don't expect any coherence out of it. I'm also kind
of in the “I don't give a damn” mood, because I'm doing something
right now that takes all thought and energy and focus away from every
other thing in my life: I'm playing my viola. I have insecurities
a-plenty about that, and not just because I'm playing over a motor
disorder and finding out new ways to skirt around that. The newest
thing I've discovered is to not take ANY of the medications
prescribed for either that or my bipolar or depression on the day of
performing and I'm fine. Take 'em after and I don't have to worry
about cramping and weirdness. I know, I know, I'm off topic. But, all
musicians are insecure; boy, howdy are they. But I got a “man, you
rock!” after Sunday's concert from some people I hold in high
esteem. That made me feel good for about 15 minutes. Then, I looked
at Wolf and went, “oh yeah, I still sucketh.” We all do it.
As
to writing. I'm trying like hell to dredge up some semblance of a
story that will fit with what I wrote 2 years ago, when I finished
NaNo and the 2nd book I didn't finish, but presumably
will. I'll work on it for a while, and then just run out of steam.
Part of it is the fact that maybe I'm not hungry enough, and I also
have enough material from when I first started this blog, to
e-publish my own “life and times” à la James Thurber, with five
sections and I think that might be the smarter option, instead of trying to write this huge, sprawling epic that has characters changing names, sexes, disappearing, reappearing and I think a few of re-incarnated and not in the "X-Files" way, along with the usual plot lines that run up the previously mentioned dead ends and blind alleys. Of course, I could pretend I'm writing scripts for MST3K, always huge fun!
I have enough
followers on Twitter and elsewhere, that I may actually make a tiny
profit, and I have some pretty funny stories. Anyway, I've written
for lo, these many years and have never sold anything, but it might
be a good time to think about doing that, plus I have another project
in mind that will involve both playing and writing – I'm keeping it
under wraps right now, 'cause jinx and all of that. So, what say you all?
Oh,
and here is some blargle and pictures from Sunday's concert. We have
just one more to play in this series and then it's on to
Rachmaninoff's “Piano Concerto No. 2” and some Slavonic Dances
written by our own Conductor, Mark Sforzini.
Sunday
afternoon at the Straz Center in Tampa, the Tampa Bay Symphony, led
by our great Conductor, Mark
Sforzini,
performed an awesome concert, featuring highlights from "Madama
Butterfly" by Puccini with soprano Susan Hellman Spatafora and
tenor Samuel Hall, with a cameo appearance by mezzo-soprano Nicole
Evans. This was preceded by Beethoven's Turkish March from the "Ruins
of Athens" and then after the concert break, we played
Rimsky-Korsakov's powerful "Scheherazade". The violin solo
was played by our Concertmaster, Virginia Respess, and played
beautifully. This orchestra just keeps sounding better and better and
it was a delight to play!
For
some reason, the first picture looks like my head is in a fog bank,
which is probably just tangible proof of the cloud-like state of
confusion I exist in, and spread most of the time and is also
requirement number one for a viola-player. The second is a close-up
of the most glorious Wolf, who did his part. He was in full voice and
I was NOT going to let him be unseen!
