How is everyone doing?
Dirty Deeds is coming out… on contract and set to go. Fish and Ghosts is nearing the jumping point and I have giveaways and blogs lined up to promo it and well, I’ve already made the folder for Tequila Mockingbird.
That’s always the first step.
Making that folder.
So yeah, here I go.
It’s been a helaciously busy month with a lot of things coming off my keyboard and drawing board.
What have you all been up to? Tell me a bit of what’s going on in your neck of the woods.
I’m still getting over my 6 week tour of Great Britain, the Yukon and San Francisco. It was a brilliant trip.
Oh that sounds like a brilliant trip
Writing, writing, and more writing. The Ravens Crossing is back up and running. I have a book out on pre-sale at Totally Bound. Signed a contract with Dreamspinner. And self-pub’d a previously released book at Smashwords. Now, if I could just get three novellas written, I’d be in good shape.
Whoooo hooo congrats!
Thanks.
OMG I love that picture!
Making that Scriv file is the first step for me. Used to be a folder until I got something I could import the whole big mess of picture and PDFs and notes into. 🙂
It’s a great coffee pix.
Scriv and I had a violent abusive and short affair. He accused me of cheating on him with Microsoft Word and I caught him fucking my files and then tossing them aside after he’d gotten them pregnant.
I might try his cousin at some point though. 😀
Hanukkah is early this year. So I’m loosing my mind trying to get that prepped and keep up with my dramas. Love the picture.
oooooooooo I’ve heard from other friends it was too damned early this year. *grins*
I did my final practical exam today, and now I am rushing to finish my portfolio and my small nigley assignments. Next week I am writing 4 theory exams and then I am an internationally qualified hairstylist. I really wish I could write cause hairdressing is hard bloody work.
Writing makes you insane though
As does hairdressing:D
I’m getting ready to write my book. Everything is a warm up now. Here’s an account of my recent brush with one of the great hotties of classical music.
The autograph line (We’re all heroes in our own stories)
I avoid autograph lines, always have. But still, I guess it was in the back of my mind when I slipped Joshua Bell’s new Musical Gifts CD into my bag before heading out to Purchase College.
You never know what you’re in for with a recital. For one thing, you can’t count on the flash and dazzle that happens in front of an orchestra, not even when you’ve got an outstanding accompanist like Sam Haywood holding things together. With Bell, it almost doesn’t matter. He is such an extraordinary musician that if he decided to play all by himself facing the upstage wall, he could still hold an audience in the palm of his hand. A miracle of flesh and bone and exquisite control.
The program at the Performing Arts Center opened with Tartini’s Devil’s Trill. It’s the kind of showpiece, filled with impossibly tricky passages, that Bell does exceedingly well. His finger work and bowing were breathtaking as always, but the Devil seemed somewhat tame.
His reading of Beethoven’s Sonata No. 10 was sensitive, beautiful and oddly restrained. Shostakovich made exciting ballet music but last night, for whatever reason, the fiddler wasn’t dancing.
Halfway through the second act, four women sitting directly in front of me stood up and bumped and stumbled their way across two dozen other people to get to the exit before the encores. Too bad, because those four ladies missed the best part. With Tchaikovsky’s Mélodie and Wieniawski’s Polonaise Brilliante, Bell was in his 19th century Romantic element, all poetry and passion. His face lit up and his playing fairly shimmered.
Afterwards, I made my way to the autograph line. I didn’t actually want an autograph. Mine was a much more personal reason. Recently his Facebook avatar had encouraged fans to post reviews of the new Musical Gifts album on Amazon where Josh might read them. I wanted to tell him I’d posted one, thank him for a lovely evening and wish him well. And I wanted to see him up close.
The autograph wait stretched to twenty-five minutes, then to half an hour. I knew Josh had generously allowed the theater to auction off a private meet and greet with him and his violin as a fundraiser, and so he was meeting and greeting the oh-so-lucky winners.
Back in the lobby, theater staffers reminded restless fans that photographs would not be allowed. People shuffled around, shifting from one foot to the other. Nobody left. The man in front of me began to sweat. Finally, the line began to inch forward.
Josh has the autograph ritual down to a science. He’s seated, you’re standing. He looks up and says hello with that engaging smile of his. Charming in photographs and videos, when you see that smile in person from three feet away, it is awesome. He takes the proffered CD or whatever, scrawls his signature with a Sharpie, thanks the fan for coming and turns to the next person. When I handed him my Musical Gifts insert and mentioned the Amazon review, it broke the rhythm. He looked up and you could see a flash of genuine surprise, “Did ya,” he grinned, and then sort of mumbled that he hadn’t read the reviews. I said it was good, and I meant the recording. Aware that the line behind me snaked back almost 50 yards, I thanked him and stepped away, wishing I could have had five minutes instead of five seconds. And wondering if he might actually read the Amazon reviews sometime.
The weekend is over and I’m back at my desk. I haven’t looked at my CD insert yet, in case the autograph isn’t there and I dreamed the whole thing.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwwww 😀