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I've slowed down something awful. I've been working on this chapter for two days and it's not quite done, and there's this conversation that I have to do in order to end it and I can't figure it out -- I know what has to be said, just not the words. The Boss has to find out from our guy that the nastiest guys from the research group are on to him, and he can only find that out by playing twenty questions -- our guy has serious inhibitions built in to prevent him from talking about the research group, and to keep him from taking the initiative in things that concern his own desires. And I think this conversation would go on a really long time and be really annoying and tedious, and I want to catch that without making the reader experience it first hand.
Somehow the pie thing got lost. I need to get it back in but it can wait till revision, I think, because it's not something I'm going to forget. I'll put in a note about it anyway. The pie thing is iomportant. Early on, before my guy really had consciousness, he discovered that he liked food. He liked pie. And among the members of the research group were some who thought that he was like an animal, not like a machine, and so they tried to "reinforce" his efficiency as a wish granter with stuff he liked. Pie. But he didn't get it right: he thought that pie was not a reward for doing hard things, but something that made it easier to do things. So when the Boss asks him what he needs to function best, he says "Pie helps," and the Boss thinks he's trying to negotiate. The Boss is not vindictive about this. The way I originally thought this out, this was in their first working session, but the way things have been going, if I stick it in later, they've already had a conversation I didn't know they were going to have about the fact that my guy is getting ideas of his own, but they're things like "When they're not wishing on me I could play with the dog and weed the yard." The Boss finds this very interesting for one afternoon, but it does not distract him longer than that from his primary researches (how to get all the money by using my guy to move it around.
Wherever there are things which need to be changed or added to in revision I have put the notes in italics and highlighted in -- of course -- apricot color.
Tomorrow's chapter (10) is the relocation to the office suite somewhere in Santa Clara, and the lead up to the invasion, and the invasion. No, I think the invasion has to have its own chapter, so the relocation must get beefed up so it can take a whole chapter. Oh. I can put pie there.
Originally, I had my guy wander off from this scene as he did (off camera) from the civil war in the research group, and for similar reasons: direct instructions to take himself out of the line of fire, without further instructions. But now I think it's tidier to have Ian get him now, rather than after the episode with the wino. I'm really not looking forward to that part. I'll give it a chapter, no more than that. It seems necessary, form the sake of the story, for Ian to be as nasty as other people's villains, but I don't have to like it or dwell on it and I can kill him off right away. And then my guy can wander off and have adventures with the wino and stuff.
What I have left to do before Candelario shows up: finish this with the Boss at his country house: Chapter 10, the relocation: Chapter 11, the invasion: Chapter 10, Ian: Chapter 12, the second group shows up, another flight, terrified, trying not to need wishes, meeting the wino, meeting the wino again: Chapter 13, imprisoned in the wino's room, the second group again: Chapter 14, another flight, Labor Ready. (Hmm. 14*7= 98 pages. Is that a decent halfway mark? Is it true that I can make Candelario and Araceli last almost half a book more? I always think the book will be too short when it's at this stage, and by the time I'm finished I think it's too long)
On other writing fronts, I'm still stuck stuck stuck on the damned query. The last paragraph is lame. And the nice fellow's suggestions don't help.
This afternoon I sat in on Emma's bagpipe lesson. That means I got to hear the piobroch "Lament for Red Hector of the Battles" several times. I heard it on the big pipes, on the chanter, and in cantareichead (I am sure I spelled that wrong. It's pronounced "cantarakh" but I know it has extra letters, like piobreached is pronounced pibroch -- only the i glides a little longer -- I can't even use the old "spell it wrong on google and it will ask you if you didn't mean the right spelling" -- google doesn't know about it). That last is the traditional way of communicating bagpipe tunes. Each note -- and each special way of playing the notes, each grace note, diddle thing (my word), etc -- has a syllable or two or three associated with it. So when a traditional piper like Jay wants to explain how a tune is played, he can sing the cantarach (I'll spell it that way for now) and another piper like Emma knows more about the tune than the mere notes and phrasing. To learn a tune, she gets: the sheet music, the written canntaireachd (I finally found it, and it's worse than I thought), a recording of Jay playing it, and a recording of herself playing it.
I love that canntaireachd, actually. It sounds like magic.
Here's something about piobaireachd (I don't believe that spelling, but it's on the website):
http://www.piobaireachd.com/library/notesbyjmacdonald.htm
What I was looking for was an online file of Red Hector, but I couldn't find it anywhere. I found some references to the historical person, and also a lot of listings of the tune in music books, on CDs, etc. But if anybody wants to buy a recording of it, they can wait until later this summer, or this winter, when their album will be produced. (Tentatively titled "Pipers Without Socks" because of jokes having to do with fundraising for uniform maintenance)
I could listen to "Red Hector" all day. It's not Emma's first piobaireachd, either: she also knows "Too Long In This Condition" which as I recall was written as a guilt trip for a clan boss who was miserly with his piper -- "this condition" was either poor or sober, I'm not sure which.
Somehow the pie thing got lost. I need to get it back in but it can wait till revision, I think, because it's not something I'm going to forget. I'll put in a note about it anyway. The pie thing is iomportant. Early on, before my guy really had consciousness, he discovered that he liked food. He liked pie. And among the members of the research group were some who thought that he was like an animal, not like a machine, and so they tried to "reinforce" his efficiency as a wish granter with stuff he liked. Pie. But he didn't get it right: he thought that pie was not a reward for doing hard things, but something that made it easier to do things. So when the Boss asks him what he needs to function best, he says "Pie helps," and the Boss thinks he's trying to negotiate. The Boss is not vindictive about this. The way I originally thought this out, this was in their first working session, but the way things have been going, if I stick it in later, they've already had a conversation I didn't know they were going to have about the fact that my guy is getting ideas of his own, but they're things like "When they're not wishing on me I could play with the dog and weed the yard." The Boss finds this very interesting for one afternoon, but it does not distract him longer than that from his primary researches (how to get all the money by using my guy to move it around.
Wherever there are things which need to be changed or added to in revision I have put the notes in italics and highlighted in -- of course -- apricot color.
Tomorrow's chapter (10) is the relocation to the office suite somewhere in Santa Clara, and the lead up to the invasion, and the invasion. No, I think the invasion has to have its own chapter, so the relocation must get beefed up so it can take a whole chapter. Oh. I can put pie there.
Originally, I had my guy wander off from this scene as he did (off camera) from the civil war in the research group, and for similar reasons: direct instructions to take himself out of the line of fire, without further instructions. But now I think it's tidier to have Ian get him now, rather than after the episode with the wino. I'm really not looking forward to that part. I'll give it a chapter, no more than that. It seems necessary, form the sake of the story, for Ian to be as nasty as other people's villains, but I don't have to like it or dwell on it and I can kill him off right away. And then my guy can wander off and have adventures with the wino and stuff.
What I have left to do before Candelario shows up: finish this with the Boss at his country house: Chapter 10, the relocation: Chapter 11, the invasion: Chapter 10, Ian: Chapter 12, the second group shows up, another flight, terrified, trying not to need wishes, meeting the wino, meeting the wino again: Chapter 13, imprisoned in the wino's room, the second group again: Chapter 14, another flight, Labor Ready. (Hmm. 14*7= 98 pages. Is that a decent halfway mark? Is it true that I can make Candelario and Araceli last almost half a book more? I always think the book will be too short when it's at this stage, and by the time I'm finished I think it's too long)
On other writing fronts, I'm still stuck stuck stuck on the damned query. The last paragraph is lame. And the nice fellow's suggestions don't help.
This afternoon I sat in on Emma's bagpipe lesson. That means I got to hear the piobroch "Lament for Red Hector of the Battles" several times. I heard it on the big pipes, on the chanter, and in cantareichead (I am sure I spelled that wrong. It's pronounced "cantarakh" but I know it has extra letters, like piobreached is pronounced pibroch -- only the i glides a little longer -- I can't even use the old "spell it wrong on google and it will ask you if you didn't mean the right spelling" -- google doesn't know about it). That last is the traditional way of communicating bagpipe tunes. Each note -- and each special way of playing the notes, each grace note, diddle thing (my word), etc -- has a syllable or two or three associated with it. So when a traditional piper like Jay wants to explain how a tune is played, he can sing the cantarach (I'll spell it that way for now) and another piper like Emma knows more about the tune than the mere notes and phrasing. To learn a tune, she gets: the sheet music, the written canntaireachd (I finally found it, and it's worse than I thought), a recording of Jay playing it, and a recording of herself playing it.
I love that canntaireachd, actually. It sounds like magic.
Here's something about piobaireachd (I don't believe that spelling, but it's on the website):
http://www.piobaireachd.com/library/notesbyjmacdonald.htm
What I was looking for was an online file of Red Hector, but I couldn't find it anywhere. I found some references to the historical person, and also a lot of listings of the tune in music books, on CDs, etc. But if anybody wants to buy a recording of it, they can wait until later this summer, or this winter, when their album will be produced. (Tentatively titled "Pipers Without Socks" because of jokes having to do with fundraising for uniform maintenance)
I could listen to "Red Hector" all day. It's not Emma's first piobaireachd, either: she also knows "Too Long In This Condition" which as I recall was written as a guilt trip for a clan boss who was miserly with his piper -- "this condition" was either poor or sober, I'm not sure which.