What a cool word for such a sad human failing. I’ve been told that procrastination is just one more tool in the writer’s toolbox, and I’m not sure that’s so inaccurate. I’ve been avoiding writing a lot lately–mostly because I’m stuck for what to write next. I’m so far behind on this trilogy, the release date has moved from September to who-the-fuck-knows? Oh well, at least I’ve kept busy. Below is a snippet of music for band I’ve dusted off and begun working on again. It’s nowhere near finished, but if anyone would like to suggest directions for this, I’m listening.
As visitors to this site already know, I’m also an active composer for wind ensemble and orchestra. What’s been keeping me too busy to write lately, is a new transcription I’m preparing of a cute little piano piece by Isaac Albéniz (b. 29 May 1860, d.18 May 1909). He was a Spanish virtuoso pianist, composer, and conductor who was one of the foremost composers of the Post-Romantic era and a significant influence on the young impressionist composers who followed. He is best known for his piano pieces in the Spanish folk music style. While he never wrote a single piece for classical guitar, many of these were transcribed for that instrument, and have become important pieces in its repertoire.
Below is a recording of my transcription of Célèbre sérénade espagnole for wind ensemble. It is unfinished, but it’s mostly all there…
I also just completed a transcription of Claude Debussy’s La cathédrale engloutie, also originally for piano. Here is the completed recording…
But the cry is inside my head, and there is no escape from the utter horror, agony, and desolation in that voice. I’m with the terrified girl as the demon lifts her into the air on the roof of the building. I’m with her as it reaches into her throat and grasps her essence—her soul—and squeezes. I’m with her as it rips the gossamer glow from her body, tossing the flesh aside like trash, and devours the argent spirit in gluttonous gulps. And I’m with her empty husk as it plummets past my window and lands with bone-crunching force on the hard ground below. —The Ward
So, I haven’t disappeared. Or died. Or gone into the witness protection system. I’ve just been really busy (and a little lazy) and haven’t had time to do the things I’d like to with this blog. I promise I’ll do better. Just as soon as I get caught up. In the meantime, go buy my dang book!
Well, my time off from writing and conducting my community band was certainly fruitful. Here’s the result of all that time. It’s a little piece I call Anthems. Don’t let the length scare you–it’s easier than it sounds.I hope…
So, I’ve taken the cover of Swift in a new direction. The knife is more central to the story than the lion, but some people really like the lion. Tell me what you think!
I realized early in my writing career that I was a pantser. Plotting was something you did only if you got stuck. And while I’ve gotten myself stuck many times, I’ve never bought into the idea that plotting is a good thing all the time. Stay with me here, because this post has nothing to do with novel writing.
If you’ve read my blog, you’ll notice I’m writing a new piece for wind ensemble for the first time in years, and what I discovered, much to my surprise, is I’m a pantser with music, too. Who knew? I mean, I’ve got literally reams of paper filled with sketches and form outlines for music I composed all those years ago. And, yes, I’ve kept every scrap over the past fifty years—you never know when you’ll need a theme, incipit, or motive, and even the worst compositions have something useful buried within. That’s one thing that’s rarely true of storytelling. If a plot’s bad, it’s bad, and no amount of massaging and window dressing will save it. With music, I can turn it upside down, run it backward, or do both at the same time, and that crappy little theme transmutes into pure gold.
Anyway… I’ve been pounding away at this piece for a couple of weeks, and just today noticed I haven’t lifted a pencil or gone to the piano a single time. Instead, I’ve committed the most egregious error in all of music—doing it all on my computer without even a midi keyboard for assistance. It’s kind of freeing, in a way; I don’t get bogged down in details, and I don’t have to wait to hear what I wrote. If I want to try a specific chord, melody, rhythm, tone cluster—whatever—I only have to enter it, press play, and hear it in all its instrumental glory. Don’t like the harmony? Nudge a note or two up or down. Don’t like the rhythm? Scrap it and try again.
When I started this project, I had six weeks to write eight minutes of music for large ensemble. Any composer worth their salt will tell you that’s a tall order. For one, we need near absolute silence while we audiate the gestalt of the section we’re writing in our head. Most times, when stuck, I’ll take a road trip on my Roadstar. Well, I’ve already committed over five minutes of fully orchestrated music to “paper”, and I still have about three weeks left. Unless I hit a major road bump, I’ll finish this with time to spare.
I actually did something similar about six or seven years ago, cranking out a seven-minute work for full orchestra in just two weeks. Sure, I stole bits from the piano sonata I wrote in college, but I did everything else at my computer. The entire process was nearly painless, and even when I was almost finished and realized something was missing, I added that with zero effort.
As an author, every article on how to catch an agent’s interest says the number one, most important thing I can do is grab their attention and hold it from the first ten pages. The first page, if that’s possible. Until I read Winterset Hollow, I don’t think I’d seen an author do that more than a handful of times, yet Jonathan Durham succeeds within the first paragraph. To be perfectly honest, he manages this trick before the story even begins with his deft use of verse from the fictional children’s book of the same name.
Without giving away too much, this is a complex tale with many layers of meaning. Its veneer is a thin layer of “be careful what you wish for” but beneath that, it’s got a darker heart beating to the rhythm of vengeance by any means necessary. Other themes abound, but, for me, the central was one man’s quest for who he was as a person, and how much was a gift from his ancestors.
Winterset Hollow, the children’s book written by Edward Addington, is a story in verse of a diverse group of animals living together in harmony within the titular hollow. When Runnington Rabbit hops the hedge to satisfy his curiosity, he sets in motion a series of events that must end in death. While the depth of story in the fictional book reminds me of Watership Down, the verse makes the somber tale palatable in a way only good verse can. I’d love to see Durham complete that work and publish it separately; his poetry is really that good.
Eamon, Mark, and Caroline in the “real” world, each resemble one of the four bloodthirsty fictional characters that leapt from the pages of their favorite book bent on bloody murder, and it is only the bond of the three that offers them any chance of surviving Barley Day. But more than that, Eamon must lean on the teachings of an unbalanced father who abandoned him in the forest, coming to terms with what the man did to prepare him for such a day as this.
Not every character gets their moment in the sun the way Eamon does, yet we learn so much of the antagonists—Runny, Finn, Bing, and Flack—and their motivations, it’s difficult to hate them as they hunt and kill those who came to honor them. It’s this depth of character that makes Winterset Hollow so wonderful a read; every motivation for good or evil is plausible and understandable.
There’s a twist at the end that I didn’t see coming until I was over three quarters of the way through the novel, and that revelation is one final push for Eamon and his last act. The only issue I have with the writing are the number of miraculous escapes Eamon has from what even he sees as certain death, each time musing on its meaning in relation to his life. Once is enough. More than that is overkill. Aside from this one niggle, though, the novel is brilliant and deeply affective. This is one that will stay with you for days or weeks after you turn the last page.
