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It’s a Monday. Hardly slept last night, but dealing with some physical issues that had ground me down. Took stock and realized that basically starting Memorial Day, so four months of hell. Gonna take some time to recover. Brain’s back. Body to follow.
Just really having a hard time winding it up this morning. On the brighter side, I finished Marrakesh #5 last week. Fabulous Publisher Babe™ has done five covers now and will be putting things up for pre-order in the near future.
Last Stand does not END at twelve, but Season One does. I have other stories I want to tell at some point, but as with The Science Officer, I needed to take a long emotional break first. And have a bunch of other stories I want to tell at some point. (Plus a list of open series you’ve never read because I want to write them all before putting them out.)
After Marrakesh, I wrote another Reilly episode of Scattered Tribes, and just finished another Holden episode this morning. (5 and 7 respectively, so 13 done at present.)
Taking a break to write this because I am not sure what comes next. Got lots, but maybe need more coffee after this.
Musically, I got the first backing tracks from English Paul for the next song. I’ve wanted to do a version of the Skye Boat song for a while.
Some background: In junior high, some forty years ago, I did the Skye Boat song as a vocal performance. Last year, about this time, the whole thing surfaced in my mind one morning.
For those of you who don’t know, my internal monologue usually has a soundtrack playing. Literally, some song going in the background while I work, think, do. That Monday, that was what was playing.
I did a lot of research and found all the versions folks have done, from the Baron who wrote the original poem in the 19th Century, to Robert Louis Stevenson’s version. Much more recently, Outlander used a different version as their theme music.
At the time, Paul was packing furiously to move to Los Angeles when his missus got a great new job, so we worked on Time To Say Goodbye with the time we had, laying down my vocal tracks, then waiting while he moved, rebuilt his studio, then got his life more or less together.
I work in Musescore when composing. Write the lyrics, plink away at an electronic keyboard until I have the melody, then write it down on the computer. In this case, once I was generally happy, I recorded a set of demo vocals and sent everything to him, along with a list of instruments I wanted on the track.
He’s been at that off and on for a few months, but has stuff for me to work with. My job this week is to go through the music section by section and offer modifications. Then rerecord my vocals twelve or fifteen times so he has tapes to work from to mix and produce a final cut.
At the same time, I’m slowly teaching myself how to use Garageband for the mac to create a full demo myself, mostly to better understand instruments. The only musical instrument I ever really learned was the human voice, which doesn’t do chords. And my time with the bass guitar never really went that far.
Starting kinda cold, and I have to do everything, so progress is slow. On the other hand, I came across “That Old Flame” by Don Henley off the Cass County album and really liked the way the backbeat drives, so I’d working on doing something with some rock and roll. (Paul does not do rock and roll, regardless of what he might tell you.)
Past that, I’m creating maps and history for the fantasy rpg, after losing so much brain space over the summer. And watching the leaves in front of me turn yellow and brown as October progresses.
It brings me a certain peace. That and the other trees. I need some mental down time. I’ve been upholding everyone else for several months that I’m running on fumes a lot of the time. All in the name of a good cause. And good fiction.
Draining nonetheless.
Hopefully, everyone else is holding things together nicely and we can all progress along on our monday.
shade and sweet water,
blaze
West of the Mountains, WA
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