First Published: 2022 June 30
So... I took a while off from blogging. I could make a lot of excuses, like that it was the end of the semester. If I look at my daily reflections, it somewhat supports that.
Anyways, life updates.
I finished the semester
I presented at a conference
I1 passed my second year exam
I played at an open mic with a friend
i think that’s it
So, looking at my goals for May, and thinking about that into June:
In May:
Blog daily. I still like how it forces me to think about something every day.
Write a poem a day. I need to do this more and I will try.2
Stretch daily. I like how stretching makes me feel, and maybe I’ll be able to touch my toes at the end of the month.
Listen to BiaY 7 times a week. This feels more aware of my tendency to listen to three or four in a row.
Finish a draft of the book I’m writing.3 This may be optimistic, but in theory these past two weeks suggest I can do it.
Practice guitar every day. I’ve been getting better and I really like it.
In professional news: finish a reasonable draft of my exam. I need to write this, and soon
Um
Did not do, gave up one week in.
...I completely even forgot that was a goal
I stretched most days, though I’ve recently gotten back out of the habit
I think I listened 7 times since then
I apparently kept writing off and on until the 23 of May, getting up to 74382 words, which is still progress
I practiced most days
I just presented my exam, so I guess that counts as reasonable
Now that I don’t have that existential dread over my head,4 I think I’d like to get back into writing. July is apparently Camp NaNoWriMo, so I would really like to try writing here and a short story every day. I’ve already written a few5 of them and I really enjoy the fact that it’s done when I finish writing. I’d like to get back to the LitRPG I was writing, but it’s beginning to feel like an albatross. That transitions nicely into my goals for July:
Blog daily. I kind of completely have no idea what happened in May or June because I have minimal records from them. I don’t like that
Stretch daily. I liked how I was starting to get more flexible
Be able to run a 5k. I tried one at reunion, and did not do well
Listen to BiaY more. I would like to finish at some point, but it’s hard to motivate
Practice guitar every day. I still like the incremental improvements, and I think I’d like to start shifting more up the fretboard
Practice accordion at least 2x a week. I just got this and I don’t want it to feel neglected6
Write a short story every day. I want to force myself to do more creative writing, especially in short contexts
Maybe finish the book?
Finish either of the two songs I’m writing. I started working on a choral setting of Stabat Mater Dolorosa, and I finally put some words and a melody to a chord loop I really like. It would be nice to finish a project
Ok so having looked at what I thought my updates were, I think there are more. To check, I’m looking at my daily notes for the past two months in far more detail than I did to see why I stopped blogging. Since I stopped blogging I have:78
Seen a lunar eclipse.9
Started jamming with a fellow chem grad student
I think started working out with a fellow groupmate10
Tried recording mental state of the day with my daily reflection.
Bought a guitar
Played at an open mic
Saw my sibling at their institution of higher learning to celebrate a major life milestone
Joined a new bible study
Made lemon wine
Bought new clothes
Went on group retreat
Went to a reunion and reconnected with a lot of lovely people
Ran a 5k
Saw my family
Got positive reviews of the lemon wine
Went to a conference
Met many of my collaborators
Made new friends
Tried new food
Gave a presentation
Wow that really looks like a lot when I write it all out. Anyways, sorry for rambling, but also not really. I’m excited for the next month of 31 days of writing.
literally today↩︎
starting tomorrow↩︎
likely 100K words, 50 chapters↩︎
I’m ignoring the next exam that I need to start soon↩︎
if you’d like to get the link, just ask↩︎
I still find it weird that most people gender and name their instruments↩︎
not counting the things mentioned above↩︎
mostly chronologically↩︎
it was cool↩︎
tbh no clue when I started↩︎
It’s really interesting where I do and don’t get writer’s block. In the exams I need to write for my program, I get them constantly. In the novel I’m writing for fun but also have committed to in some respects, I get it occasionally. In this blog, which I’ve done for longer, I get it often. And, in the random short story prompt I was given and inspired to create a tumblr for, I apparently don’t have it. Weird.
Anyways, writer’s block is such a weird concept when you stop to think about it. There are infinite ways that I can combine letters to create meaning, and infinitely many ways to make nonsense. But, when I have writer’s block, I can’t even think of a way to write nonsense. It’s really fun to think about.
That also, as I read it, may be a good solution to writer’s block. Just keyboard mash until you see a word and hope it sparks something. If I get this again, I may try it.
First Published: 2022 May 4
I think I may have written a few poems in the intervening days, but more importantly, I was able to compose a double acrostic in my head on the walk to work today. I’ll call that good enough to move on to the next form. According to my list of poems, the final acrostic to work through is the compound acrostic.
I’ve been struggling with this one primarily because I want there to be a nice symmetry between the two words, and so few words that bookend well share the same letters. Come and go, for instance, works not at all. Fight and flight, here and there, see and hear, and so on. I guess I came up with one just now, though, so we’ll see how it goes.
Wave and Moon
What starry skies in nighttime skies ne’er claiM
And daytime’s star can never dO.
Vast though the ocean in its turning to and frO
Each day is pulled to her when she comes agaiN
Well, not the strongest poem ever. I think one thing I really struggle with in the ending portion of each line is that I really like rhyme, so the ending letters mess me up. I already have corrections actually, I’m going to make them.
Wave and Moon
What starry skies in nighttime never claiM
A force which calls, rememb’ring long agO.
Vast though the distance ’tween the two
Each day they pull to join agaiN
I don’t know if this one is any better, but the flow is at least slightly better between lines.
First Published: 2022 May 4
As I’ve mentioned now too many times, I’m currently writing a book. I have a variety of ideas for what to do with it once I finish writing the words, but nearly all of them involve some level of self-publishing.1 I learned that if you self-publish through the largest E-book distributor, the ISBN you get is associated with them. That makes sense when I think about it for even an instant, but I’ve also learned that many independent bookstores will refuse to stock books with that publisher, for again, obvious reasons.
I also found out that the owner of an ISBN gains some controls over the book, which made me want to assign my own ISBN. Of course, since we live in America, the company responsible for managing the numbers also sets the pricing scheme.
It is the most asinine pricing scheme I have ever encountered.
A single ISBN costs $125. Knowing nothing about ISBN, that could be a totally valid price. 10 costs $295, or less than a quarter the cost per ISBN of buying individually. 100 costs $575, which is less than a fifth the cost per book of 10, and less than 5% the cost per individual ISBN. That’s so ridiculous that if you need 13 ISBN, it is cheaper to buy 100 than any other method. Finally, 1000 ISBN costs $1500.
For reference, that is 1.2% the cost per ISBN of buying individually, about 5% the cost per 10, and only slightly over 25% of the per hundred. When people say that it’s hard to be an independent business, they never mention this, though they really should. At 211 ISBN, it is now cheaper to buy 1000. That’s completely ridiculous. It’s a way of penalizing small creators and forcing them to go to larger publishing houses.
Anyways, that was a bit of a rant, I have no solutions, and I’m just generally annoyed by that fact. Oh! Any edition of a book needs a new ISBN2, so unless you’re planning on only ever releasing a single book in two editions3, there is literally no reason at all to buy ISBN one at a time. The option to do that is there, as far as I can tell, entirely to screw over new authors who aren’t sure what they’re doing.
The same company sells barcodes for $25. For reference, a barcode can be made online with any number of free tools in a matter of minutes. For a single QR code, they charge $75, which is even worse to me, since I doubt they take care of the hosting for the QR.
First Published: 2022 May 2
Another month, another reflection. My goals for April were:
Blog daily (starting now). I think that the reflection it makes me do is really useful. I do think that I need to find a better way to ensure that I have time for it, though.
Write a poem a day. I just bought a book of poetic forms, so it would be good to start working through them.1
Stretch daily. I tried to stretch this morning and was shocked at how inflexible I am.
Listen to BiaY daily. I really don’t like how far behind I am, and I’d like to catch up sooner than later.
Reach 60K words in the book. If past months are indicative, that’s a goal I can accomplish. I think I may need to do some more planning, rather than writing by the seat of my pants, because I’m starting to get into a bit of a rut in terms of writing. Maybe it’s just that I have continued this section of the book for far too long.2
A secondary goal for the book is to write every day, even if only a few words. I think it’s good to develop good habits, though I guess I should think about balancing doing something because I enjoy it with getting work done. That’s another thing to think about I suppose.
Practice guitar every day. I like the sound of guitar, and I would love to be able to play longer without my fingers hurting.
I blogged mostly daily. I wrote few poems. I stretched almost every day, which was really nice. It’s a great way for me to start the day, and I like how I feel when I stretch in the morning. I did not listen to BiaY daily, and I think I’m further behind again. I did reach 60K words! As of April 30 I was at 62540 words, which is pretty cool. I wrote most days, though it’s beginning to look like I need a day off, so I don’t write on Sundays.3
My goals for May are mostly the same. It’s here that I run into the issue of goals, though. If they’re meant to be aspirational, then many of them are set too low. If they’re meant to be realistic, then I should really accept that I don’t write poetry every day. I don’t know if I can agree to either premise so I’ll shoot a little higher and be ok with failure.
In May:
Blog daily. I still like how it forces me to think about something every day.
Write a poem a day. I need to do this more and I will try.4
Stretch daily. I like how stretching makes me feel, and maybe I’ll be able to touch my toes at the end of the month.
Listen to BiaY 7 times a week. This feels more aware of my tendency to listen to three or four in a row.
Finish a draft of the book I’m writing.5 This may be optimistic, but in theory these past two weeks suggest I can do it.
Practice guitar every day. I’ve been getting better and I really like it.
In professional news: finish a reasonable draft of my exam. I need to write this, and soon
First Published: 2022 May 1
John 21:19 “He said to him the third time, ‘Simon, son of John, do you love me?’ Peter was distressed that he had said to him a third time, ‘Do you love me?’ and he said to him, ‘Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my sheep.’”
On this Third Sunday in Easter, we continue to see the disciples in the aftermath of the Lord’s resurrection. I find it interesting how the different readings coincide. The first speaks of the disciples preaching the Glory of our Lord on earth, the Church Militant, some might say. The second has John seeing the Church Triumphant glorifying Him. The Gospel does not directly speak on the Church Penitent, but it does show Peter’s penance.
Three times Peter denied the Lord, so three times he was asked to affirm his love. The fishing scene feels interesting to me as well. In the beginning of His ministry on earth, he gathers many of the disciples by finding them as they search for fish. Here, they do not recognize the voice of the Almighty when he tells them to cast out.
Anyways, my reflection today is short and somewhat disjointed. I apologize that my postings are becoming more and more consistently like that.
First Published: 2022 April 30
Well, it’s the end of the month, and I don’t quite know what to talk about. Tomorrow and Monday I can write about the readings and my reflections on this past month, but today has no such stipulation. I was just playing guitar, so it seems reasonable to talk about that.
I’ve been playing guitar off and on for most of my life. I don’t know how old I was when I first started lessons, but I do remember that they were primarily focused on simple chords and strumming patterns. I think that’s called rhythm guitar by people in the know.
As I grew older, I eventually started studying music. That happened to coincide with my breaks from guitar, which is a little sad. It’s made coming back to guitar really interesting every time I do, though.
Guitar, moreso than any other instrument I’ve seen, has learning materials which seem actively opposed to conventional music theory. They don’t use sheet music and barely use rhythm. On the other hand, classical guitar has less of this issue.1 I just can’t find any music easy enough to play that is interesting enough to keep me playing.
So, I decided that, as the adult I am now, I should really work on mostly doing exercises for my practice time. For a while the skill I felt I lacked most was my right hand plucking, so I started working on Mauro Guiliani’s right hand patterns. It’s 120 exercises that have you playing between a CM and a G72 chord in your left hand while your right plucks out different patterns. That’s worked well for me, and I’ve enjoyed it.
These past few weeks, though, I’ve been saddened by my inability to play more melodic things on a guitar. Partially that’s because I don’t plan on doing a lot of solo guitar, but partially I just never really built the skills for moving my left hand on the guitar. As it turns out, Guiliani wrote some exercises for the right hand as well. I’ve been working through the first bit of the first one for a week or so now, and it’s weird.
I never realized how uncomfortable I was using my second and fourth fingers at once.3 The exercise has me doing a lot of that, which is really nice. Primarily it just goes up and down the strings using the first through fifth frets playing thirds on adjacent strings. It’s not the most fun, but it is pretty cool to be able to do it with more ease. As I look at the other exercises, it appears as though the next has me playing 6ths, the next octaves, the fourth is tenths which is wild to me, the fifth is thirds again for some reason, my minimal Italian suggesting that it helps with moving up the fretboard, the sixth again has me doing sixths4, the seventh octaves, the eighth tenths, and repeating until we’ve gotten through sixteen exercises. They each look to be about 20-24 measures of common time with moving sixteenth notes, so as you can imagine I am not going through it quickly. I think the furthest I’ve gotten is six measures through the first, but that’s progress still!
First Published: 2022 April 29
Two weeks later I have written no more poems. It’s a really sad thing for me to realize: I love when I write poems but I don’t make time for it. I’m not sure what stops me from making time, especially with how much I waste, but I’m not sure how to encourage myself to write more. Anyways, here’s a fun1 double acrostic again.
Try Again
Take heed of everything you’re not
Repeat so to remember
Yet never heed your fancy
Attempting once again may let a
Grain or some small egg
Attach itself or grow an anima
Instead of ever rising ennui
Nature’s choice for to assign
Well that was really rough. I’m unsure if it’s a reflection on the time I’m writing it, my general mental capacity, the time between poems, or just the words I chose, but I’m not at all happy with this poem. Maybe I’ll edit it tomorrow.
to write at least↩︎
First Published: 2022 April 28
I’m less than 2000 words away from my monthly goal and I’ve been writing nearly 2000 words a day recently, so I really believe I can make it. I’ve realized that the plot is steadily progressing less and less with each chapter, and I’m not sure how I feel about that. On the one hand, I’m writing because it’s interesting to me and the scenes I write are interesting now and I feel set me up for other interesting future events. On the other, I think I’ve so far spent 5000 words talking about growing magical cotton and probably have another 5000 coming.
I’ve finally formalized some of my thoughts about themes I want to include in the book, which is nice. I don’t quite know how to subtly weave them in so it’s not just a “By the way the world was actually terrible this whole time” without also doing the reverse of “do you get it yet? the message that I’m beating you over the head with?” I don’t think that it should be a fine line to walk, but I feel like it is one. I’ve taken the advice to have time pass less explicitly, though I’m back to being explicit again, which is a little sad. On the other hand, I have him working constantly over the span of two days, which in the grand scheme of things isn’t that much. I think I said the next big plot point would occur in two in-universe months, but I also never gave actual lengths for those, so I guess that’s also optional. Anyways, all this to say I greatly enjoy writing the book, and I’m optimistic that I may be able to come to a satisfying book ending in the next 40000 words or so.
First Published: 2022 April 27
This past weekend was my last concert in the school-sponsored choir I’m in. Tonight was the last day of the candlelight choir at the Catholic Student Center for the semester. Both still have a social gathering planned, but the end of the formal singing is something that I’m reflecting on tonight.
I’ve loved the way that I’ve grown in both choirs. The school-sponsored one has clear things that I can point to. The section leader was himself a DMA student in conducting, and there was a DMA in Vocal Performance in my section as well. Both really helped me grow as a choral singer over the past two semesters. The repertoire we sang from certainly pushed me as well. It was primarily new music, and most of it was fairly difficult.
The candlelight choir helped me grow also as a choral singer, though differently.1 I mostly sang tenor, which is somehow fundamentally different to singing bass. I can’t articulate why, but I constantly struggled with tuning, pitch, and intervals. In part, the tessitura is much higher, and in part I think choral composers just write the voices differently. I’m far more used to being the root of a chord than the third, for instance.
I also got to compose for the candlelight choir, and that was fantastic. We sang two of my songs, both written for the choir. It made me remember how much I love to write music, and was, in retrospect, part of what encouraged me to restart this blog.
Sadly, I’m unsure if I’ll be able to continue either choir next year. If I cannot, I hope that I will be able to find other opportunities to make music. If I can, then I will be far happier.
shocking, I know. This is what you get from late night postings↩︎