Ramblings from the 'goblinn

I'm trying to be good, really

Sat, 06 Jul 2024 00:39:33 GMT

Not a lot of writing done this past couple of weeks, but I have managed to get a piece of music I composed last summer actually written down.

I process grief with music, so when my best friend and colleague Michelle was killed last June in a motorcycle accident, I spent the rest of the summer trying to come up with something to honor her memory.

I have been playing piano by ear all my life, but I can't really read music per se. Like, I can read a single vocal line as a singer since I've only been doing it for the last 5 decades, and even I, slow as I am, can eventually see when the notes go up or down. But anything more complex than that -- the marks on the page make no sense. Remember "Every Good Boy Does Fine"? That's how I still have to figure out what pitch a note represents. It's really that bad.

But my Wee Hob, who is now all grown up but still lives in my basement, was going through some boxes the other day and found a CD I recorded for my mom before she passed. And he said, "You know, if you don't write these songs down, they won't be here when you're gone."

Yes, we have cheerful conversations in this household.

And he's actually more right than he knows. I'll lose the ability to play all this stuff long before I shuffle off this mortal coil. Arthritis runs in the family, for one thing.

So I found a free program called Dorico - works on the iPad and the Mac. I suck at counting, but the program can play back what's written on the page, and I can tweak it until it's right. And it has a piano keyboard so I can play the pitch and see if it's what is in my head.

I've got a month before I go back to school, but I'm shooting for 15 minutes a day or music and of writing.

I'm writing in this journal again because when I had a community of writers around me, I was better about converting my idle daydreams into stories. And I loved watching others create, loved offering support and encouragement, loved how we sparked each other's ideas.

I have been rereading stories written by or recommended by my long ago friends, and I just manually looked up some folks who used to be in my LiveJournal feed. I'm not stalking anyone, I promise. Looks like many of the folks I looked up haven't posted in a while, but maybe they'll come back, like I have.

Hob

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I'm Back (?) Anyone Home?

Thu, 13 Jun 2024 19:47:32 GMT

So, It's been a while. I'm honestly surprised this hasn't been purged. At any rate, I'm coming back to some WIPs after over a decade (when did I get so old I can think in decades?)

If anyone is still out here and following me, I would love some company. I never have time in November, but I have about 50 days before I go back to school, so I'm going to see what I can finish in that time. I'm focusing on the Lost Boys sequel first (Harry Potter fandom.) I'm rereading a lot of great stuff in that fandom, but what got me back into fandom at all was Once Upon a Time, which I just discovered. Both share some unfortunate plot and characterization holes that fic is going a long way towards fixing.

hob

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Dr Who Best of?

Sat, 12 Jan 2013 15:29:11 GMT

My husband and I were talking about the 50th anniversary of Dr. Who, and he admitted that he has not seen the old (pre Christopher Eccleston) series. I myself saw some of the Tom Baker back in high school as PBS reruns, but not enough to remember storylines, or much of anything really.

So we were both wondering: is there a good rec list out there somewhere of what episodes new fans of the show simply Must See? Or do some of you have recs for us?

In other hobgoblinn news, did I mention I got that full time faculty job at Gateway after all? They called in mid September after one of their people moved to another position and they needed someone to cover her classes and pick up some more. I got a light load taking over in mid term and was able to almost finish my 2 classes at NKU. Still have the final paper in one, but end of term stuff pushed it to the back burner.

I'm just now meeting my new boss, who took off for maternity leave a couple of days after I started, and she seems much nicer now that she's not interviewing me. I'm course manager for an online Comp 101 class and may get to teach a Shakespeare class in the fall.

Life is cool. Thanks to all for best wishes and advice.

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Dreamwidth is cool!

Sun, 11 Nov 2012 01:23:51 GMT

And-- that was easy. Thanks to friends who have already made the leap, I am not only over here happily ensconced at Dreamwidth, but my whole journal has been imported, too. Only grabbed one icon, although it looks like I get 15 on a free account. But that's okay, it got the only one I actually use, and one I no longer have on any hard drive anywhere I can find (I got it from a medieval manuscript somewhere on the web and have not been able to find it again to recreate it.)

Anyway, I'm looking at how to fix it so that I can read your LJs from there. There are a number of you that I'd like to keep in touch with.

This is mostly a test post so I can see what the crossposting will do. But as infrequently as I've been posting, twice in one day shouldn't cause many complaints.

However, if you have a complaint (or even if you don't) feel free to comment so I can test that feature, too.

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