Onwards

 Tony got through the novel - happily he liked this one and sent some useful feedback (typos, spellings). By the time it goes to print it should be pretty good. Cover ideas tossed around with Stephen Palmer - still idly thinking about asking Ben. 
Today I recorded some Synthi noises for Martin. One was a rather cool throat-singing attempt, or thereabouts. Walk tomorrow. 

Dunno when I wrote that. Anyway, it's Tuesday and our walk this week was yesterday, Ward's Stone. It was quite a long one, made longer cos we missed a turn. The start of the path was not clear as quite a lot of work had been done - it's a grouse moor (which aren't?) and the place is rammed with little shooty holes and feeding stations. Probably walked 12 miles up and down, up and down. Was wet and misty and today would've been better - but today was no good due to boiler man visit and mum's eye clinic. Hey ho.

I forgot my camera so these are just phone shots. 
Got an idea sent through for book cover but I wasn't really struck on it - too much copy & paste clip art, or so it seems. Oh well. Even my original red skull sketch was more impressive-looking, and that took me 15 mins. 

Weirdly tonight, Pat started on the 'what a wonky year it was' theme. I'm fairly sure she never hears my replies about how it's been the best year I can remember. I guess the fact I've done music I'm happy with, got my novel done in record time, found and fallen in love with the GR-1 and got into a solid walking regime somehow doesn't register. Or if it does, these seem minor things when they are anything but to me. Ah well. 

Excellent Monday

 Well, it was. 

First I finished edits on the novel. Second I got the steroids from the vet, which will hopefully keep Jasper's arse unswollen. Third, we chilled in the sun with beer, Tim and I, and the album cover and title is born - from proper artwork on paper and stuff. Looking forward to seeing final thing.

Will be watching Jasper next few days to see how he shits. Such fun. Also gonna ask for readers as I think the current draft it perfectly OK for a wider audience. Gave earlier draft to Tim gonna print new.

Yeah, dino heads is where it's at. A few folks have copies of the thing now. Will see if there's a good or indifferent response. Some interest in doing cover but wanna know how much I'll pay. It's fair enough and I am willing to shell out - but won't be really enough. A dilemma. There's Tony's mate but he doesn't know me and will want cash. 

I sent off for my second proof copy - draft #3 fixes the errors I know about, fleshes out a few bits, should suffice unless my readers tell me otherwise. At a loose end now. Should pass though.

New Headshock Album

 I say 'new' but that just means we listened through some sessions, decided they went well together and started assembling the best bits. It worked pretty well - most are from 2016 and are amongst those I remember fondly and always thought should be heard. Well, last night I sent the audio to Dean for mastering. It has quite a raw sound this one so I'm looking forward to hearing what he does with it. 

I think we have more too - discovered some sessions from the backup that we'd either not made MP3s of or not filed correctly, or some such excuse. There could well be a sister album. Weather meant to be nice next week but hopefully we'll still find time to consider that, plus record some of the tape/granular ideas that have been kicking around. I recorded some more of that yesterday - and now have the idea of using the recordings as source audio for further granular processing. Might be good to see how far I can take that. I'm already wondering how best to gather all the recordings to use in some kind of live ambient context. Assuming that is ever a thing again.

Our Janet brought us a photo of Jasper expanded to a canvas size to hang on the wall. It's from 2013 and he looks so young. Really thoughtful of her. Wish I was thoughtful some days.

Now the novel is done I'm finding myself at a weird loose end for writing. Almost wrote a review of the GR-1 but I think I'd rather keep it as my secret weapon. For now anyway. I'm thinking of the next book already - it's the full-on apocalypse one so could be a real hoot to write. Much more than the actual apocalypse we're sailing into without, apparently, a care in the world. 

Next week's walk will bring more pix, so in the meantime, here's some from last...

OK, one is some apples in a bucket and another is the cool polaroid Tim took but hey. I may even have posted them before but it's Sunday morning and I'm really just doing this to keep my fingers going. 
It's sunny, yay!

And no, I don't know what the album will be called yet. We toyed with the idea of an old four word one based on the session initials DEFY but I dunno. Much will depend on the artwork created by the arty one of us. 

Choppety Chop

 I'm down to 93,000 words and still there's that huge chase and multiple battles in need of a drastic pruning. I keep tweaking but it's still too long and too complicated. I wonder how I let it get so out of control in the first place?

That's mostly been my Saturday. Feels like a day that could have been used better - say to edit some Headshock. Yesterday we listened to Ekcle and Feandra and decided they're awesome enough to package and make into a thing. 

Feeling much better about my length today, fnar fnar. I hacked through the battles and it turns out a paragraph here and there getting the chop helped loads. Probably only chopped 1,000 words but that section now rolls along just fine. Which means the bulk is done - just the few final chapters to go through. 

For a bit of fun I've given each chapter a title. I may not keep them but it does chart the story and show the few chapters that still do essentially the same thing - so are ripe for consolidation. Yay!

Monday evening, decided it's finished. Enough for a test print and readers anyway. Sure I can trim more fat but that may always be true. Dunno when/if we're walking this week. Need to organise tree people, maybe get a Headshock album done if we can get our shit together. Feeling quite dynamic now I've got to good stage with book. 

If tomorrow not a walking day, it's GR-1 time!

A good week of nothing much

 Well, I say nothing much but I'm content with it. Went up the Trough with Tony - a walk of 8.6 miles I think, if my phone is to be trusted. Gave up on the idea of making cider. 

I'm getting close to the end of my second draft and I like where it's going. I've deleted almost 10,000 words so far in my pruning - lots of the dumb asides and unnecessary explanations have gone. I suppose it means parts could need some more detail but maybe not. I trimmed a very long chapter today and might go through it again and do more. 
Jasper struggling to shit again. Booked him in for an anal probe tomorrow, poor sod.
Vinyl master of the album done. Haven't touched the studio this week, just been into words. Tomorrow might be different, we'll see.