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.

Summer's almost passed

 It was a sunny Sunday today and I realised I've obviously been busy - no blog entries. Not even a thought of writing one. Now I'm waiting for Pat to go in the bath so I can watch an episode of the Dark and have a few mins to spare.

Anyway, I'm about half way through draft #2. I'm now around the 98,000 word mark, which means I've deleted around 7,000 unnecessary words. I realise the first half needed it more but I expect to maintain the trend, getting rid of really long chunks of dialogue and pointless asides. Well, some of them. 

In the week Tony and I walked up Parlick Fairsnape Fells, saw tons more grouse and pheasant hopping around innocently and took photos of clouds. I realised I needed a new thin waterproof coat so got one on Saturday. 

Oh, I revised the White, Grey and Sky Blue album and put it on my main bandcamp site. I could keep revising it forever as I keep exploring the GR-1. The second half had more work this time. A DJ/Video artist friend wanted some music to set to film so I sent a few, including the Scottish Suite, which is my personal favourite for a while. Anyone who happens to read this blog can get a free download by dropping me a line. 

2020 has been a brilliant year for clouds. I've made a few, of course.
Gonna start making cider soon. Should've today but laziness overruled the urge.

More arse problems and draft #2 begun

 Jasper's had a bad time this last few days (and a bad time one day last week when I was away all morning). He basically wanders around the house trying to take a shit. This morning there was blood in his poo. Been trying to get through to vet all morning, permanently engaged. 

I started draft #2 with a clear command to myself: simplify. This draft will be about reducing faff, trimming all those excess adjectives, pointless bolted-on clauses and inane observations that don't forward the plot. Well, that's the theory. Nothing will get left just cos it amused me at the time. Gosh, such resolution. 

Tuesday and Jasper still struggling, still having accidents. Spending my day watching him, sitting with him, wiping his arse. Vet tomorrow evening. The pills we got yesterday not really making an apparent difference. 

Today I got to about chapter eight being very ruthless, trimming large unnecessary chunks, adding a small amount where it was obviously necessary. Some of the detail and explanation stuff might find its way back in, or not. Story comes first. In the afternoon I recorded a few short GR-1 pieces to hopefully replace some of the voice bits I'll delete. I would love to get some lovely choral and soprano voices to turn into drones, will search tomorrow. Pat away Thursday night so I can spend two long, full days getting things in shape.

Thursday, up to chapter 11 and instead of walking the hills on this clear sunny day I'm inside keeping an eye on an elderly pooch. Three lots of pills, cooked chicken to eat and very bad guts mean I couldn't go and leave him. I remember what happened last week. Had bad guts of my own, maybe in sympathy. Pat off tonight and weather meant to turn tomorrow, so may get lots of work done. 

Made it to Saturday night. Haven't drunk as much today so got a revision of my granular thing done. 

https://wilyepeyote.bandcamp.com/album/white-grey-skyblue

Novel up to chapter 19 which is pretty good going. I've chopped a lot. Possibly more should still go but we'll see. Good to be ruthless but need to keep being it. Splitting into chapters is helping. 

Jasper seems better. Sadly he vomited most of his tea up so I hope most pills got where they were meant to. 

 

Finished draft #1, yay!

 A bit of a milestone reached, one I'd hoped to reach this weekend with Pat away. I finally have a complete tale, start to end. OK, barring a 'village slaughter' chapter and a brief battle scene against impossible odds, the whole thing runs from start to end just as I wanted it. OK I changed some aspects of the ending because the characters had gone in different directions. It sets up a second book though, which may or may not be a foolish thing to do. Will see what I think when I go through it for the print draft. Work to do before I go back to the start is tidy those two scenes and go back over the last two chapters and add some description, backgrounds, general scene setting. Not hard just takes a bit of conventional effort. 

Feeling good! It is over 105,000 words though. Aiming to get the paperback in at less that 400 pages! May consider 10pt.

Friday again. I did the smaller scenes easily enough and my 'dragon rampage' chapter has been running through my mind for days. I might just have a bit of fun with it - get stoned and just write it like the old days. It won't really matter as it's a throwaway - a means of setting a few ideas in place and enjoying the carnage. 

Today feels cool enough to go into the studio. I've been listening to the GR-1 pieces and fancy doing a few more to give me a wider choice. I like the 'guitar drone' so much I want to see if I can do some complimentary pieces. Many of the speech ones could be dropped - or I'll try the ultra-slow scanning technique to see if they're more interesting at glacial pace. And I really must try out Hydrasynth 1.5 in more depth. For some reason, it's one of those synths I start playing with, end up spending most of the time tweaking patches or defining macros, or comparing patches - resulting in no music and a vague sense of frustration. As with the Oberheim Xpander many moons ago, I think the UI is not for me.

Went for a walk on a hot day. 

More stable GR-1 and Hydrasynth 1.5 - yay!

Still not sure if Pat away this weekend so not getting excited yet. Depends on shutdown. 
GR-1 hasn't crashed much although there are some anomalies with 'pass thru' mode I think.

New Hydrasynth OS includes almost everything I wanted - CCs, envelope triggering etc. plus have added some cool new things like proper drone, distortion effect, another mutant, stepped LFO more like a sequencers. Oh and more filter types. So a big one and very much appreciated. That's my Friday afternoon sorted. 

Well, Friday afternoon was more about the GR-1 again. Not happy with the position of the Hydra and tried it somewhere else, which was worse. Working with Cirklon yesterday felt oddly clunky too, must not have been in the mood. Pat's away and the sun is shining. Probably too hot for studio today but can carry on with the novel stuff I worked on yesterday, getting my big confrontation fight scene out of the way with surprising speed. It might feel anti-climactic though but I now have a clear space for my final chapters and the 'breaking of the fellowship'. 

Am reading 'Children of Hurin' after Don said it was good. Style is still a bit heavy but there is a good story in there, battling to be heard. Lots of male doom throughout, which I may have borrowed for the passing of one of my main characters. Sprung a last minute surprise which should hopefully feel right and consistent. Does to me.

Last night was pizza. Today I expect it's chilli out of a tin. I might be tempted to go to RK again tomorrow.

Almost got a GR-ambient album. I foolishly mailed an early version of it around then, this morning, realised the mistakes in what I thought was almost done. Must have been quite wrecked yesterday.

We aren't included in the Preston lockdown. You can tell by looking at your bins, apparently. Staying in anyway.

Some early ideas for title and cover images.