Tempus Forget

Saturday. I did a wordcount on the work-in-progress and was pleasantly surprised to see it's 68,000 or thereabouts. With maybe four or five chapters to go, that's pretty good. I've covered all the ground I wanted and now only have to decide who to kill, who to spare, and how much to leave hanging for a possible sequel. There's no way I can do the 'Walking Dead' type apocalyptic demise of humanity justice without making this into a beast as big as FAF. Fortunately, I've set enough of it in motion so there can be a satisfying ending for this one without too many unanswered questions. Not like me at all!

Some of the other rather splendid pix Tim took on our 'park day'

And one of mine.
A good day today. The USB/Ethernet adapter finally came and was a joy to use - gave me a wired connection exactly as it was meant to with these Netgear things. I did a very quick test and all seemed to work well - played back and it's clear, with no dropout. Haven't listened in detail through phones or owt, can polish sound and plan something more structured now I know it works. Tim has a webcam I can try to replace the laptop one - what a pro!

Also sorted some aspects of novel I'd left until now, with my lizard girl and her hazy motives. All now ready for me to write the grandish finale and then I have my draft #1. With that I can start adding a few flowery bits, throw in a few red herrings and generally tart up the prose to be less 'hey man' stoner shite.

It's all good!

Friday spawned a thing

OK, it needs editing - but I  made a long MP3 of the Facebook Live performance (that went offline but I still recorded), and pasted today's thing on the end. I made it deliberately in sections then threw it all together. Yeah baby! I should make it an mp3 on its own though as it takes ages to get to it. I think there are some decent moments in there...

Thai takeaway tonight, got wine also. Still feeling gutted about Don but it seems people have rallied round, which I rejoice at. Sun still shining and hopefully he comes through OK.

I've written OK twice in this, no three times. Yes, one of those Fridays.

tick, tick, tick...

Thursday, a week later. Tim and I went to the park yesterday, distant but close enough to talk bollocks for a while. Was real nice in the sun, seeing people mostly sensible (there was an inevitable 'orcs on a motorbike' infestation for a while but it didn't last long). Took some photos, had nice walk. Must have done me good as I slept with no Twitchy Foot right until 08:08 when Jasper's arse summoned me.

I think it's been a good week. I've sorted my 'lizard motives' and fortunately it also answers the big remaining questions I had about my mysterious main character. All I need to do now is write it all down. :)

I've reached book 2 of the Vorrh, which is odd but still interesting, perhaps because it's not too much like anything else I've read. There was a point early in the first book when I had incredibly high hopes for its scope but it seemed to back down and diminish somehow, as if afraid to go everywhere it could.

Life eh?

I cooked something

Yeah, that's how desperate it's becoming. I needed Pat's experience with a few cooking basics but the end result tasted as it should. Phew!

It's a veggie lasagne, in case you were wondering.
I'm reading the Vorrh, which is odd but intriguing. It's come at an opportune moment because my heroes have just reached the 'dungeon' section of their adventure, a secret island of the overlords complete with ancient city and alien forest, as well as an endless labyrinth beneath. Weed, plus some of the Vorrh imagery is helping me get in the mood for the strange and unknowable.

Still not quite sorted the live streaming. Have cancelled webcam order for now but have looked at a better network booster which could be more sensible. Testing on Twitch gave lots of dropped frames, which is a pain. The plan is I can just switch on, play, not engage with watchers (at least until I finish playing). If it works and I can noodle without issue for, say, 30-40 mins, then I will try and put a gig together. Or one per studio half. There's much more I can do in the larger studio but the minimal setup one has grown a bit to give more options there.

The spot on my back is a mole being attacked by eczema, apparently. So that's, er, good.

Sunny again and basically Thursday. I can't really get into doing music when it's so nice. And not written a lot either, although ideas are stewing.

Mañana!

If I do turn gear on, it'll probably be in the sunny side...

Gone to seed

Yeah, I just pestered Colin about a bug with MIDI thru reception which turned out to be a feature I'd wanted, enabled, then forgot about. I am possibly forgetting more than I realised, but can't be sure (obviously). Oh well.

This morning's delight has been watching baby sparrows being fed.
Hmm, it's... Thursday. I posted a thing about the Microgranny and my desire for a GR-1, looks like that might bear fruit. So yay!

After yesterday's news about Florian Schneider, I'm going through my Kraftwerk. Just reached the double vinyl with Ralf and Florian up next. They all play pretty well, thanks to Colin's magical restoration liquid a few years back. Can't find my copy of Radioactivity anywhere. Had forgotten I have Man Machine in LP and CD. Maybe Radioactivity was on cassette...

Did a short livestream test from Light Studio. Some dropout apparently. May try moving laptop back but length of leads an issue if I want nice audio from Zoom. Which I do. Dark studio easier and better connection. Don't wanna faff too much. Sorry, rambling. Novel going well. I expanded the ambition of my island, to give me some writey fun. It needs to slow the pace a bit so a lizard city is the perfect place.
https://soundcloud.com/smokyfrog/ste-043

Sketch of today's idea, starty thing. Roedelius saw a bit of my performance and I crumbled and felt inadequate. Heh. Well, hadn't really planned to perform, guess it's hard to know what people are doing when they go live. Will do a proper one though, thinking about stuff before hand. WHen cooler.

Saturday again. No, wait, it's Monday.

It is. Pat and I had a lovely walk again. It's almost tea-time and I've not had a beer yet, just to prove I can deviate from the norm. Poor old the norm. Novel coming along, needs couple of good pushes and I'll have the bulk of draft #1. I may or may not end on a cliffhanger with the possibility of writing what happens next in a future book. I'd love to think of a happy ending but right now I can't see what that would be and who deserves happiness amongst the weirdo characters.

I put something on bandcamp - the tracks I've done recently in no particular order. Seems to kinda hang together but as I've put loads of stuff out lately, it's on the WilyEPeyote site.

If there's a virtual drinky this week I'm not invited ;)
There was one but it came in late and I didn't respond. I'm sure they coped.
Yesterday (Sunday), I tried out using the Zoom H4n as an audio interface with the laptop and the Facebook 'Live' option. Noodled about for a bit as usual and it seemed to work pretty well - sound was much better than I'd expected. So I might do a performancy type thing, say Friday afternoon, when I'm well oiled. Will look into one of those cameras that are a bit cleverer than the one built into the laptop...

A virtual pub but no rub-a-dub-dub

Sunday morning, or so it appears to be. I sat in on the Airsculpture/RMI/Boddy Zoom session but not sure I totally got what was going on half the time. Didn't really fit in.

This morning I'm mostly listening to tracks from the new Roedelius album, which so far sounds very good. It has the same pic as the one on the front of his book. Later I'll listen to the track I did yesterday, straight to stereo, and see if it feels close enough for multitrack. It's weird how I look at Octatrack's arranger now and wish Cirklon could match some of its tricks - not least starting at any point and setting the length independently of lengths set in patterns.

I might do another of my 'gear I like' posts. Let's go see what pix I have...

Time has passed. Several days I expect. Today I went shopping. None of them black rubbery things so yet again foiled in my lasagne making - did a bollocknaise instead. I appear to be buying just a fraction more beer each week.

Today I recorded a 15 min drone piece on 4 tracks of the Zoom. The bounce is realtime so that's a drag - but despite not hearing the first 2 tracks, the final thing sounds rather splendid. Just Synthi and Pipe, plus the usual bath of effects. Turns out that whistling through the Pipe is eerie but in a good way.

Next few days I almost hope the grey weather continues as I feel like doing some music and rattling off a few chapters. I'm running the next few scenes around in my head before committing to typing them out, which should help the flow. Dear old the flow.

Jasper's arse

Yeah the poor old mutt was suffering last night and it began again at six this morning. I opened the front door and he immediately shat and continued to attempt to squeeze more out until we got home. Then he shat in the library. Poor old lad doesn't seem to quite know what's going on - so frustrating because apart from his mind and arse, he's in good nick. OK, he can't see or hear much.
I think we may have to risk that double hernia op, once things go back to how they were. I'm reluctant to say normal because it really shouldn't be normal for us to poison the air and the water and to churn up the atmosphere...
Amazing how the weather has been consistently lovely lately - a reminder of my youth and a pretty convincing argument for simplifying our lives, decreasing the pollution and - above all - flying much, much less.

Anyway, it's Monday. I could go in the studio I guess. But sitting in the sun is nice too. I finally reached the last disk of the Philip Glass (Music in 12 parts) and it's maybe my favourite of the lot. Hard to tell now though - and I think it might be a while before I make myself listen through it all again. Can't quite remember why I ordered it now ;)

A couple more days of Jasper crapping and suffering while doing it prompted a call to the vet. We're taking him tomorrow evening, hopefully to discuss the double hernia op we'd been avoiding. It's almost like whenever I'm not around he craps - today when I went to Sainsbury's then again when I went to the Co-Op. He even tries is while I'm there, as if he no longer remembers he isn't meant to shit in the house. I can't bring myself to tell him off though as he's so sensitive.

Someone reminded me it's 20 years since Jodrell Bank so I put the gig performance up as a free download. Not one of the better ones I think. May post the Path at some point before I forget, since it's been restored from tape and bandcamp seems a good place to throw things and forget them.

Update on the arse thing. Seems that last nugget improved him no end, cancelled vet. Pat not really saying whether she thought me right or wrong.
Today the SOS review was published. I did a new tune that has possibilities - it's a variation on the Froese-style one begun yesterday but more concise. Some flash solos in the mix I just did direct to stereo, the kind of thing that CME keyboard does really well. Will try a decent recording tomorrow. Next I came down stairs and solved my current blockage in the novel - and kick-started the next section how I wanted. I told Pat about my zombie triumph and all she said was 'good'. Oh well, at least I interest myself ;)