Client work avalanche

Well, all sorts of work avalanche would be more accurate! All of a sudden I find myself with two client website projects to work on (one due in a week’s time. No, I’m not stressed. No, not at all. Who me?), one website for Djeli’s super-secret project which he wants done by the end of the weekend but hasn’t yet written the text for, shiny new step-motherhood to deal with, an orchestral work to keep working on, actual homework this time for my composition lessons, not to mention all the training stuff that’s underway – BUSY! But great-busy. Really enjoying all of it and finding it easier to keep focused because I *am* enjoying all of it, even if a couple of deadlines are a little more deadliney than is strictly comfortable.

I’ve been doing the Authority Rules conference run by Copyblogger over the past couple of weeks, and it’s been fantastic. Actually way more interesting and useful than I ever thought it would be, and SO worth the money. It’s particularly interesting because it’s making me think in new ways about all my endeavours. One of the things they’ve been talking about is about finding your ‘right people’ and putting up  a ‘red velvet rope’ so that only your right people are the ones you work with – because they’re the sort of clients who bring out the best work in you and who you’re happiest and most fired-up to work with. And it makes a lot of sense. I think a lot of the trouble I had with thinking about running my own business before was because I was thinking generically “helping small businesses make websites that actually work for them” whereas the people I relate to best, enjoy working with the most and probably can help the most effectively are creative types. And that makes such a huge difference. So the projects I have now are for a violinist here in the UK and a Pilates studio in Australia, and it’s great. I’m really enjoying working on these, and I can’t wait for them to see a big difference once their new sites are launched.

Carrion Comfort is slowly slinking forwards. It really made such a huge difference to ditch the vocal part for a trumpet – it was what it really wanted. Now I’ve been cleaning some things up and I think I have the beginning of the next bit, but it’s been feeling structurally stalled a little bit. In today’s lesson my tutor has suggested I take my initial theme, pull it out of the piece and just mess about with it seeing how many different permutations I can come up with and then seeing if any of them might be useful in the piece, but without pressure to produce something that will be, or expectation of same. I’m liking this idea and looking forward to being able to do something on that over the weekend. He played me part of the second movement of Andrzej Panufnik’s Violin Concerto [sorry - it'll start playing at you as soon as you click that link] as an example of what can be done with a simple interval (it’s basically just constructed out of thirds!). Absolutely gorgeous. I’d love to hear the whole of it, but alas, the excerpt linked to there is the only thing I can find online without buying an entire CD or signing up to emusic’s subscription plan. Which I may do anyway but good golly it’s been frustrating! And all the more so as there ARE recordings. Menuhin recorded it in the 70s, and EMI seems to have a fairly current recording on their books, but it’s nowhere to be found in the online music stores! Even iTunes, which I consider a last resort because I object to DRM on principle, had a bunch of other Panufnik stuff but the only Violin Concerto bit was the third movement! Ack! Hmm. Well, grateful for small mercies. It’s still beautiful, even in just that snippet.

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iPad triumph!

The big news of the day is that, having managed to reserve an iPad 2 online last night, I actually got into town in time to do so! So now I’m writing this on my very own iPad. Yaaaayyy!

So most of the afternoon has, of course been spent setting it up, loading apps, transferring settings, syncing, etc. And generally playing about, This was taken with the iPad’s camera using PhotoBooth:

Not sure that app will get a huge workout, but hey, it’s fun.

Also did a tiny photo walk today while waiting for Djelibeybi to arrive at Holborn for us to go and fetch the new member of our techno-family together. In the rain. Some nice shots, I think, but they’re on Flickr so I’ll add them in later.

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Second attempt

Well, not seriously. I didn’t really expect to just be able to walk in to the Apple Store at Shepherd’s Bush and walk out with an iPad 2. And look! I was right! But I did achieve my officially-stated goal of inspecting the covers. They’re very cute. Such a shame they didn’t make one that covers the back too. I mean, it’d be less sleek, but a whole lot more effective if you drop the thing. And of course there are no third-party covers out pretty much at all at the moment that one can inspect for feel, style and weight, so I guess I’ll have to go with an Apple cover, even if only for the interim. I was going to get an orange one but in RL the orange is a little yellowy and not really that grand. The red leather is gorgeous but way too expensive. The green is practically fluoro. So I’m thinking I might go for the low-key pale grey. Keep it nice and neutral. And maybe get a nice bright neoprene pouch for it to travel in. Summat like that. But of course first I have to get my paws on an actual iPad all of my own. Apple’s now opened up instore reservations from the website for next-day pickup, which I made an attempt with, but the wretched system let me get all the way through before telling me there weren’t any slots! VERY annoying.

I shall cease to talk about that experience any more. It was very frustrating. I shall probably be similarly frustrated every evening for several weeks to come.

Apart from that, not too much to report. I watched the last bit of the summary videos for the end of the first week of my JavaScript refresher course. So far I seem to understand everything. There’s been one or two newish concepts (or rather, concepts that I knew existed but didn’t know quite how they fitted in) but mostly – understandably – the first week’s been mostly about basic principles. I’m pleased to say that I got through the week’s coding challenge first time, and worked it out in just a few minutes. Huzzah! Not as dim as I felt I was!

I also finally sat down and went through the new orchestral song thingy trying to pick out themes. There really aren’t that many to speak of, which is a little disturbing. The piece itself seems to have stalled somewhat following its superhero start, which is disappointing. I should push myself more with it. The plan is to send it off to my tutor on Wednesday so he can see what I’ve been up to and prepare stuff accordingly if need be. Um.

And had a bit of a panicky doubting think about jobs and what I should be doing about them. Conclusion: I have no idea. I’m a total mess and don’t know what I should be doing. I’m enjoying the composition teaching, but that’s not really a money-making option (not enough private students and academia is out because a. I don’t have any contacts and b. I don’t have even a Masters degree). I like building websites but I don’t really like dealing with clients. Or people in general. I like publishing and so on but ditto. Which kind of seems to wipe out the work-for-myself option because there’s no getting away from clients when you’re freelance. I’m beginning to think that, in spite of all the conceptual journey I’ve been on over the past couple of months, I’m kind of back where I started: short term web contracts, while trying to bring in a little money from this and that on the side. Which is a little depressing. But I think it’s more practical. I got so caught up in the sideline stuff of getting my own business running that the music kind of got shunted to one side. And when I de-shunted it because it became clear that I might need to have to find a job sooner than expected and I didn’t want to waste composition time, then the business stuff ended up shunted. Maybe I can’t actually do both. How depressing. I want to be superwoman! (I’d prefer Batgirl because the outfit’s cuter, but still…) Anyway, thoughts still bubbling away, ideas about priorities and how do I deal with them. Still no solution on the if-I-get-a-real-job-how-do-I-keep-the-music-going-while-not-letting-down-either-my-employer-or-myself issue. Perhaps there never will be. If you have any suggestions, please comment away!

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Attempted to buy an iPad 2

Alas, attempted is the word. Given yesterday’s root canal and ongoing lower back pain aggravated by an hour in the dentist’s chair, I wasn’t quite up to getting to the Apple Store at Shepherd’s Bush at 9, so I didn’t get there till 4ish and unfortunately that was too late. Shortly after I joined Djelibeybi in the line, a friendly Apple employee came by and told us that all the 3G iPad2s of any persuasion were claimed, so there wasn’t much point hanging around after that. Still, it was nice to get out of the house and smell the summery air – didn’t even need a jacket! Absolutely beautiful day.

Will try again early next week, but failing that I guess I’ll have to join the hordes ordering online and waiting a month to get theirs. *sigh*

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Hibernation

Feeling – if possible – even worse today than yesterday, so I’ve spent a lot of time in snooze-mode, which seems to be helping. Glad I started the antibiotics now. Not helped though by intense lower-back pain which I think has been caused by the landlord’s crapulous couch. Ow.

Day 2 of the JavaScript course today. Lots of reading. LOTS of reading. But it was really quite well done – digestible chunks. And I think I’m finally starting to see where Objects fit in. I understand why they’re a good thing, but I’ve never really got how they connect with other elements of the language and I think that’s starting to become clearer. Anyway, I guess I’ll find out when I start using them.

Amazon delivery arrived today: The ABRSM Grade 5 theory books, which I need for my teaching. Plus a book called Made to Stick, which sounds like it might be good for the eBook writing that I’ll get around to sometime.. very… soon.

Ploughing through my to-do list now, in spite of fuzzy, limited-capability brain. The new GTD system I’ve implemented seems to be working well. YAY. Next I have to find some time to revamp my paper files and do a TON of scanning. That will be less fun. Maybe in front of the TV sometime.

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Chicken drama! Plumbing drama! Premiere!

A big day today. And a bit messed up, as they have been lately. It started off with seeing the vicar next door strangling his rooster (Backstory: he bought 2 chickens and 2 roosters. Why, I don’t know – my theory is that he wanted to teach the kids about monogamy. Problem is, that doesn’t work for chickens, so the 2 roosters were apparently vying for territory and not just crowing in the morning, but having squawk-offs throughout the day and the noise was appalling – apparently most of the residents in our block have complained) and then watching his kids jump around like it was a holiday before plucking the carcass. I felt like Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window! Really rather traumatising. Especially the bit where I saw the eldest girl come trotting back with the big tree-pruning shears… and felt I needed to stop watching at that point. Aaargh! The remaining rooster has been crowing mournfully at intervals for the rest of the day. May have to channel all this into a composition sometime.

Then there was a plumbing drama which I won’t go into but took the entire day to fix, nearly made me miss my physio appointment and had me very, very worried that we wouldn’t have a working shower in time for the concert (but our plumber came through just in time – legend!).

But with all the palaver we were a bit late for the concert. Did manage to hear the end of the first piece though, which was brilliant – for piano 6 hands by Kaja Bjorntvedt – and the concert overall was excellent and a really varied programme. Quite long, but most enjoyable. My piece went off pretty well – I was really pleased with how well it worked, actually, as I’ve been a little worried about the middle song of the three, in particular, basically since I wrote it, but Tamara and Luca did a beautiful job with conveying the style and shape of the work. Not a perfect performance, as Tamara – poor thing – woke up with laryngitis this morning and consequently there were a few little problems, but she and Luca did a great job under the circumstances and overall I’m really pleased with it.

AND I found a CD of songs for bass voice by Einojuhani Rautavaara at the interval CD table for only £2!!!! LOVE his stuff. More and more.

Now for the weekend. Words cannot express how happy I am to be able to write those words!

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Restraint

Oh I’m SUCH a good girl! Got up at the crack of dawn this morning and went out to Cass Art at High Street Kensington today with the in-common-laws to buy the nephew-in-c-l an easel and I didn’t buy anything! Not even when sister-in-c-l tempted me greatly by saying “Oh look! They have a set of 10 gouaches and it’s only £14.95″. It was reduced from something like £35 and STILL I didn’t buy it. I am amazing.

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Arrangement, CMS and striking things off the to-do list

Always a good feeling, that. I still didn’t get everything done I wanted to do, but I sure made a hefty start, most noticeably spending most of the day test-driving Drupal modules in preparation for a quote I need to send out tomorrow for a rather complex site for a non-profit organisation. I’m really rather impressed with Drupal, I must say. Today I’ve played with user permissions, an email-list module, search, adding images to user profiles, installing a security upgrade, implemented rich text editing (rather than plain-vanilla HTML) and a bunch of other stuff – and I haven’t once had to touch any code to do it. Obviously theme-creation is a completely different kettle of fish and I haven’t even looked at that yet – saving that for tomorrow. But so far, very impressed with what it can do pretty much straight out of the box.

And in the lulls while I waited for files to upload and delete as I performed the security upgrade? Well, I arranged the first four movements of Pieces of Eight for string quartet, which I’m thinking will be my submission to Sequenza 21′s current call for scores (I’ve abandoned the cello tango I was writing for this as too complex for the time I have – I still want to write it, but it will probably take several goes to get to a point where I’ll be happy with it). I was tossing up between arranging it for string quartet or piano and percussion but the quartet won out in the end – limited time and I wasn’t entirely sure what I wanted the percussion to do but I didn’t want it to be just a bong or bang here and there.

I also sent off a bunch of emails that have been lingering and sorted out a survey for the composers from Durham – we’re setting up a Facebook group and wanted to give ourselves some semblance of authority, so we’re voting on a name… results by the end of the weekend, I hope.

Oh! And my next round of Amazon-junkie-goodies arrived! Alex Ross’s new book, Listen to This, and the next book in my pre-opera reading round, Josephine Tey’s The Daughter of Time. I’ve rethought that idea about keeping the subject of the opera under my hat – in the light of it probably taking me several years to actually produce any part of it, it seems a bit lame, so here’s the announcement: It’s to be (loosely) based on Tey’s novel (yes, I’ve read it before) which focuses on the revisionist history of Richard III (the one that says he wasn’t a deformed tyrant who murdered the princes in the Tower). As an opera plot, I think it’s up there with the best of them: murder, slander, rumour, illegitimacy, deceit, pretenders to the throne – it’s got the lot!

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Mobile mischief

SUPER-frustrating day today. My phone decided yesterday that it would send every SMS out 3 times. This morning it upped the ante to 7 times so I sighed and sat down to see if I could do something about it. First step: clear off the disk and install the operating system upgrades that have been languishing for a week or so. Result? 14 copies of a single test SMS. In the end, after much inconclusive research, I backed up (as much as I could – seems Android doesn’t seem to have a proper backup system and all the ones in the app store seem flawed) and did a factory reset. Fortunately this seems to have fixed the problem, but I’m still reinstalling and tweaking settings and making sure everything’s set up the way I like it. Pluses: Android Market keeps track of what you’ve bought with your Google account and lets you just reinstall with no fuss. Quite nice having a clean disk again. Minuses: Helluva pallaver. Android Market doesn’t seem to keep track of the free apps you had, so I’m just trying to remember what those were and taking the attitude that if I can’t remember it, I probably wasn’t using it that much. The whole process has taken most of the day, with a despairing nap and quick round of Sim City on the iPad in between. No music achieved at all, which makes me tetchy and sad, given yesterday’s hard work setting up the desk. I did, however, listen in to Deutschlandradio’s Philipp Blume profile – some lovely music there. Damn shame mein Deutsch ist so schlecht I couldn’t understand anything that was being said so I am none the wiser as to which pieces I was listening to. Heigh ho. New music FTW at any rate.

Tomorrow I’m planning on going to the Gaugin exhibition at the Tate Modern – been feeling like I’m gradually sinking into a dark grey hole over the last couple of days – I guess with Durham having been so fun and intellectually stimulating and hanging out with wonderful new friends, being at home on my own with a huge and depressing to-do list and feeling a little lost with one of the pieces I’m working on, is just making me sad. So I think I need to take myself out and see something marvellous to shake my brain up and show it it CAN be perky even without the stimulus of Durham and lovely friends. I have also, tonight, ordered a bunch of books from Amazon – first-reading stuff for the opera! I’ve not really ordered from Amazon Marketplace sellers till recently, and never books, so I’m a little nervous, but hey! one of them was only going to be available second-hand anyway and at £0.01 (plus postage), who’s complaining?!

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De-stressing

Rather poorly today. Seems that Djelibeybi has given me his germ and so yesterday and today I’ve been doing battle with inflamed sinuses, earache and general urkness.

So I slept most of this morning and had some very bizarre dreams – very sci-fi/fantasy really. Dramatic but not nasty. This afternoon I was booked in to go to a session with my physio on relaxation – I’m a very stressy person and she thought it might help. And it seemed a useful session. I certainly relaxed *during* the session and will give it a go again over the next few days too, so I hope that’s a good start.

Afterwards I found my mother drifting about the Pitshanger Lane shops, so I treated us to treats from the bakery (I had a raspberry muffin, she had an apricot tart thingy) and we finally found reasonably priced Pedro Ximenes sherry at the cheese and wine shop. Whereupon my brain froze up and I got millilitres mixed with centilitres and brought home 2 bottles when I only needed 175ml it turned out. Um. Not very bright sometimes. But at least the Christmas pudding is finally under way (I have to nip out and buy currants tomorrow morning) with the sultanas (blech!) and prunes busily soaking up sherry.

Haven’t really felt up to doing anything on the quintet today – too achey and miserable. Hoping tomorrow will be better.

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