EzzyB: Blog

As promised, here is one of the scenes from the defunct Pattern Opus. It requires a bit of setup. Claire was to be the only major new character in the book. She is a friend of Cheri's from school and an excellent classical pianist.

Claire's real problem is that she is an only child of parents who are overbearing about her music. They are the musical version of those annoying little-league parents.

Claire, in finding out that her friend's dad is not only a rockstar, but has a freaking Steinway in the basement has become a fixture in the house after school. Often coming to use the piano for practice.

This is the scene where Tony finally gets a bit tired of it, and tries to steer her in a different musical direction.

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Tony sighed heavily and dropped the textbook he was reading into his lap. The first few times it had been relaxing, studying in the basement while Claire played. Now it was starting to get on his nerves. He stared up at her. In another minute she felt his eyes on her and stopped.

"What is it Tony?"

"What is that Claire? What are you doing?"

"It's Chopin…"

"I know what the music is; it's the Etude from Opus 10. Why are you bothering with it?"

Claire rolled her eyes. It was easy to forget that Tony was classically trained, by his own sister. "I have a recital next month, this is my assigned piece."

"Oh, a recital," Tony said in a mocking tone. "That's why I feel like I've just stuck a piece of sheet music in my ear."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Tony took a minute to gather himself. He didn't want to be too harsh, but still. "Claire, we've only known each other for a few weeks, but I'm pretty sure you were done with recitals by the time you were twelve. Are you really still doing them?"

"Well, yeah. This is what my teacher assigned me."

Tony shook his head and stood up. He walked over to the piano, took the sheet music from in front of her, then placed it face down on top of the piano. "Now play it," he said.

"But…"

"What? You know it already right? How many times in your life have you played that piece?"

"But I want to make sure I get it exact, for the recital."

"And that is the problem," Tony said. "You're so concerned about exactness that you won't feel it."

"Oh pulleease Tony, 'play it with passion?' From you?"

"No! Play it with Claire. If you feel passionate about the piece, then, by all means, play it with passion. If you hate it, play it with hate. Assault it like you hate it if you want, but don't recite it. It's beneath you."

"Assault it?" Claire asked.

"Do you like the piece Claire?"

"No, I think it's a bunch of presumptuous bullshit actually. It's not much more than variations on scales."

"Then perform it that way. Don't blindly recite it. Reciting is what a God-damn tape recorder is for."

"Tony, how do you play a piece like you hate it?"

"I doesn't matter how I play a piece like I hate it. What matters is how you play a piece like you hate it."

Claire stared at Tony a minute, trying to comprehend what he was telling her to do. She began to play again, starting to play an interpretation of the piece, and not a very flattering one. She emphasized each note that appeared in her practice scales while subtly softening the others. It was pure mockery of a rather famous and revered piece of classical music. She looked a question up at Tony after a few bars with a mischievous smile on her face.

"I like it," he said grinning back.

"Tony! I can't play it like that. My parents would disown me!" Claire replied stopping her playing.

Tony sighed. "Well," he said. "I've been known to take in strays."

Claire rolled her eyes and shook her head at him.

"Well, at some point it needs to stop being your parents' music Claire. It needs to be your music or you'll never be happy with it. Yes, they provided the lessons and probably kicked you in the ass a lot when you were younger to make you stick with it and practice, but you're sixteen. You can recite Chopin the rest of your life if you want to spend all that time and effort just to do that, or you can perform Claire. It's up to you." Tony went back to his seat and picked up his textbook.

Claire began fiddling with a melody then added bass chords. Tony was only listening idly at first. The piece began soaring upwards then dropped melancholy for a few bars only to soar again. He'd never heard the piece before. "That, I like. What is it?"

"Claire," the teenager replied flippantly.

"Really? That's yours?"

"Yeah, it's something I've been working on to go with some lyrics I have. It's called 'A Sky to Reach'."

"Oh yeah? Sing it for me."

"Tony," Claire replied with exasperation. "I sing like Cheri plays the violin."

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Tony does, in fact know a vocalist or two that might help Claire out (in this case Anita). And that's where this was going (Anita wants to do her own album).

I'll post another in a day or two.

Ezzy

This evening I was listening to the radio. I usually listen to NPR in the car. On the program was an interview with a famous director. OK, I pay no attention to celebrities, I can't tell you what his name is, but he is best known for a highly regarded film called Train Spotting.

What he said hit me right where I live. Ten years after the film was released he decided to do a sequel. A screen play was written and they began preliminary work on the film. They couldn't make it work. He said that it took him a while, but he finally realized that the reason it didn't work was the characters. These were powerful characters, beloved by the fans of the original movie. The sequel that failed in production didn't work because he had no good reason to revisit them.

While I had removed Pattern Opus a few days ago it struck a chord. My stories are OK, you like them. I try to make them original and steer clear of the tropes most commonly seen on SOL. But my characters are what you truly love. You have a lot invested in Tony, Rebecca, Cheri, Tina, Anita, and their friends. I get it, I put a lot into them as well.

But we don't, as yet, have a good reason to revisit them. I told Mr. Spock some time ago that I felt I was forcing a story out of them. I was creating unnatural events surrounding them and forcing them out of character. Yes I wrote some very good scenes, but in the end I was linking those scenes together into something artificial to the characters.

So I have put it behind me. I regret it, but it needs to be done.

Am I still writing? Yes. I have many projects in many different phases. The latest is kind of a sci-fi, coming-of-age, post-apoc, Peter Pan kind of thing involving an aborted attempt to colonize a planet surrounding 61Vir.

Ambitious enough?

While I'm not sure of the character limit of SOL blog posts I will try to offer you, over the next weeks a bit of a booby prize. I'll post a few of the best scenes from the unfinished Chaos book for your perusal.

Ezzy

Chapter one of Pattern Opus is in the queue.

It's going to be a bit different folks, because it has to be. The entire premise of this story is to understand just who Tina Smith is, and what makes her tick. We all like Tina, she's fun to have around, but none of us understand her.

In some weird and wonderful ways we're going to try. Tina isn't quite like us, her brain, quite frankly functions a bit differently. The premise is a real condition called synesthesia. Synesthesia is a cross-wiring of the brain so to speak. Some people associate shapes with temperature, some taste bitter when they smell a rose. Tina sees sound. Sounds to her make colors and shapes. She has learned to do some extraordinary things with what she see. It's going to be an interesting ride.

I have a problem with codes in this story. Technically I should use Mf, as Tony is now eighteen. I'm not so sure I want to do that. A reader coming to this story based on that code is probably not going to find what he/she is looking for. For now, I'm just going to leave it with the teen code as I feel that is more accurate for the content we are dealing with.

This story is not finished. The last two stories I have posted multiple chapters in a week. This story will likely be multiple weeks between chapters. The posting schedule will depend on my pace of writing. I'll not guarantee more until I get a better handle on what that will be.

For now, clear your mind of preconceptions, going into the mind of a teenage musical prodigy is a decidedly different and sometimes jarring experience.

Ezzy

I have received several comments in the last week about my stories. It was unusual because we all know it's been quite some time since "State of Chaos" was finished.

I finally realized that the reason was that "Rebecca Danced" has slid into the "All Time Classic" list. So all of my stories are getting more downloads now.

I am somewhat humbled by that, but not surprised. While I have no illusions about my writing talents, my characters do seem to cast a wide net.

All of the comments, of course, ask about the mythical "Chaos Four". Will there be another story?

Yes, it exists. Six-and-a-half chapters of pure Tina goodness. Another thirty-thousands words are written, in my haphazard style, to complement it.

And I'm stuck.

And I'm going to release it anyway. I'm counting on you, my readers to help me with it.

I'm working on a Forward to explain it and that should be out by the end of this week.

You will not get three chapters a week. It will be a process and I will count on you all to keep me writing.

If you are good with that, stay tuned.

Really though, I am writing. I'm setting new records for slow, but hey...

Some have asked how it was going, so I actually posted the first chapter of the new story in the files section of my group.

Click the forum button up top there to go (if you aren't a member you will have to join Yahoo! groups).

Just don't ask for chapter 2. NOT going to happen, no one has seen that yet (I won't even show it to my editors).